Read Online Dawn of Ash by Rebecca Ethington - Free Book Online Page A

could stop me, and they were half-dead already.
    Everything was coming together.
    I sped through the alley, moving dangerously close to the high wall of the dead end, as her voice came again. The false sugar she was so good at coating it with grew deeper. Near the wall, on Na Ostrohu.
    The blood-splattered stone wall was inches from me before my magic surged again, pulling me from one side of the city to another. This time, it was to a large street nestled beside the wall, the red-tinged light so deep you could barely see through it.
    Running beside the modern homes and buildings felt out of place, the light tinting everything a deep crimson. I should have enjoyed the imagery of a beautiful scarlet world, but something was wrong. Something felt different. Something was here.
    I froze in place, the constant movement Edmund believed was required in order to move me through his cage breaking with a snap.
    Why did you stop? You are running out of time. The rare panic in Ovailia’s voice surprised me, but I didn’t let it show. I looked toward the rooftop, toward the building where a faint popping noise of another stutter had resonated from.
    Ilyan.
    And I was sure, knowing them, Joclyn would be with him.
    I had never been able to track her magic.
    It was too pure, too close to my own. Besides, she was learning to master it faster than I could figure out how to block her, even though she had no idea that was what was happening. To her, it seemed like everything was broken, not that everything was starting to work properly.
    That was probably thanks to my own interference, but we didn’t need to let her in on that little tidbit.
    “Hello, daughter,” I whispered, a grin spreading over my face.
    I knew Ovailia would be mad. Even if I tried to alert her to what had happened, she wouldn’t be able to hear. It didn’t matter. It was only a matter of time before they saw me, before they saw the man in the cloak in person.
    It was sooner than I had planned for Joclyn’s nightmares to come true, but it would have to do. I had been preparing for this for far too long to let the perfect opportunity go to waste.
    It would appear I had another game to play.
    You need to keep moving.
    I fought the irritation at her oh-so-obvious statement, hating how right she was.
    Nový židovský hřbitov. The old Jewish cemetery. Perfect.
    He would follow me there, but I knew it well enough that he would never catch me. See me, yes, but not reach me. Besides, what was more haunting than an apparition amongst tombstones?
    Moving through the stutter, I kept my eyes wide, ready to begin running the second I reappeared in the old graveyard. The lines of past and present moved through the darkness I traveled in, the colors bright against my vision before they left me staring at the red world again.
    Darting through the old, broken tombstones, my heart thundered in eager anticipation, shoulders tense, everything in me trained on the silence, waiting for the faint pop of magic to signal the chase had begun.
    As I ducked behind a large mausoleum, the same pop boomed in my ears. Then there was a low grunt of pressure as someone fell to the ground.
    Wonderful.
    They were here.
    Now I needed them to see me, to see the cloak, to have Joclyn feel my magic. It was something that should be concerning since she was my daughter and should know the signal of my magic. But she didn’t know me.
    Even with my magic fully charged and broadcasting, she would never know it was me. Even as her father, she would have no idea. She had never felt the full magic of the Drak before.
    No one had. I was the only one who possessed it, after all.
    But soon, everyone would feel it. Everyone would know what Draks were fully capable of.
    Darting from behind the large, cement building, I ran between two smaller tombstones, attempting to give them the best possible shot of me, trying not to laugh as the gasp of fear and surprise hit my ears. I was grateful for the large headstone in