Crown of Cinders (Imdalind Series Book 7) (28 page)

The canvas closed behind us, trapping us in the chill of the tiny space. The smell of filth smacked against us, making my head spin. I tried to breathe past it, but it got worse. My magic flared as it pulled at me, stretched away from me, soaring beyond tents and farmland, leading me right to where I needed to be, as if it knew what I was looking for.

As if it wanted me to be there.

“He’s north of here … miles away … in the cave.” The words came out choppy and broken as my sight began to clear, a faded image planting itself over the vile tent we stood in. I saw a shadow of my father sitting on a blood-covered throne.

“He’s in Imdalind.” Wyn put the few clues together as the faded image of Sain vanished from my view. “I know where he is. Come on,” she said.

Wyn didn’t wait for an answer before she pulled me from the tent and into the air, soaring through the Vilỳs and toward the man she was so intent on killing.

I let her drag me, already looking for someone else; already looking for
her
magic.

For Ovailia.

I needed to find her.

I needed to destroy her before she had a chance to take Ilyan.

I needed to get there first.

P
ain spread over my back
, the ends of my nerves erupting in pricks of fire that encompassed my muscles, pressing against me until I screamed. Warm fluid poured over my skin.

My scream was lost in the sound of the crowd, lost in their jeers. It echoed in my ears as I fell to the ground, my magic rushing inside of me as it tried to find out what had happened, as it tried to heal me.

Except, there was nothing to heal. Nothing but the heat of my magic as my shield protected me. Nothing but the bruise from the knife that the man behind me had attempted to stab me with.

They were superficial wounds that would heal in seconds. The man behind me, however, would not survive.

It took the crowd a second too long to realize the blood that poured down my back was not mine. That the knife of assassination was firmly planted in the chest of my assailant and not inside of me.

My pain-filled cry turned into a laugh as I whirled toward my attacker, shocked to see one of the poor boys from the pits behind me, his eyes wide. The child stared in horror at the hole in his chest. The gaping space was still raw and bleeding from where the knife had moved straight through. His eyes trembled as he looked from his hand to his chest and the blade that had embedded itself there.

He gasped, his breathing strained as his lungs began to collapse. Blood drizzled from his slack jaw before he fell to the ground, face first in the mud that was already soaked with his blood.

The cheers of the crowd silenced with his fall. The hollow thud of his collapse was the only sound.

The silence stretched before I laughed, one loud guffaw that drenched the stadium before they began to scream. Many of the weaker ones rushed to the exits, while many more jumped into the pits, anger fueling their rash and possibly foolish decision.

They circled around me, Chosen and Trpaslík alike, magic sparking off their skin in electric shocks that heated the cool air of winter that had found its way in.

Warning seen.

Challenge accepted.

The Chosen who surrounded me far outnumbered the Trpaslík, the dirty servants following orders as they had been trained. Good. I needed that obedience. This was going to be bloody.

The thought made my grin widen.

“Did you really think that would work, Bronislav?” I asked, finally turning toward the man in question.

Joy swept over me at the sight of the horror that encompassed his features. The usually strong Trpaslík wilted before me.

“One stab wound and you would be rid of me. After all you have tried, after all of your secret meetings and magical
tests
you have given me … That was your end game? To stab me?” The final words gushed out with a laugh.

Turning from him to look at all the people who had jumped into the pits, the angry horde that was slowly moving closer, I made eye contact with each of them. I laughed at their anger as though they were in on the joke.

“Does it matter?” Bronislav finally answered, his voice shaking. I knew he was trying to put on a show for the people who had led him into this disaster. “You are still outnumbered. Even with all the power in the world, you cannot win against all of us. Ovailia has left you. Even your bodyguard is cowering in the corner. There is no escape, Sain, so you might as well surrender.” He ended that with a smile.

Georg stood beside him with the same jeer on his face as many of the others in the stands. Their confidence in their win was disgusting.

“You think I am alone?” I asked, my magic prickling up my spine in irritation of Ovailia’s betrayal, tensing my muscles in an anger I wouldn’t be able to restrain much longer.

In a rush, it left me, spreading over them all like a silent disease, an infection that they could not escape. One by one, my magic found the Chosen. It wrapped around them, leeching into them. It connected with them.
I
connected with them.

Completely unknown to them, I had cast out my strings. I had set my trap. Now all I had to do was reel them in.

“You think I would go into this day, knowing what you had planned if it was as easy as ‘
we have you outnumbered
’?” I clicked my tongue, the sound a stab as the pride on their faces began to fade. “I already have you surrounded.”

Fear crept into them as they looked from door to door in expectation of some hidden army.

A woman near me jumped, ready for some unseen foe to barge through when a moan was issued from behind the wooden door. The fear in her was comical. They really did have tiny, unoriginal minds.

“Oh!” I said, pulling them along by the strings I had already wrapped around them. “Not there. No, no, they aren’t there.” My leer grew, a grin that made one of the Chosen closest to me jerk, the man ready to run.

Perfect.

He would do nicely.

I looked right at him as my magic, the deep magic that was already wound into him, connected with his. It connected with the Drak magic that each of the Chosen had. The Dark magic that I could so easily control.

His eyes widened as he felt it, as he felt his arms go numb and his body disconnect from his mind, his body connect to me.

“Here they are,” I said to the frightened chosen as he began to move forward step by step, unable to stop himself. Of course, I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was trying to fight it.

He couldn’t fight it.

He continued forward until he stood beside me, looking at Bronislav and George. The panic of the two Trpaslíks over what they were witnessing was clear.

“Kill them,” I said to the man beside me.

“No,” the poor man gasped, his hand beginning to rise, his magic rolling through him, his fingers sparking.

I laughed as the man began to plead for surrender, began to cry for mercy. His desperation turned into panic as Bronislav and Georg stood, convinced it was a joke.

“Kill them now!”

The Chosen man’s magic erupted at my command, ripping from his hand without consent as he yelled for a relief that never came.

The attack spanned away from the man, hitting Bronislav in the chest. Another attack followed the first, smacking against Georg’s back after he finally had the good sense to turn tail and run just like the coward he was.

Laughing, I stepped toward the two traitors, the two men who were now spread out over the dirt, blood seeping from their wounds. The blood flowered over the dirt under them as Bronislav pushed himself up, ready to attack, ready to face me. He was barely able to hold his own weight before he collapsed again, one last breath erupting from the stupid man in a puff of dirt.

It was a beautiful sight. It beat against my heart and supercharged my magic as I pushed it outward, continuing to take control of each of the Chosen in the stands. I wrapped my magic around theirs without their knowledge.

After what they had seen, I was positive they knew. How could they not? A few had even tried to escape, but too late. They were already under my control. Their cries of fear were lost in the growing yells now filling the stadium.

“You are fools,” I hissed. “No one can defeat me. No one.”

It was then that the stadium erupted. A million eruptions exploded around me. Everything filled with smoke and color as attacks flew toward me, hitting against my barrier with a resounding thud before I sent them back toward their owners like I had the knife.

Some dodged, many countered, and a few watched in horror as their supposed death knells smacked against them, sending them into whatever fate death had for them. All the while, the Chosen stood, trapped underneath my magic, trapped underneath my control. Terror was painted clear on their faces, their eyes watching me in fear of the hell I had dragged them into.

A hell I was ready to deliver.

“Attack them!” I yelled, and the Chosen turned toward the Trpaslíks, cries and pleas for mercy and death ringing clearly. “Kill them all!”

The stadium erupted in color, fire, and smoke as the Chosen attacked the Trpaslíks. The battle ripped them apart in an eruption of color and smoke. My magic controlled the power of the Chosen as they fought, leaving them as they died.

A Trpaslík jumped from the top of the stadium with a scream that cut through the air, sending my heart into a panic as he landed right before me, a giant uncoiling with a grimace wicked enough to match mine. His grew taller at the thought of his supposed success, only to fade as the attack hit him in the back. The Chosen I controlled had attempted to warn him of his actions before his hand was forced.

The large bear of a man fell to the ground, dust wafting into the air around him and trapping us in a fog of dirt and smoke. It cleared in a rush of icy wind, revealing the Chosen before me.

A young boy had tears running down his cheeks, his hand still outstretched from the attack he did not want to deliver, his eyes wide as he stared at the bulk of a man he had not wanted to kill.

“Tsk, tsk,” I said, wagging my finger before me like a primary school teacher. “Trying to warn him. What a fool you must think me.” The boy flinched as I stepped over the corpse, dodging another well-placed attack in the process. His eyes widened further. “I suppose you will have to guard me, then. You will have to protect me.”

“No,” he gasped, more tears streaming down his cheeks as I prodded him forward. My magic guided him step by step as I brought him up to stand by my side.

“Oh, yes,” I sneered, throwing my arm around him, feeling the boy shake beneath me. “You’ll love this because I don’t even need a shield anymore, not if I have you.”

The battle that surrounded us became a graveyard as I twisted him before me. The powerful shield dropped from me as I held the boy in place while his hand fluttered underneath my palm like a misfiring engine.

He shrieked in fear as another attack streamed toward me, the child directly in the line of fire. The magic hit him right in the chest.

“Whoops,” I said, trying to hide the laugh from my voice unsuccessfully. “I suppose I forgot to let you fight back. We’ll do better next time, won’t we?”

The boy’s sobs rang clearly as I forced him back up, moving him into place as I pulled several other Chosen along with him. Five little puppets were all pulled into a circle around me.

“Stay still and quiet, and I might let you live,” I said to them all, my voice loud as I competed with the noise of battle. “You are lucky enough to guard me,” I said with a smile, and each of them looked back at me with varying levels of fear and disgust. The looks fueled my magic more.

They were a sorry lot, and their magic was woefully subpar, but they would do, if only as a physical shield. They were disposable and better than that dratted Damek would have been, if he would live through this.

If he did I would make sure he would find death soon.

He and Ovailia. Just the thought of their blood running over my hands ignited my magic. The power rumbled over the air in a flash of white that fell on those closest to me, their bodies flung away from the force of the blast.

“Whoops.” I chortled, enjoying the show as a few stumbled back to their feet, many of them unable to.

“You deserve to die,” a tall Chosen woman spat, her words more comical than venom.

“Do I?” I asked, coming up behind her and running my hand over the small of her back. “Or do you deserve to die for me?”

Her eyes widened for a second before I threw her away from me, right into the line of another attack coming my way. I heard her scream and saw wetness spread over her pants in fear. The smell of urine hit me as I blocked the attack. My power evaporated the magic a second before it would have hit. The attack was so close her ripped and torn sweatshirt was singed from the power, black char covering her belly. A shadow of pain ran over her, the narrow miss making her heave as she stared in panic.

“We’ll have to do better next time, won’t we?” I sneered, forcing her and the others to move closer to me, shielding me as I pulled up the recall of my sight, only to freeze in place as a small, wrinkled body fell from the sky, landing at my feet in what looked like little more than a paper bag. But I knew at once what it was and what it meant.

The calm of sight vanished, leaving my heart twisting and pulling against me, desperate to get out. Desperate to run.

It couldn’t be.

Kicking it with my toe, the poisoned Vilỳ flopped over. His eyes were dead as he stared at the sky that he had come from. The sky, I realized with one look, was full of many more of his kind.

Thousands of them.

A swarm was right over our heads.

A swarm was descending on us.

And it could have only come from one place: Prague.

“No,” I gasped, watching the Vilỳs join the fray, falling on the Trpaslíks and the Chosen, ripping flesh from bone before anyone had a chance to stop them.

A new assailant to the battle, one that no one could stop.

This couldn’t be. I hadn’t seen this. I hadn’t seen any of this. I was never wrong!

Anger blurred my vision as the coup fell apart. The screams of battle deteriorated into fear as more and more of the wicked things descended on us and helicopters began to soar overhead.

“This can’t be.”

My anger was so deep I could barely move. I could barely control the Chosen. I just stared at the sky, my magic ready to explode out of me.

“This can’t be!”

But it was. The barrier was down.

Prague was free.

And that meant Joclyn was on her way to me. She was on her way to kill me. And here, among my enemies, she would win.

I needed to get out of here. I needed to use my sight and find out what she had changed. What Ovailia had done. What Joclyn had done. They had done something!

“I am never wrong!”

Joclyn must have changed something. Blocking her from my sights had blocked the real future. It had blocked me from what was true.

I had only seen the future without her in it.

She had done something to change it, something I couldn’t see. I would destroy her. She had ruined this, and she would pay for her mistake.

Releasing the Chosen from my magic, I vanished from the arena with a tiny pop. The sound was unheard over the battle as they fought the Vilỳs, dying under their claws.