Crown of Cinders (Imdalind Series Book 7) (34 page)

Chyline smiled as I stared at her, obviously understanding what I had seen. She wrapped her hand around her neck to illustrate the point I was having a hard time making.

“He didn’t know. He killed us all, assuming our lives would end as our entire lineage does. But we are tied to it, controlling our magic forever,” Rinax said simply, reiterating what was said before; only, now it made sense. “He probably doesn’t even realize that he himself is dead.”

“Then how do you know he is?”

“I know because I watched him die,” Rinax finally announced, the pride in his voice unsurprising, especially with what I knew of Sain. “When Edmund was torturing him to get the sight about you, Edmund slit his throat. I watched him bleed out until there was nothing left to spill from him. I watched Ovailia collapse in pain as the bond between them broke. I listened to his heart stop.”

“But … but …” I stuttered, desperate for some piece of information that would wipe away his confusion.

“He gasped for air minutes later,” Rinax went on, ignoring my stuttering interruption. “No blood in him, and he gasped for air. No life in him, and he stood up. No magic in him, and he still saw into the future. He is the first of his kind. We all are. You can’t kill us unless all of our magic is gone from the earth. The Drak magic that was still on the earth brought him back, blood pumping through his veins … just as our magic brought us all back … just as yours has.”

“But if he can’t die—no,” I corrected myself, “if he is already dead, how is anyone to destroy him? How am I to kill him?”

“You are the only one who can,” Chyline said as she came to sit beside me, her hand gentle as she patted my knee. “He can only die when all of the Drak magic is gone from the earth, and even then, it would take a powerful attack to end his life.”

“All the Draks …” I gasped, my heart tensing in pain as the last piece fell into place. “But Dramin is gone. I am all that is left.”

Rinax nodded his head, Chyline’s eyes grew darker. “You must die before Sain’s life can be truly ended.”

I didn’t even need Frain’s response to know what it meant.

“You must die,” Frain said. “To end all of this, you must die.”

“It is only
for
Ilyan that you will be able to accomplish all that you must,” the three of them began to recite together, their voices the same dull void that I thought was only for the Draks in sight. Yet, here it was, winding down my spine with a chill that made me shiver. “It is Ilyan’s place to protect you until the day that you pass from this world and into the next.”

“No,” I gasped, knowing what they were reciting and not wanting to hear any more.

“This child is power, power that is strong enough for
the world
,” they continued, causing my bones to twist further with the sound of their voices. “The one bred to change the world of magic. The one bred to die.”

Silence followed, a numbing low that wound around the cave until all I could hear was the distant rumble of a battle I had all but forgotten and the sound of water loud in my ears, calling for me.

I turned toward the large dark space, feeling the magic move over my skin, melting the last of the ice and warming me, heating me.

“No,” I sobbed, tears falling over my cheeks as I stared into the dark toward the water.

“I know you wish to save your love, Silnỳ. I could see your desperation to reach him earlier,” Frain whispered, running her hand over the hair on the crown of my head, pulling at the ribbon there. “You would give your life to save him.”

“I would.” The tears had begun to slow as a familiar magic began to swell inside of me, the smooth surface of the water calling to me.

“It is not by your side that you will accomplish your task, it is for him.” Frain whispered, her voice lost somewhere to the side of me. “It is for all of us.”

Frain was right. I had spent the last few months preparing to destroy Edmund and then Sain, preparing to save Ilyan. And now it was here, the possibility to do it all. I had just never assumed it would have come in this way, in a willing death ... in myself walking into Imdalind.

Yet it was here, and I couldn’t turn my back on it.

I stood slowly, my legs shaking underneath me, and the two women moved to support me on either side, weaving their arms through mine.

“You are very brave,” Frain whispered, pushing the dark tangles of my hair behind my ear with her free hand. “My grandson is very lucky to have you.”

My heart throbbed painfully, the reality sitting on me heavily, the weight compounding with each step I took toward the pool.

The water lapped against the bank, the waves increasing the closer I moved. The magic in the air rose as the water reacted to me.

To what I was.

It was something I still didn’t want to admit, but I knew I couldn’t run away from it. I couldn’t deny it. Not with the way my magic reacted to the pool, my sight flashing as a perfect overlay moved over my vision.

The older me stood in the middle of the water, the dark liquid swirling around her as her magic swelled. She moved like a dance, the peek into the past haunting.

And then, just like before, everything around her stopped. The water froze in the air as she turned toward me, her eyes dark with sight as she looked at me exactly as I looked at her.

“The end is here,” we said together. “The time for magic is over. The time for life has begun.”

Our voices faded, but she did not. She stayed heavy in my gaze, beckoning me into the water as my magic continued to throb and pull.

“Tell Ilyan I love him,” I said to no one in particular. “I’ll always love him.”

Without another word, I walked away from them, following Rinax’s light as I waded into the pool and toward the end.

With one step into the water, the world around me seemed to scream in response. The cave shook as dust fell around me, sprinkling over my head. However, I barely noticed, my focus forward, on the woman who was waiting for me.

The cave rumbled again as I stepped farther into the pool, the heat of the Black Water that filled the pool swirling around me. The formerly calm surface was suddenly alive as my magic reacted to it.

Swirls of color twirled like oil over the surface, moving from my skin as I waded in deeper, as if the color was my magic, leaching from me in its own quest to reach home, to be a part of what I was. No, of what I had created I realized with a start. My magic was reacting with a single flash of memory, with a life I had never lived.

Sight flashed bright in my eyes, an image of myself standing before the pool of Black Water I was now swimming in clear. I watched as I filled the depth with my own magic, creating it. The image left in a flash, the black cave rumbling as my consciousness returned to it, my legs pumping wildly as I attempted to tread water in the center of the pool.

The same woman from my sight, however, that haunted apparition of myself, stood still, as though the bottom wasn’t leagues away. She faced me, face hollow and sad as I reached her, her dark eyes meeting mine.

With one intense look, the cave rumbled again with so much force I flinched. Several rocks dislodged themselves from the heights of the cave, falling into the water around us without so much as a splash, the Black Water swallowing them willingly.

“This is not the end,” the other me said.

The rumble of the cave increased as she placed her hands on my shoulders, my magic reacting with a jolt of electricity.

I gasped from the power it filled me with, and I lost the rhythm of my tread, sinking beneath the surface before she pulled me back up.

“Listen to me, child,” she said as I attempted to cough out the water, real fear filling me now over what I was about to do. “This is not the end. This is no ones end.”

I opened my mouth to ask more, but the cave rumbled, and more rocks fell around us.

With the screams of the other three filling my ears, I was pushed under the surface, my open mouth filling with water as I was held there, just under the water.

Panic filled me as I began to fight against the strong hands of myself, fight for air my lungs were desperate for. I grabbed at her hands, reached for her face, frantic to claw at her. However, I couldn’t reach, and she didn’t move. She only stayed above me, the same sadness on her face as my fight slowly left, my arms falling beneath the surface.

I floated there, watching her as she held me, listening to the rumble of the water in my ears. It was just like before, when Wyn and Ilyan were healing my back. Except that this one wouldn’t end with healing. My mind barely registered the thunderous splashes that moved over me, the boulders falling around me.

I turned toward the waves, toward the massive boulders as they broke through the water. One after another, they came as everything slowly faded to black.

“
Y
ou created me
?” I laughed, finally pulling Sain’s focus from his best friend to me, his eyes widening slightly. “You created Thom? Manipulation and lies are not creation, Sain. You don’t really think you can destroy me, do you? That you are stronger than the fire magic?”

Pulling my hand away from Thom, I finally felt the sizzle that was raging over my skin, the heat moving into the air in a radiant pressure.

A devious grin spread across my lips as my anger thundered, my magic moving from my feet and into the stone, ready to swallow him in fire.

Sain’s own twisted smirk met mine as he jumped from his throne, that ridiculous cape flowing behind him as he stepped off the platform. He walked to meet us, his eyes unwavering from where we stood, looking from me to Thom, deciding who to attack first.

I was ready, ready to step into battle, when he suddenly vanished. My heart dropped at the reminder of what we were now trapped with.

With a
pop
, he reappeared steps away from where we stood, his smile wider as he walked toward us, only to vanish back into the nothing. With another
pop
, he reappeared near the rear of the hall, taking another step before vanishing again.

With each step, he moved through the hall, disappearing and reappearing with
pops
that echoed within the open space.

Tensing against Thom, I wrapped a shield around us, the danger we were trapped with horrifying. Sain moved so sporadically I had no chance to attack him, but that didn’t stop him from attacking us.

His eyes never left us with all the movement, his focus a hard glare that pushed fear into my chest, rattling the already thunderous beat of my heart. With one last
pop
, he stopped only feet away from where we stood with our arms around each other. He shimmered underneath the heat of my magic, the barrier that he held between us distorting him into a fuzzy mass of madness.

“Don’t you see, Wyn? I am stronger than the
most powerful
. I defeated the Silnỳ. You are nothing more than an irritating flare-up needing to be extinguished.” A wicked gleam sparked in his eyes, his own power vibrating through the air with enough force that I could feel it against my skin.

“Then I will make you burn.” My voice dripped with sugar. It swam across the heat in the air and slapped against Sain who only looked at me more hungrily than before.

I didn’t want to think about what he was hungry for.

“Why don’t we see who wins, then? Fire or hell?” he said, his hand sparking as he lifted it toward us, an attack building there.

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” Thom yelled from beside me, his motions quick as he slammed his fist into the barrier, the bright red shard of the blade I had pulled from Ryland clenched between his fingers.

The Souls Blade hit against the barrier with a terrible clatter that echoed inside the cave. The eruption, the blade, the terrified look that covered Sain’s face—it all converged with my magic in an explosion of color. It erupted from my hands, spraying wide as fire swirled through them in a kaleidoscope. The fiery prism collapsed the last of the barrier, running through it and right into Sain’s chest.

He gasped at the impact, stumbling back as he attempted to send a counterattack, his wide movements sending it into the ceiling. Rocks and dirt showered down on us from the blast, the cave shivering.

Thom took his chance, rushing toward him with the blade, ready to plunge the sharp point into his chest. I attacked Sain again, hoping to distract him from Thom’s movement, but it was in vain.

He looked at me with black eyes as he blocked my attack with one tiny flick of his fingers. His eyes darkened as his other hand swung up to block Thom, his own blade firmly in his fist.

With a
pop
of red light, the blades met in the air, showing us with a firework of color. The two men stood, struggling against each other in an attempt to make contact, their jaws taut from the effort.

“Nice try,” Sain sneered before he slammed his free hand toward Thom’s abdomen, his fingers flickering with light as he moved.

With a flick of my wrist, I flung a long chain of fire toward him, the weapon ready to wrap around him and pull him to the ground. It never made contact. It only soared past where Sain had been, my trail of fire uselessly fading into the dark.

Thom stumbled forward as the tension disappeared, my attack narrowly missing him.

Turning wide, I searched for Sain, magic moving into the stone of the floor in an attempt to find him. There was nothing there. Not even the smoke he had used to conceal himself before. Just a wide expanse of cold stone.

“Where is he?” Thom snapped as pushed himself to stand, pressing his back to mine while he began to search for the man.

“I don’t trust this,” I whispered, pressing against him as we scanned the room the way we had so any times before.

“It wouldn’t be the first time he ran away,” Thom whispered back, his feet dancing around mine as we rotated on the spot, our hands forward, at the ready.

“Well, aren’t you two cute?” Sain’s voice cut through the silence, hard and angry.

We jumped, turning toward the sound just as his attack made contact, a stream of violet light hitting me hard in the chest.

I flew through the air as the attack moved inside of me, numbing my arm as Sain’s well-placed magic crippled me. The fire in my blood devoured it as I soared away from Thom and Sain, bright strips of color surrounding them as their own battle began.

My fingers tingled as feeling came back, my magic rushing to the source, wrapping around me just in time to stop my impact with the high wall of the cave, holding me in the air like a rag doll as everything came back online.

I jerked, my muscles and nerves becoming responsive as the attack left. One surge plunged me forward, through the air and back to them in a strip of black. Magic shot from my hand and right into Sain, his barrier blocking it before it made contact.

“Great,” I complained as I landed behind Thom. “You’re hiding again. Fight like a man, you coward.”

“Not a coward and not a man,” Sain said, another attack from him easily blocked by Thom. “I am a king, and the last one there will be.”

“Fine!” I roared, letting the fire build. “If we don’t have kings after we end you, that’s fine with me.”

I shrugged my shoulders, the power exploding from me, and the blast hit in the chest. The force of it threw him into the air, sending him across the room and against the wall where the old man slid down the stone in a crumpled heap.

Chest heaving, I froze, staring at him, not foolish enough to think it had been that easy.

“Is that it?” Thom asked under his breath, the shard of red blade still clenched in his fist.

I held up my hand, watching Sain where he lay slumped against the wall. He was breathing, but his eyes weren’t open.

It wasn’t a guarantee of anything.

“No way,” I answered, my magic speeding into the ground toward him.

Thom took that as good enough and jumped into the air, a wide attack flung from his hand in a shower of sparks that soared toward the revolting rag doll.

As Thom attacked, so did I, my magic already spreading throughout the ground around him, shifting rocks, melting them. Stones bubbled and boiled as they began to swallow him. The slight movement jerked into him, his black eyes meeting mine, anger clear on his face.

“Thom! Watch out!” I screamed as, with a flick of Sain’s fingers, Thom was sent hurtling through the air, his course spun into a free fall.

Thom’s shout of fear erupted through the hall, his magic sparking as he tried to ignite it, to bring the wind back to him.

But there was only air and a stone floor below him.

“No!” I screamed, my magic rushing to catch him, moving across the air as it did through the ground.

Before I could reach him, Sain glanced at me with his dark eyes, and then his attack impacted against my chest, sending me stumbling back and right into the hard rock of Sain’s chest, the tiny
pop
of his stutter a ghost in my ears.

Sain’s arms wrapped around me, holding me tightly as I fought against him, desperate to reach Thom. But I couldn’t.

Sain’s laugh was loud in my ears as Thom hit the hard ground, the blade in his hand bouncing away from him with a clatter.

Sain’s laugh deepened as his grip on me tightened, pressing his fingers into me as the rough chill of a blade pressed against my neck, cutting into my skin.

The pressure made me stop fighting, a wet heat flowing down my skin.

“Well, that was easy,” Sain said, the heat of his breath a breeze past my hair. “I thought you two were going to give me a challenge.”

Mommy!

Her voice rippled across my mind with the touch of her soul against mine. I recoiled, shifting my weight as I continued to fight Sain’s hold, desperate to move away from the blade. But Sain’s arms shifted, his hand pressing against my bare hip as his magic flooded me.

The foreign power swam inside of me, thick and rancid. It stuck against my soul in a heavy weight that made it difficult to move. I squirmed against the pressure, but it grew, his smothering magic trapping me in place.

“No, no, no,” he soothed, the false comfort in his voice grating. “It’s not going to be that easy for you, not anymore. You get to stay with me for a while. I have some use for you. There are a few people I need you to kill.”

Fight him, Mommy!
Rosaline’s scream echoed in my head, flaring my magic into a white heat that burned against my skin.

I couldn’t control it. It was just a rage underneath me, desperate to fight. Desperate to be unleashed.

Tears burned my eyes as I looked at Thom, his body crumpled on the ground, as unmoving as I was. My heart caught as I stared, looking for blood, for some kind of injury. I saw nothing, only the bright blue of his eyes as he stared at me from behind the thick dreads that fell over his face, the light in them fading. The look in them scared.

“Wyn,” he breathed, his voice so weak it barely made it to me.

My heart tensed, the heat in my magic mounting as Rosaline’s voice came again, banging inside my head.

Mommy! You have to save us!

It was enough.

Enough for one last time.

I looked at Thom, praying he could understand the look in my eyes, that he could understand the warning, see the apology. I hoped he could understand the good-bye. I didn’t know if he would survive what I was about to do.

Mommy!
I pressed my eyes shut, focusing on her voice as it reacted with my magic, as the blade against my neck heated alongside it, the strength of her presence strong enough that I was sure I could feel her tiny hand wrap around mine.

“Perhaps I will have you start with him. Would you like to kill Thom, Wynifred? Would you like to bring me his head as Edmund commanded you to so long ago?” Sain’s voice was wet and uncomfortable in my ear as he pressed his lips against it.

A shiver rippled down my spine with the heat of my magic.

“No!” The word ripped from me as I turned my head, his magic slipping as mine ignited. “No, I won’t.”

His eyes widened when they met my glare, his jaw tightening as he began to breathe in dark inhales of pain, the agony clear on his face.

The dark scent of burning flesh flowed around us as his hand began to sizzle against my skin. The pain in his eyes turned into a scream when he couldn’t take it anymore and tried to rip his hand away, only to find it stuck.

“Did you really think you could win?” I asked, stepping toward him as I took control, my magic so strong now that I couldn’t stop the burn from swelling.

It was going to erupt exactly as I had thought.

For the first time since I had learned to control it, I was going to let it free.

Pity, I really liked this shirt.

“Do you want to face me as I am?”

Sain looked at me, true horror painting his face as I finally released him, leaving him to stumble away from me. My skin smoked as the fire took over.

Sain began to run as I caught fire, horror snaking into his eyes as he looked back at me, making it clear I had already started to change. The clothes were burned from my body, and my skin began to follow suit, dripping to the ground in large drops of molten gold. Each drop splattered over the floor, boiling into the rock as I rose into the air. I was nothing but fire and bone as the inferno consumed me.

Sain’s skin began to boil as the air in the room became so hot it devoured him … just as it was me.

I knew he would not survive it.

“Did you really think you would not burn?” My voice was a haunted echo as it flowed around the room.

The man before me screamed and clawed as the last of him was devoured, bursting into flames as the power in me consumed him. As my fire exploded.

With a scream, the last of the fire ripped from me, exploding in a blast that shook the room. It bellowed through me like thunder, dropping me down to the ground in a heap, the skin already knitting back over my bones.

The crackle of flames was loud, echoing over the charred stone as I lay in a heap, crying in pain as my body attempted to put itself back together.

I hated crying. I hated that I felt weak, especially with what I had just done. Powerful magic, a gift from the earth. That’s what they said, but all it did was destroy. There wasn’t strength in this.

Human bones were scattered around me, charred and brittle as they smoked, the scent of burned flesh overwhelming.

Tucking my head into my chest, I forced them from my sight. I didn’t want to think about who they might belong to. I didn’t want to think about what I had done, that Sain might have survived. That Thom did not. I didn’t want any of it.

Not yet.

“Not yet. Not ever!” I sobbed, the words exploding from me as I stared at the floor, skin rebuilding over my bones as I clawed at the ground.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped, the word broken by tears. “I’m so sorry.”

Huddled into a ball, I pinched my eyes shut, crying as the flames died around me, their crackle leaving as silence overtook the room. Only the sounds of my sobs were left.