Crown of Cinders (Imdalind Series Book 7) (37 page)

I dodged as Míra did, his pointless attack streaming through the smoke-filled air and right into the fire that was already engulfing the room. It impacted with an explosion that sent sparks over us, fire dripping from the air as it, too, began to burn.

“You should be dead!” Míra suddenly screamed as she rushed the man who looked like a giant compared to the child. “You deserve to die!”

Edmund moved to attack, but I was faster. His focus was so intent on Míra that he didn’t even see me send a single spark toward him.

His attack froze as his hand was covered in an ice that quickly spread up his arm.

“I killed my brother because of what you did to me!” she continued to scream, attack after attack ripping into the man in her anger. “He was all I had left! And now he’s gone. It was all for nothing!”

“You think I made you do that?” He laughed as he finally fought back, sending Míra away from him, her magic barely catching her before she slammed into the inflamed wall.

“I didn’t
make
you do anything. I don’t make anyone do anything. You
chose
to do it. You failed,” he said, throwing his head back as his twisted laugh cut through the damning smoke that danced around us.

“I didn’t fail!” she screamed, tears seeping from her eyes as I saw the first real emotion from the girl.

A child.

Just like I once was, forced to do things I never wanted to. Forced to destroy my own heart, just as she had. I wasn’t the only one who had lost with Jaromir’s demise, with Risha’s murder.

I saw myself in her as she screamed, as she cried, as she confronted him in a way I never thought I could.

“Don’t listen to him, Míra.” The anger that had fueled me redirected itself onto the despot. “It’s all lies. He may not force your hand, but you know as well as I do that you had no choice.”

Míra looked at me in shock, her eyes wide as tears continued to pour from them. A silent exchange moved between us before she turned back to the towering man, blood still pouring from his chest as he stepped back, an odd fear I had never seen in him clouding his eyes.

“Jaromir was my brother!”

“And you killed him!” Edmund shouted back at her, the fear leaving briefly as he stepped toward Míra, posturing to her.

Míra began to cower, her shoulders hunching as I started to push myself up, my bones cracking painfully as the newly healed breaks threatened to snap. I ignored them. A few broken bones could heal.

This, I needed to end.

“Just like I killed my mother, and Ovailia killed Rosaline. Just like Cail killed Talon, and Wyn killed the Drak,” I growled out the painful truth as I limped toward my father.

The bulk of a man I had always feared did not seem quite so frightening anymore.

“I should have killed you, instead,” Míra added as she came to stand beside me, the two of us facing the man who had destroyed our lives in such similar ways, who had destroyed our hopes of a future.

“You still can,” I said while, as one, we attacked with two powerful jolts of magic that slammed into my father’s chest, pushing him through the air and right into the burning rubble that surrounded us.

Wood and flame smothered him, his scream swallowed by the crackle of the blaze as ash from the impact plumed throughout the room, covering us in a layer of grey.

And then there was nothing.

No screams.

No haunted laugh echoing inside of my head.

No tortured voice.

Just the sound of the sizzling fire and the silent tears of the girl standing next to me.

“I didn’t want to kill him,” she sobbed out, her tiny body falling to the ground beside me. “I didn’t want to kill Risha. I didn’t want to kill any of you. But I had to. I had to kill that man with the dreads and go back to Edmund, tell him I succeeded. It would keep you all safe. It’s all I wanted. I wanted to keep him safe. I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t mean to. I wanted you to—”

“Stop,” I whispered as I fell down beside her, my bones twisting from the impact.

Sitting there beside her as she cried, I hovered my hand above her back as I fought the need to comfort her with the need to toss her around a bit.

In the end, I pushed my anger out through my magic, a stream of ice pouring from me as I quickly extinguished the fire that surrounded us, leaving us sitting in a cloud of smoke and soot that fell to the ground like snow.

“Can you forgive me?” Míra asked after the silence became too much.

Focused on the pile of rubble we had pushed Edmund into, I only vaguely noticed that no remains were there.

Normally, I would worry that he had somehow survived. But I knew better. He was gone. He had been for some time. I wasn’t even sure if it was him we had fought, anyway.

“I can try,” I finally said, my voice breaking as my heart attempted to cleave itself in two again. “He was my family, too, after all.”

Her sobs increased at that, her wide eyes staring at me with all the plea and want of a lost dog before she threw herself into my lap, her hands tight around my waist as I sat there, hands in the air, unsure of what to do.

“He was all I had,” she sobbed as she clung to me, pulling my shirt.

I finally lowered my arms, an odd emotion twisting within me as I pulled her against me. It wasn’t revenge. It was something better, something I hadn’t expected. This weird release of forgiveness. I didn’t think I could have expected it.

I couldn’t have expected the calm.

Expected my own tears to join hers.

Expected my magic to swell in a calmness I had never felt before.

For the first time, I was finally free.

I was finally safe.

I
could hear
his pathetic cries long before I found him. The vile sound echoed down the stone halls, roaring over the
boom
of explosions that had increased in number. The cavernous collection of tunnels shifted and groaned in a deep threat of collapse, the explosions slowly ripping them to shreds.

In my need to reach him, I ignored the way the cave was rattling, knowing I was dangerously short on time.

Ilyan’s pained sobs grew louder as my heels clicked loudly down the long, dark hallway, the sound of the river hidden by his cries. His pain tightened my heart, pulling it in fear of what I would find. From what I recalled of the image of him in the sight I had stolen from Sain, I expected to find him holding her broken body on his lap as he screamed.

I had only seen the sight a handful of times, the image force fed to me by Edmund after I had accidentally peeked into Sain’s mind. But right now, hearing my brother’s heartbreak bellow over the stone, it was all I could think about.

The long hall rattled with another explosion, this one so strong I was forced to stop in place, my hand against the wall in an attempt to combat the shift of stone. To keep myself standing, something that was painfully difficult with the sliver of heel I stood on.

This was going to be more difficult than I had expected. If I didn’t need him, I would probably just leave him down in the dungeon to rot.

Just like everyone else.

The shift of stone passed, and I lifted my eyes to the large fissures that were slowly forming overhead, the lightning ripping the stone apart.

There was still time to leave him.

I guessed Ryland was wrong. I wasn’t that heartless.

Fixing a tight scowl on my face, I broke into a run, sprinting into the small guards’ hall my brother sat in, his body folded just as I had seen in sight, his hands pulled forward in that same desperate prayer for mercy.

The image was just as I had seen in sight, the moment just as I had feared. Except, there was no limp body drawn out on his lap, no black hair spread over stone. No death.

Only my brother, covered in blood, his heart broken and shattered over the room.

Days before, I might have rejoiced at the image. I could still feel the vein of pleasure from seeing his pain, from seeing Sain’s success, but it was short-lived, causing an unfamiliar queasiness in my gut.

I felt sorry for him.

I hurt for him.

It was something I hadn’t felt since the child’s, Thom’s child, my tiny niece, soul had been ripped from her body. My chest tensed the same way, and I shuddered, gingerly stepping forward as the room quaked around us, the motion lost in the sound of his cries.

“Ilyan,” I said, trying to keep the acid out of my voice as I reached out for him. “Ilyan, I’m so sorry.”

Ilyan’s sobs lessened as he turned toward me, the tragic pain I had expected clear before it changed, warped into dire anger, an anger that was directed right at me.

“You,” he spat, his voice a dangerous growl as he glowered at me, bits of rock falling from the ceiling behind him and splashing into the frigid water of the river.

In one swift motion, he rose, a mist of icy water spraying over us both as he towered over me. He was covered in a deep vermillion, damp patches glistening over his body, the color frightening against the dark of the cave.

“Ilyan?” I asked, the pain of his loss smothered by the icy rock of my heart. I shivered under the look he had fixed me with, everything within me screaming at me to run.

In a million battles with him, I had never had the full force of his anger directed at me, never seen a glower with the same intensity that was now bearing down on me.

It was frightening.

My eyes widened in fear as the last drop of my sympathy left. My anger rose as Ilyan’s did, magic flaring at the enemy that had appeared before me.

Ilyan’s eyes glinted red as he stepped toward me, magic sparking from his fingers in bursts of yellow flame. His power dripped to the floor of the cave in a hot oil that boiled against the stone with a hiss, melting the rock into a pool of the brightest red.

The cave shook as Ilyan stepped toward me, stones falling around us as the magical charge in the room escalated, mine charging as his did. Even if I didn’t really want to fight him.

“Ilyan,” I said again, my voice shaking dangerously as I stepped away from him, right into the high stone wall that was shivering from the battle it could no longer contain. “I need you to come with me. I have a blade—”

“You helped him,” Ilyan hissed as he took another step toward me, his temper an out of control torrent as he attacked without warning.

“No!” I yelled while the liquid death that dripped from his skin spun through the air toward me. The power mutated into a needle point that, if I hadn’t been ready, would have shot right through my heart.

When I clapped my hands, my magic sped out, forcing the weapon off balance and away from me. The sharp point spun through the air. With a powerful blast, the long spear embedded itself a foot into the stone. The rock around it melted as it began to pour from the wall in a river of gold, the heat mutating the stone.

“Helped who?” I asked, my voice hard as my desperation fell away and my irritation came on full force. I tapped my heel against the stone as I popped my hip out, the movement usually enough to disguise the surge of magic before an attack.

My brother, however, saw right through it. His nostrils flared as he screamed, a blast of air knocking me backward, a wall of green following right behind.

I barely caught it, letting my magic absorb the wave, dispelling it into harmless energy that fell from the air. The counter spell twisted my gut uncomfortably, making it hard to stand and face him, my energy depleted.

Ilyan smiled at my exhaustion, his hysteria growing as I prepared for the attack that would come next, knowing it would.

“Who did I help?” I spat, not bothering to hide my irritation. He was really getting on my nerves.

“Take your pick!” he screamed as he attacked again, my counterattack scarcely able to deflect his assault, sending it into the high ceiling where it smashed against the stone, littering us with small stones from the already weakened structure.

I would have to be careful. He could crush me under the stone if I wasn’t careful, if it didn’t come down on its own.

“Our father, you mean?” I barked, feeling my own anger rise dangerously, everything boiling inside of me painfully. “Or are you speaking of Timothy? Or Sain?”

Ilyan glowered deeper, his eyes shaking with the madness that had already taken control of him.

“That’s who you should be fighting, Ilyan!” I screamed as the cave heaved around us once again. “That’s whose heart you should be plunging spikes into.”

Ilyan said nothing in reply beyond a growl. He only attacked with a ripple of magic that I sent aside with a wave of my hand, the powerful spell twisting away from me, through the dark and into the stone near the dungeons.

The cave around us heaved more. Sending his attacks into the cave was quickly turning dangerous. I was going to have to find another way to deal with his temper tantrum.

“Oh, I didn’t plan on stopping with you!” Ilyan roared, the words hitting me in the chest as he put the force of his magic behind them. The wall of energy shoved me back, slamming me into the uneven wall behind me. “You all have to pay.”

Rocks continued to fall from the ceiling as Ilyan attacked again, one assault after another raining down on me. Eruptions of light and fire filled the room, his magic mutating into sharp points and violent ends.

With a scream, I pushed myself from the wall, magic working fast to dodge him, sending his attacks away as I fired back. My useless assaults were only meant to immobilize him if any of them could reach him.

“Ilyan!” I pleaded as I realized what I had walked into, realized the true danger of what I was facing.

All signs of my loyal and compassionate brother were gone. All of his control was gone. He was gone, as gone as Joclyn was. His humanity had left as she had. There was only a monster left behind.

For the first time in my life, I truly feared my brother. I feared for my life.

“Ilyan, I need you to listen to me. I am trying to help you!” I yelled angrily, dodging another of his attacks as my face began to burn. Tears I hadn’t felt in centuries threatened to pour over, to stream down my face in a million lines of broken life.

The life I had created for me.

It truly was too late to fix anything.

“You are trying to help me?” he screamed, the vein in his neck popping out in warning as he sent one last attack toward me. This one was captured by a simple spell, the orbs of black spinning through the air between us in a dangerous globe, lightning and thunder spitting from its surface. “Help me how? Betraying me? Killing Thom? Ripping our sister Gielle’s head from her shoulders? Spying on all of us? Torturing Ryland? How! How did you help us!”

I cringed with each accusation, my shoulders pulling into my ears as the truth of each charge stabbed into me.

I glowered at him as the reason I was here, the reason I had sought his help, became a further memory. A memory that didn’t matter anymore.

“You helped Edmund, Ovailia. You bowed down to Sain. You are as much the enemy as they are! I don’t know why I tried to save you, why I tried to help you. You are no better than any of them. You are my biggest regret!”

It was then I attacked.

I didn’t hold back.

Magic shot from my fingers in sharp points of energy that ripped through the air as Ilyan began to laugh, the sound the same broken mania our father had made his own.

Ilyan blocked the attack easily, fixing me with a look of pure madness as he returned fire. The stream of color shifted into fire as I dodged it, my own attack zooming back toward him, only to intersect his magic with a blast that showered us in sparks of color and flame.

Ilyan laughed again and stuttered, dodging with the seamless movement of his magic, his body disappearing from before me and appearing right beside me. His laugh echoed through me the second before his attack hit. The powerful blast met with my hip and sent me right into the open stairwell to the dungeon.

Landing with a smack, I hit the stairs, falling down them in a tumble of hair and limbs. Unsuccessfully, I tried to stop myself, my magic frantically attempting to heal the quick muscle deterioration that Ilyan had hit me with.

Continually tumbling down the stairs, I clawed at the wall, my nails chipping until I finally came to a halt, one of my now scuffed and ripped heels continuing down.

Glaring at the loss, I turned, glowering toward the tiny spot of light above me that Ilyan still stood in, laughing.

“I would say I missed sparring with you,” I taunted up at him, carefully removing the other shoe and throwing it down toward the dungeon after its mate, “but it’s been hardly fair until now.”

“You can’t possibly think you are as powerful as me,” Ilyan goaded as he stepped into the stairwell, blocking the light as he moved down the staircase toward me, “because you’re not.”

“It has nothing to do with power, Ilyan,” I told him as I stood before him, meeting him eye to eye. “Now, now you fight as dirty as me.”

With a smile, I slammed my palm into his stomach, twisting my magic inside of him as I hit him with the same spell he had debilitated me with. But instead of blasting him away, I held him close, shoving my free hand against his shoulder as I sent him down the same staircase, tumbling end of over end, down the rough-hewn stairs.

I did not wait as he had. I followed him, soaring into the air and diving down the stairs, ready to attack him on the landing before he had a chance to recover.

A second before I reached him, however, he was gone, leaving only a
pop
and a puff of smoke behind.

“See?” I said with a laugh, looking past the dark prisons around me for some sign of him. “You can fight dirty.”

The cave roared around me, stone shifting dangerously as I walked toward the far cell that had once housed Talon, sure I had seen some shadow there. Instead, it was only a pile of bones and Ilyan’s malicious laugh.

All of the old metal cell doors closed at once, the loud snap of metal on metal echoing around the dark, hiding the blast of Ilyan’s assault.

But not well enough.

I side-stepped, my magic lifting me against the stone wall. The smell of burning hair and fabric was strong from what little of the attack that could reach.

“Nice try,” I provoked as I jumped down, my own assaults already speeding toward him, one after another to match his, my hands moving fast as I both attacked and deflected.

Again and again, I attacked, ignoring the dangerous sounds of collapse that the cave was warning me with. I could have sworn something around me had fallen, but I didn’t care. Only the fight mattered. Only ending it.

I sent another quick spurt of blasts, desperate to gain the upper hand. However, I merely found myself losing more ground.

I supposed there was a downfall to Ilyan’s change. Before now, my ruthlessness was the only thing that paired me equally with my brother. Now I had nothing. My magic was no match for him, for a man desperate for retaliation, for revenge. Especially with me standing in the way of that.

Grinding my teeth, I attacked in repetition, backing up toward the stairwell, only to find the long tunnel caved in.

The imminent collapse was beginning. This low in the caverns, we would be trapped. If I couldn’t run, I would have to fight.

Desperate man or not, I knew I could beat him.

The caves shifted underneath our feet as Ilyan attacked again, his barrage of magic coming as fast as mine, rushing around me while I battled him, my own attacks beginning to make contact.

I could do this.

I attacked again, my magic straining in exertion as he stuttered once again. The shield I placed around me the second he had disappeared was just enough to render his attack useless.

Turning toward him with a fling of my hair, I smiled, knowing just what I was going to do.