Crown of Cinders (Imdalind Series Book 7) (8 page)

“Sho shceš adych uděbal?” Jaromir responded, his voice low and under his breath, so low I almost didn’t hear him.

I didn’t understand what they were saying in the first place. The secret language of twins, something I had heard about on several occasions, but had not witnessed until a few weeks ago when Míra had come into my life.

It was endlessly irritating, but we had chosen to put up with it for now. We needed her to trust us. She only trusted Jaromir right now, and she needed that. Taking away their secrets was simply going to strengthen her distrust of us.

“Meneshte ho botkni che mě, Jaromir!” Míra screamed, the reaction exactly opposite from what I had been hoping for.

My muscles tensed in my neck, my heart rate increasing at the sudden outburst.

“Míra,” I scolded, knowing I was sounding a little too much like a TV dad, “you don’t need to yell …”

The words left my mind with one stern look from the girl in question, sparks zapping around her body in a very clear warning. My magic surged in preparation for restraint, not wanting today to end this way, not after all the progress we had made.

“You need to calm down, Míra,” Risha interrupted, towering over her as she stood, not letting the child’s magic deter her. “I don’t want to have to take you back to the hall yet.”

Míra flinched, Risha’s choice of words affecting her.

The sparks of warning had stopped, but the hatred and anger didn’t leave her eyes, her rigid posture straightening more.

“Zíš, sho to je, víte, sho pochředuji. Neshbosydňují.” Míra’s eyes were dead as she spoke directly to Jaromir, the anger lessening into a desperate plea, one that he didn’t miss.

As though he had been slapped, Jaromir straightened, some hushed exchange breaking between them before he turned back to me, his eyes as hard as hers now.

“Ale meschi, adi ván donohl.” His voice was as numb as the expression on his face, the mysterious fight they were engaged in coming to a head.

“Dubeche nuchet, dokub schete, ady všismi žít.” Míra looked at us as she spoke, her eyes still as hard.

We understood nothing, yet her warning was clear.

“I know there is some good in you, Míra,” Jaromir whispered, his focus on his hands before lifting them to hers, his eyes filling with tears. “I know you don’t have to do that. I know you will find a way.”

I jerked as much as Míra did, her eyes shocked before reverting back to anger. Glancing between Risha and me, she feared what we had heard, what we had understood, which wasn’t much.

He had spoken in clean Czech, yet it was still no more than gibberish with nothing to connect it to.

“I know there is good in you, too, Míra,” Risha added, leaning toward the kids and stretching her hand toward the girl in what she probably thought was a sign of friendship.

However, Míra stared at it, her lips sneering in disgust before she stepped behind her brother again, using him as some kind of barricade.

“Then you don’t know me,” she hissed, the bright eyes that should have been full of so much joy and youthfulness cold and dead.

“I know you,” I interrupted, my heart building into a painful staccato as I made the connection, as I truly understood what she was saying. Even the monster in my mind understood. The deep rumble of his laughter rolled within my subconscious, lifting my heart rate further. “I know where you came from. And I know what my father would ask of you. I know you and the hell you are stuck in better than you think.”

“You don’t have a clue. You could never know what he would want of me. What I have to do,” she snapped, the preteen angst ripping amidst the air between us.

So much for the afterschool special.

“I do because my father made me kill my mother.”

Míra stiffened, Jaromir following suit as their eyes narrowed. Míra’s motions were slow as she turned to face me, nose wrinkled in a look that was haunting, something that turned the fear and familiarity I had sensed before up to an eleven.

“He asked me to kill someone,” I continued without waiting for a response, “and I did, not knowing there was someone else I could go to. Not knowing there was a good side.”

The stress and tension in our little group were higher than they had ever been. None more so than from Risha, whom I was certain was crying.

I ignored it, not really liking it when people cried for me.

“There isn’t a good side, Ryland,” Míra whispered, the hatred dripping from her face and leaving me staring at the true little girl for the first time. “Not with this. Everyone gets hurt. Everyone is going to die. I can’t stop it. No matter what, it happens.”

“That can’t be true—” Risha began, her words cut off with one sharp look from the little girl before us.

“It is, Risha. Everyone is going to die.”

My heart stopped beating. The world spun around me as what she said sunk in, as the truth behind it sunk in.

Jaromir looked between us, his nose wrinkled as he clenched his jaw, a different kind of fear taking over him. I didn’t think words more haunting had ever been spoken by a child, ever spoken by a little girl with so much sadness, fear, and hatred in her eyes.

Like a geometric video game, her words began to fit together. Ts and Ls and sticks all fell into place. I could hear the tiny game music in my head, the steady tempo increasing as the beat of my heart did. The sounds moved at a rapid pace in a countdown that I already knew I couldn’t outrun.

“My father trained you.” The statement was molasses in my mouth, but Míra didn’t look away. “He trained me, too. But that doesn’t mean he owns us.”

But I do.

I own your mind.

I own your will.

As I do the girl’s.

And she’s right; she’s going to kill you all.

Watch and see.

You deserve it.

I let the hatred in my demons fuel me as I stared at Míra.

Jaromir looked between us in panic, the fear on his face deepening due to what I had so openly confessed.

Risha gripped my hand as she leaned closer, her actions making it clear she knew what I was doing. It was making me uncomfortable.

I knew she was trying to get me to stop, but I couldn’t. I was like a freight train hurtling toward the cliff, the destination on the other side of the cavern clear.

“He doesn’t own us,” I repeated, my focus on the girl in question. “We don’t have to give him that power.”

Her hatred deepened, but this time, it was toward me.

“It doesn’t work that way, Ryland. You don’t know what you are saying.”

“I do, Míra. I—”

“No, you don’t!” she exploded, her rage rippling over her as her fists hit against her thighs. “You don’t know!”

“Wíš sho; řechmi nu,” Jaromir tried to calm her, his voice weak.

Míra glared at him, the look increasing the just-been-punched look the boy had.

“Mebleť che po tosho! None of you know what you are talking about!” She turned toward us, the anger clear as she clenched her jaw before, with the slightest of pops, she vanished into thin air, pulling herself into a stutter as she left our side.

The already tense bands of muscle in my shoulders and arms tightened, my heart seemingly forgetting how to beat as I stared into the space she had been.

A stutter.

A darn near perfect one from what I could tell, performed by a child. It shouldn’t have been possible, not even with the Štít inside of her. I had watched Cail for years. Even he hadn’t been able to stutter. He hadn’t been able to do anything without the permission of Edmund.

He had been his slave.

As this girl should be if the Štít was Edmund’s as Jos had seen.

“Míra!” Jaromir screamed, freaking out as he turned around, looking for his sister. “What did you do to her?” He rounded on us, anger burrowing through him so fast I was worried he would turn on us, too.

“We didn’t do anything,” Risha gasped, clenching my shoulder as she stood up, her eyes scanning the hills of rubble in a desperate need to find her. “She shouldn’t have done that.”

“She shouldn’t be able to,” I pointed out, forgetting Jaromir’s panic as I, too, stood up, looking over the piles of rubble for some sign of her.

What had we done? We needed to find her before she did something.

As I stood, another small pop sounded, the girl reappearing in the same spot she had left moments before.

“It’s a stutter,” she said, proud of herself. “I bet you can’t do that.”

I couldn’t, but that wasn’t the reason I was staring at her with such fear. It wasn’t the reason my heart had turned into a thunder of noise and my muscles had tensed into cords of iron. It wasn’t the reason Risha’s fingers were sparking in preparation for the battle she was convinced was seconds away.

“How did you do that?” I asked, my voice dead against the panic.

“It’s a stutter, dummy,” she repeated, irritated I hadn’t followed the obviousness of her statement. “I knew you couldn’t do it.”

“I can’t, but how can you …?”

She opened her mouth to answer then stopped, the malicious intent on her face fading away.

“Did Edmund let you have full control?” I asked.

“Once I got here, everything changed,” she hissed, that same powerful pride taking over her again. “He knows I’m here. He knows what I am supposed to do. I can’t stop it. I’m not a good person, Ryland. I can never be.”

“No,” Risha gasped, putting it all together a second before I did.

Regardless that what she was saying was horrifying, the mysterious job one that I knew at once we needed to stop, it was what she had done that was the real danger.

It was what it meant that made her dangerous.

“The hollow Štít … It’s not hollow because he took it away. It’s hollow because there is nothing on the other side.” I spoke to myself, the same realization clear on Risha’s face as her chest heaved in panic.

“What are you talking about?” Míra asked from beside us, obviously confused. “My Štít isn’t hollow. It’s cursed.”

I could see how she would think that, but it didn’t fit.

We ignored her, our eyes wide as things fell into place.

“He would have to be …”

Dead.

I put the word into place in silence, the reality not one Míra should know. Not yet. Not with whatever certain death and expectation she was facing. She was such a loose wire that I didn’t want to give her hope, only to have her erupt. At the same time, I didn’t want to leave her in the dark for long.

If this were true, it could be the difference between her loyalties, from pulling her away from whatever job she had to do.

“Get them back to the hall. Don’t take your eyes off them. I need to talk to Ilyan. I’ll be back,” I said to Risha, not waiting for her nod of understanding before I took off into the air, my magic lifting me higher as I soared away from them and toward the main courtyard.

The whining and bickering hordes Ilyan had been trapped in for days would have to wait. I needed to find him.

“
N
ever do that again
!” Wyn’s voice was a snap in my ear, accentuated by the not so playful swap against my backside as she fell to her knees, gasping and heaving in a desperate attempt to catch air.

“Ryland said the same thing two weeks ago.” I laughed, magic pulling me toward Ilyan, desperate to be near him now that we were back in the cathedral.

“I can see why,” Wyn gasped. “That was awful. No wonder no one other than you and Ilyan has even tried that. I mean, do you have a death wish?”

“No death wish, just not a lot of time.”

As I pulled her back to her feet, she gasped, her eyes wide in obvious panic that I was about to do it again.

“Take a chill, Wyn. I’m not going to do it again. And it was a stutter, not a colonoscopy.”

“A what? Is that some kind of party mortals have? Because it sounds awful.”

“Never mind.” This time, I did roll my eyes as I dragged her behind me. We weaved past the illuminated tents that littered the courtyard. The canvas domes glowed in the darkness in glittering jewel tones of red, blue, yellow and green.

It was magical if you could ignore the dark shapes that wandered amongst them, darting around the camp in shadows, whispering in groups, and cowering in the dark like some demon was ready to strike.

“This way.” Gripping Wyn’s gloved hand, I pulled her after me, letting the strong tug of Ilyan’s magic guide me. “He’s this way.”

“Lead the way, Your Majesty,” Wyn taunted. “In a nice, gentle walk if you please.”

Ignoring her, I pulled her behind me, darting around a large, red dome. The familiar red light emanated from it until it intersected with the blue tent next door, casting ribbons of blue and red and purple around us like a rainbow.

The beauty was lost, however, as I took one more step and the whispers hit against my chest like the sharp point of a nail, the lingering shadows staring at me unabashedly, hands held over mouths as they hissed and speculated on realities they could never understand. Some didn’t even bother to hide their questions or comments. They let them run freely, loudly, and aggressively. The words bounced off the canvas and alerted everyone to my very presence. Anyone who had already retired to their tents became attentive, emerging from the canvas at the prospect of drama.

“I don’t know why he chose her.”

“She probably broke the original prophecy, too. Broke them all. Now we don’t know …”

“You saw all that fire … and that girl … so much blood.”

“She probably wipes the blood on her face and turns into a dragon. Eats goats raw,” Wyn interjected from beside me, adding her own flavor to the growing horde. Her loud scoff was not missed by any of them.

An old woman’s eyes grew wide before she darted back into her tent, hisses seeping through the canvas after her.

“They are going to believe that, you know,” I snapped under my breath.

Wyn smiled more widely, proud of herself. “That’s the point—to make them so ridiculous they won’t know what to believe.”

I wasn’t convinced that was actually helping, but whatever. Wyn was my greatest ally, and I was glad to have her.

“You and I know the truth, and that’s all that matters.”

“That is blood on her hands! I wonder if she killed someone else.”

I wiped them against my pants, my heart dropping to my knees as the whispers increased, alerting me to what I had done.

Wyn, however, laughed and said loudly, “Don’t let them see the goat blood, Jos. I don’t want to share my dinner with anyone.”

That time, I laughed, the sound an opposition to the fear that leeched around us, wiping it all away and leaving everyone looking confused.

“Their fears are unfounded,” Wyn said with a slight laugh from where she stood beside me like a bodyguard, her oppressive frame enough to scare off anyone who might try something. “Someday, they will see the truth.”

If I were going to have a bodyguard, I would choose Wyn, even with her crazy reputation. She would sooner kill someone than let them tear me down. I wasn’t always positive that was a good thing.

“And what truth is that?” Darting between a green and gray tent, I came face to face with a bright-eyed child who promptly screamed and ducked inside. “That I eat children for breakfast? Because that one seems to have gotten out.”

“No,” Wyn groaned as she pulled me away from the tent and toward the tall blond man who was looking at me as warily and worriedly as he always did as of late. If it weren’t for the intense love in his eyes, I would say he was half-dead already. “That Sain is a bloodsucking leech who was crossed with a dinosaur. Leechasaurus rex.” She waved her arms around like a gimpy Tyrannosaur, her tongue darting out in some weird hissing-slurping concoction.

“Do we need to get Wyn admitted somewhere?” Ilyan asked in deeply accented English as he walked toward us before wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me close. “She seems to have pulled the last strand of sanity away.”

“If I’ve lost sanity, it’s thanks to you two,” Wyn teased, the twisted dinosaur impersonation fading away. “Wars and imprisonment and death and all that crap. I think, after all this is said and done, I deserve a vacation.”

“Only if I can go with you,” I provided, my mind focused on the imagery Ilyan was obsessed with: the white sandy beaches of our Tȍuha.

I relaxed, the still whispering crowds surrounding us not seeming to matter so much anymore. My magic flared at the thought of the vision, binding strongly with Ilyan’s as it tried to pull us into the sub-consciousness together. It was a pleasant feeling, but one I couldn’t really act on right now, especially right here in the middle of a crowd.

“It’s the south of France,” Ilyan corrected my mistake aloud, making it clear he was as tuned into me as I was to him. “I like this idea, Wynifred. After this war is done, we can all go to the south of France.”

“Deal.” Wyn stuck her hand out like some kind of property broker. Ilyan took it without hesitation, the stress on his brow fading away. “And thanks for the mind reading interpretation. I hate feeling lost in you guys’ half-muted telephone call.”

“Anything to help,” Ilyan said in quick Czech, his smile fading away as yet another disagreement broke out a few tents away from where we stood.

Angry voices rose above the dark, shattering the calm silence of the night like a bass drum.

I jumped at the sound, looking toward them and knowing we should intervene.

This one is on them,
Ilyan growled inside my mind, pulling me against him as he led us all away from the fight, away from the tents and into the dark shadows that surrounded the courtyard. “We have worse things to address than juvenile issues.”

“Seriously, that may be the smartest thing you have said all week,” Wyn whispered in the dark, her own irritation with the constant bickering clear. “It’s so obvious you guys have never had kids. You are like helicopter parents with an army grade whirligig, always zooming in, ready to fix everything.”

“Whirligig?” I asked, slack-jawed.

She ignored me.

“Let them fight; let them bicker; let them repeat whatever lies they have. When the band breaks up, it won’t matter, anyway. Only one thing matters. And unfortunately, he doesn’t bring good news.”

“Sain.” His name was a snarl, my magic flaring in irritation as it attempted to pull me into a sight. I let it flare, willing to let it take me, but nothing happened, nothing more than the memory of the man stuck in Wyn’s cage and the words he had said before he had taken his own life.

“Why do I have a feeling this is not the normal tirade?” Ilyan asked as he turned to me, his accent deepening with irritation. “What happened with those two men you saw?” He looked at me quizzically, one eyebrow disappearing into the flyaway strands of blond hair that had broken free from the messy braid I had given him.

“It’s not,” I groaned, my heart booming. “I am not sure Edmund is in control anymore.”

That got his attention. His magic pushed into me with such force I gasped, the scene replaying itself inside my mind as Ilyan watched everything unfold.

Once.

Twice.

He pulled the memory of the scuffle in the alley out of me, looking at it like it were his own. His thoughts were rushed with panic as he dissected everything as we had, the reality terrifying if not glaringly obvious.

“No. It can’t be.” With a gasp, he detached his mind from mine, leaving me staring into the dark of the courtyard again, the bright pops of color somewhat disorienting as everything spun.

“I hated when you do that,” I barked All powerful or not, every time he dug inside my brain, it left me one gasp away from covering all of our shoes with vomit.

“You think it’s true?” Wyn took a step closer, lowering her voice as her eyes darted around to make certain we were alone. But the dark was encompassing, and with the way the people around the tents paid us no mind, I wasn’t confident they could see us, let alone hear us.

They can’t,
Ilyan provided, tightening his hands around my waist.

“Given what the Trpaslík said,” Ilyan continued aloud, “I can’t say for certain, but it sure seems that way. But, knowing Edmund and Sain, we can’t rule this out as a well-conceived trick.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Wyn grumbled. “I hope it is that. I have plans far better than burning to end that man’s life.”

“I thought
I
was supposed to kill Edmund?” I asked, confused by Wyn’s random confession, but also by the situation in general. “There was this big prophecy—”

“I changed my mind. Besides, every day that prophecy seems less and less like a reality you will ever have to face,” Wyn said, feigning some kind of sobriety. “Congratulations, you aren’t going to die!” She smiled brightly at me, but it wasn’t a look I could return.

A wash of despair I hadn’t expected moved over me, a pain and a sadness I didn’t understand pressing against my heart.

I jerked at the emotions, trying to figure out where they were coming from, simply to be pulled out of the fear that brought and into the reality that was attached to it.

“Ilyan,” I gasped as I turned toward him, the words quickly replacing themselves as his pain became mine. The memories of the happy father he had known moved through us like a movie reel.

I placed my hand on his arm, my touch gentle as I tried to gauge his mood from the oddly crippling weight moving over me.

Wyn froze in place as she put her own Lincoln logs together in her mind, her mouth forming a wide O of understanding.

My father had killed his father.

The irony of that statement was strangely cruel.

Perhaps we can laugh at it another time,
Ilyan’s voice filled me, the pain in his mind infecting the words. He didn’t need to say more.

I wrapped my arms around him, letting my magic fill him from tip to tip as I warmed him, fully aware that this was a pain that couldn’t be smothered. Evil dad or not, as the memories that I was currently being filled with proved, he hadn’t been all bad.

“I’m sorry, Ilyan,” I whispered. “I didn’t realize.”

“If it makes you feel any better, it hurt when I killed my da—when I killed Timothy,” Wyn said, running her fingers over the faded marks on her arm as she shuffled her feet uncomfortably. “I didn’t expect to feel anything, either. Jerk that he was. But then … I mean … I guess there were good times, too.”

“Thank you, Wynifred.” Ilyan looked up at her at that, his eyes wide as his jaw set in what could easily be confused as anger.

Wyn didn’t even flinch. She pursed her lips together and shrugged as if Ilyan had done nothing more than reject an offering of cake.

“Have you seen anything more besides what you two witnessed in the alley, mi lasko?”

“You know my visions have been changing, and everything outside the dome seems to be broken. I can’t access any of it. If Sain did something like this, then that could be why.” I swallowed, my hand still strong on his back even as he looked up at the stars hanging high in the lavender sky.

“Was my father there?” Ilyan very rarely referred to Edmund as his father, and given the situation, I shouldn’t be surprised. Still, it caught me off guard, his grief intense.

“Not—”

“Wait,” Ilyan cut me off, his hair fanning around his face as he turned toward me, the stars forgotten as his eyes filled with an odd, maniacal energy that I hadn’t seen for some time. “Has Edmund been in any of your sights since the ending began to change?”

I blinked, my mind running over his question as sight after sight ran across my recall, the answer becoming apparent.

“No.”

“And the funeral?”

“I don’t think I want to hear any more,” Wyn groaned and walked back toward the Technicolor courtyard.

Ilyan and I stayed still, our hearts pounding as our eyes locked, more pieces of this complicated web falling into place.

“Has the funeral changed?” Ilyan asked again, his heart clenching as mine did. That painful reality was one neither of us wanted to face.

“No, It’s the same. It still does that crazy backward thing that Dramin and I can’t figure out. But it’s the same.”

“Is Sain in any of the sights since the change?” The excitement he had exhibited before faded as he asked the question even he knew the answer to. We had talked about my sights enough. Heck, he had peeked into one no more than an hour before.

“Yes.”

“So, it’s true.” The same pain ran over his face at the admittance, his shoulders slumping a bit. “Even if he is still alive, Sain has—”

“Guys?” Wyn interrupted as she rejoined us, her focus on the cluster of tents right before us. Her eyes were wide with fear, as if she expected some demon to appear and gobble us up. “Ryland’s coming.”

She had barely spoken the words when Ryland pushed his way between the too-close canvas, his curls sagging under glistening sweat. The entire effect made him look like a lost dog who had fallen into a pool of muddy water on accident and was still bewildered by what had happened.

“Ry?” I asked, confused, as Wyn remained frozen between us.

I didn’t know what had spooked Wyn so much. She could sense magic, not moods, and yet something had infected her. She looked like she could vomit, run away, or both.