Soul of Flame (Imdalind Series #4)(73)

“We call it the last night because it is the last night for many of us. Not only for this battle, but for all of them. And this war has been going for quite a while,” Wyn said softly, the calm sadness of her voice pulling my mind off the smell and right into her words.

My heart pumped faster, the pain moving through me so fast that I was barely able to fight the sob that tried to seep out. She was right; it was the last night for many of us. Not only me.

It was my last night.

Strangely, seeing the sadness on her face—thinking of the thousands who had lost their lives before me—had numbed the fear. It’s not that it wasn’t there anymore—because it was—it just didn’t bother me as much as it had only minutes ago. The mind-numbing fear had disappeared, leaving me with a sadness for what I was going to lose; for the short time I had been given to experience it.

“Oh.” It was the only word I could manage. I didn’t know what to say after that. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to say anything.

“Don’t worry,” Wyn said as she turned to face me again, her glass now full of a foggy red liquid. “I am sure Ilyan will be fine. I don’t think he is capable of dying.”

I gasped at her words, at the misplaced worry so startling my chest tightened under the pressure.

“Wyn?” I started, my pulse quickening as I fought the need to tell her, to tell her everything. I wanted to tell her of the sight, of what was coming for me, of what was expected. However, part of me said she already knew, and even if she didn’t, I wasn’t quite sure how I would begin to have that conversation. I wasn’t sure I was ready to say goodbye.

She had already lost so much.

“I—” I tried again, part of me grateful when she interrupted me.

“I didn’t mean it that way, Jos.” She said it with the obvious intention to put me out of my misery. I didn’t mean it that way, though; not in the way that she had taken it. Not in the way that her voice cried toward me.

I looked away from her to the green wall, to the garbage can by the door overflowing with things that had made Wyn who she was: band t-shirts, feather earrings, posters. I stared at the pieces of her broken heart, crumpled and tossed away, my heart breaking right alongside her.

A deep rumble of thunder vibrated through the abbey, this one bigger than the others had been, and my focus pulled from what I had been saying to what I needed to say. What I needed to help her with.

“I know,” I said, my voice soft as my heart rumbled painfully with what I was about to say.

I breathed in and closed my eyes, my magic stretching away to make sure I still had time before Ilyan and Thom arrived, only to sense them stalled a few feet before the door. I needed to make this quick.

“When Ilyan kisses me, I feel like my whole soul is going to fly away into Heaven. His touch is like a numbing fire; his passion is so encompassing that I don’t feel like anything could drag him away from me, that even death couldn’t take away the way I feel for him.”

I had begun with the intention of speaking very fast—of giving in to her request in the hopes that she would give in to mine—but the moment I opened my mouth, the memory of Ilyan’s touch, the feel of his lips on mine, pushed through the embarrassment and my voice slowed, my eyes lost in the depth of my memories.

“Wow,” Wyn said as dead-panned as she could possibly manage, her glass perched in her hand as she stared at me. “Thanks for sharing.”

“Wyn,” I practically whined as I stared into her, trying my hardest not to stomp my foot in indignation.

I wasn’t going to let her get away from me that easily. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she knew exactly why I had said what I had.

I scowled at her as she stared at me, her eyes softening bit by bit until she groaned and set her glass down on the table. Her fingers remained pressed against the condensed surface as she looked into it and her breathing slowed.

I wanted to help her, but I was suddenly beginning to wonder if, instead, I had only caused her more pain.

“I felt the same way. I feel the same way,” she said softly, her focus still on the glass that the tips of her fingers ran over, the soft touch leaving glistening trails on the glass. “But it’s half. One half gone and the other half confused as to whether I ever felt that way in the first place. As to which love was real, or if either of them were.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes, I think it possible to love too much, to hurt too much. To live too many lives. I thought I was all right, but Thom has only confused me more.”

“Wyn?” I stood still as I watched her fingers on the glass, waiting for her to continue, to make sense of the small insight she had granted me.

She never did. She just looked down, her magic ebbing until I couldn’t feel it in the air around me like before. She brought it into her as she broke apart, a feeling I knew all too well.

“Is that why you tore apart your room?” I asked, my soft voice sounding strangely loud in the broken pieces of her heart that the room had trapped around us.

“I don’t know where I fit anymore.”

“Without Talon?” I asked, my tongue tripping over his name, fully aware he had been the elephant in the room until I let it slip from my tongue.

Sure enough, her body tensed, her eyes darting to look away from me to the door on the other side of the room, almost as if she expected Thom and Ilyan to burst through, but they hadn’t moved since I had last felt them.