Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(101)

“It’s sight,” I stated, my heart beating eagerly at the realization.

“Yes?” the girl asked, her query confusing.

I waved her off. I didn’t need any more riddles or threats, not with what I was staring at just there, just beyond us. I could get at it if I tried. I had to destroy a little girl first.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Joclyn said, pulling my focus back to her as she read me, clearly understanding what I had been thinking.

The thought irritated me, as it did her. Her smile was gone, a deep scowl replacing it, digging into me with a clear warning.

I didn’t care.

“I will do whatever is needed to get me to what I have seen. Haven’t you noticed?” My voice was low as I leaned over her, my face inches from hers as I hissed in anger. Little droplets of spit flung over her, but she didn’t even flinch. “I need that sight, and I will destroy you in order to get there. You mean nothing.”

“I am everything.” The tiniest bit of a whine filled her voice. It dribbled over the air and twisted against my spine. I flinched, tasting the ugly desperation of the child, letting it heat my power.

“You are a mistake.”

I expected her to flinch, to cower and cry, run away. The Joclyn who Jeffery had raised would have, but this girl simply stared at me with a death that was more frightening than the smile she had previously held.

“Oh, Sain.” She clicked her tongue like an adult ashamed of a child. The role reversal might have been funny to anyone else, but it grated on me. My irritation was reaching a point I didn’t think it ever had before. “You are a fool. By the time you remember what I am, what your daughter is, it will be too late for you. Let’s hope it is not too late for the rest of us.”

I opened my mouth to retort, ready to scream and yell, but the white space collapsed around us, and the girl vanished with the crack of the collapse.

Sight poured around me. The larger than life image drowned me until I was left staring at the jarring image of my own death. Of my own blood seeping over my throne and pooling at my feet while everything around me was wrapped in fire.

Wyn’s fire.

I had seen it before, but it could not be. I would not let it be!

“No!” I screamed at the imagery, screamed at the sight as it left, fading to black before the large cave came back into focus.

My breath was heaving, and I desperately tried to catch it, but I couldn’t. I could barely calm down from what I had seen. The cruel reality hit me in the chest as the very woman whose fire had devoured me walked through the door with my daughter right behind her, wide smiles on both their faces.

“See? I told you he would be here.” Wyn laughed as she stepped into the middle of the hall as though she had been invited.

She hadn’t.

“Of course it would be you.” I smirked, rising from my throne as my magic erupted, ready to fight the two powerhouses before me. I already knew I could not face them. “Both of you. You just won’t die.”

“Really? Because I think I could say the same about you,” Jos said, her smile fading as her attack flew toward me.

Wyn smiled from beside her. “Let’s see if we can fix that.”





WYN





25





Joclyn’s attack cut through the pitch of the hall in a bolt of white light that shimmered in the dark, heading right for the wicked man who sat on his ugly throne with an equally ugly smile on his face.

Watching the liquid lightning soar, I waited for it to hit, for it to impact with the shield I knew surrounded him.

He was a coward. Cowards always hid behind people and walls. He had killed all the people he had hidden behind. Now it was just walls.

Walls, I could tear down.

The idea was far too exciting.

The lightning of her attack encompassed the massive hall in ferocious bolts, ripping through the air to rebound off his barricade.

Shielding my eyes as best I could, I refused to look away. The thunderous impact banged through my skull as I stared, wide-eyed, at the blast. The same lightning that spread through the air also spanned over his barrier, cutting into it, weakening it, showing me every flaw. The ground swelled under my bare feet with the impact. The power of the shield rippled past the stone, reacting with my magic in a sting.

He was hidden behind a wide shield that spanned from floor to ceiling and across both walls in one solid mass.

Even if I used the fire magic to its full potential, I would have trouble getting past. A shield of that strength had a major flaw, however. It was impenetrable from either direction, so unless he weakened it, he wouldn’t be able to attack us.

I was fairly certain his ego wouldn’t allow him such pacifism, especially against “little girls” who should “already be dead.”

He was really getting on my nerves.

Sure enough, Sain laughed at Jos’s failed attempt. The sound was forced as he tried to posture to us, tried to scare us. Neither worked.

Joclyn rolled her eyes, while I met him with a stare that I had used for centuries. My lips curled as my magic reverberated under my skin, hot and violent in preparation for what was coming.

I knew Joclyn could feel the power. The small sidestep away from me was not enough to protect her from the heat I was emanating.

“I am beginning to think I misinterpreted the sight,” he sneered, rising from his throne. An ugly, dirty robe fell from his shoulders and unfurled behind him like a child’s cape. “From what I have seen, I know now that in order to succeed in what the sight would have me do, I am the one who is supposed to kill you.”