Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(107)

The wild spark of her spell sped closer as I took a step toward the girl. The dangerous warning in my eyes caused her to step back, grinding her teeth together. I swiped my hand once through the air, and a steady stream of magic shot from my fingers and right toward her. Her own attack was only inches from me.

The electric air around us made the hair on my neck and arms stand on end, my magic prickling in response. It was an odd sensation, one that flowed through my magic, charging it as I prepared my attack.

The air around me continued to explode as her attack was about to make contact, my own countering at the last minute. The line of electric violet sizzled to nothing, and the stream of energy fell to the ground with a simple flick of my finger. The air was now full of nothing except a little bit of grey smoke.

“I would just give up if I were you,” I taunted, shoving a large chair to the side without touching it.

Taking a step toward her, I moved another chair, this one slamming aggressively against the wall just as she waved my own counterattack away, the power from it strong enough that she burned her hand.

She hissed, waving her fingers through the air in an attempt to dispel the pain, but her eyes never left mine, even as I began to step closer to her, my eyes lowered in clear warning.

“You are just like your father, Ryland,” she hissed, narrowing her eyes in an anger I didn’t expect. Not from her. Not about him.

Yes, you are.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Her words cut deeply as the laugh in my head grew into a wall of sound I couldn’t escape. The sound was so loud it drowned out the words the little girl continued to yell at me, her anger clear.

I heard none of it.

Even she sees it.

When are you just going to accept who you are?

When are you just going to become like me?

Stop stalling.

Do it now.

“No!” I erupted, the reaction not expected by the girl.

She jumped, jerking into the air as her eyes widened, the same fear I had seen when she had spoken of my father now directed at me.

“I won’t let you say such things!”

Again, I attacked her, a heavy spell soaring through the air with the speed of a bullet. She threw a table at it in an attempt to deflect, but her weaker magic just bounced off. The little girl squeaked in fear before jumping into the air in a desperate move to escape, one I had anticipated. An identical strip of magic was already ready for her.

“What do you take me for?” I snapped with a laugh. “A fool?”

Her face fell as the attack hit her in the chest, freezing her magic in place and sending her back down to the ground, an impact she escaped, thanks in part to Ilyan, whose magic shoved one of the few remaining couches below her just in time.

His face was pure anger as he came to stand beside me, blood seeping down his arm and over his face from somewhere in his hair line.

“Calm down,” he hissed while he wrapped his strong hand around my forearm, shaking me in his anger. “Fight her if you must, but she is a child. Whatever death she finds should not be this way. It cannot be this way.”

“This is the only way!” I yelled back, breaking free of him and turning to face him as his anger began to lessen. “Get Joclyn to the pool. Let me handle this, Ilyan!”

I had barely gotten the words out before a wave of ice water splashed over my back, freezing my nerve endings and holding me in place once again, this time by magic.

“Ilyan!” Míra shouted from somewhere behind me. The beautiful fear I had painted on her face was all but gone now. “I need you to—”

Her plea was lost when, with a snarl, I broke free from her spell. My magic rushed through my muscles, and a wave of blue and white shivered through the air away from me. The wave shifted the rubble of the room toward her as the once powerful magic the girl had bound me with left.

“Don’t listen to her!” I yelled as I began throwing attack after attack in her direction. “Get Joclyn to the pool! You don’t have time for this! I can handle it!”

Ilyan stared at me, his jaw a tight line as he looked from me to Míra, obviously torn about what he should do.

“Don’t do anything stupid, brother,” he finally growled, the look on his face making it clear he did not like this decision.

“No promises!” I yelled as I turned away from him, ready to fight Míra, only to see her running away from us, down one of the many dark hallways we were surrounded by. “After all, she doesn’t deserve to live.”

No, she doesn’t.

End this now.

The words were a powerful chant that reverberated within me, energizing me in a comforting lull that sent me forward, amidst the dark, after her.

The magic that was already pulsing at my fingertips was ready to destroy her.





JOCLYN





27





Blood was everywhere. It stuck to my skin in patches that pulled and stung. It poured from me, dripping from my fingers in rivers of red, long lines that trickled my life away.

I leaned against the uneven stone wall, folded on the floor where Ilyan had left me, hands clamped against my chest. My magic was attempting to heal me, to knit me back together, but it couldn’t. Sain’s attack was still there inside of me, infecting me, keeping my magic from the injury, slowly killing me.