Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(109)

Stumbling to my feet, I followed her, letting the strength of her magic pull me forward, my legs tripping and faltering as I attempted to stay upright.

Her magic moved into me in a surge that reacted with my own just as the magic from the earth did. Just like when I heard Dramin and Wyn and all those Chosen. It was the earth’s magic. That’s what she was. She wasn’t me. She was earth.

“I am you,” she said in a clear response to my thoughts, her pace increasing as she led me around another corner and down another hall, this one filled with frightened Trpaslíks. Each of their faces was turned toward something I couldn’t see, as though I was nothing more than an apparition among them. Perhaps I was dead already. “We are the same.”

Her words were a confusing mess as we turned again, the hallway sloping down. The sound of the rushing water I had heard before echoed from somewhere below us, somewhere in the dark.

“It’s time,” she said again, her focus forward as she finally came to a stop in a dark, narrow room where the sound of water was overwhelming. “We must end this now.”

Unable to hold my weight any longer, I fell to my knees, glancing around the room that was suffocating in a smooth oil, lines and features indistinguishable, although I was sure there was a large door somewhere on the other side. All I could see clearly was the shadow of my other self and the rushing underground river she stood next to.

Against the far wall, water rushed over the stones in a torrent, swirling into a bright white foam before that was swallowed by a wide open mouth of stone, the tiniest hint of bright blue light glowing somewhere beyond it.

The same light I had seen. The same light I was drawn to.

“Imdalind,” I gasped, my voice strangled.

“He’s waiting for you,” the other me said, pulling my attention from the glow to her. She was sadly smiling before she faded into nothing, leaving me staring at the dark stone and the sound of rushing water loud in my ears.

I stayed there, crouched on the stone as I tried to keep myself upright, my desperate breaths growing farther apart, my magic pulling me forward. Pulling me toward the light, toward the river that I was sure was the one Ilyan had told me about.

The one where the dead are sent back to the depths of the earth.

“Ilyan,” I gasped as I struggled over the stone, praying that he could hear me, that I could feel his magic one last time before I went in there. Before I, too, went back to the earth, back to the magic that was already pulling at me, calling to me.

“You are running out of time, Joclyn!” my own voice yelled at me, echoing over the dark pit of earth and back to me. “You have to go now.”

“Ilyan!” I gasped again, pulling myself over the stone. I tried to force as much sound into my voice as I could but couldn’t get much above a whisper. “Ilyan, I’m sorry.”

Stone scratched against my arms and legs as I dragged myself toward the river, toward the light, desperate to reach it, my body numb against the smothering pain. Slime covered the ground the closer the end came.

“Ilyan,” I breathed out on a sigh as my hand slipped, sending me face first into the freezing water.

Skin burning and stinging from the chill, I felt my magic spark from the power inside of it. But it wasn’t enough.

Water smothered me as the current pulled me under, filling my nose and mouth as I tried to take a desperate breath. My insides burned from the cold, the icy fire consuming me while I thrashed along the stream, thrown against walls and floors.

I fought against it, pointlessly battling the current in a battle that was far too familiar. A battle I was sure I had fought before.

Breathing in the burn of water, I opened my eyes to the bubbles of the stream and to Sain’s face. His laughing, smiling face. Clean shaven, scar-less, younger.

It took me a moment to recognize him as a sight, to recognize the image as past … as a past that seemed more like memory.

He laughed while he held me beneath the waves, my body thrashing against him, against the current, against the water that filled my lungs.

I gulped again, my head smashing against stone as the vision of Sain departed, leaving me staring into dark bubbles and stone, everything fading as my already water-filled lungs gave up, as my oxygen-deprived brain began fading into death.

I tried to fight it, to rip myself from the water, but my strength was gone.

I was gone, sinking into the icy water. I was swept under the current and into the mouth of the earth, its depths swallowing me.

I love you, Ilyan.





ILYAN





28





“Don’t listen to her!” Ryland screamed as he continued to fight the frightened child at the other end of the blue room, the once beautiful gathering space now in shambles.

I attempted to stop him again, knowing he was moments away from killing the girl, but Ryland just shrugged me off, pushing me away from him with a glare so deep I momentarily saw our father in him, all signs of Ryland lost.

My temper bristled at his inappropriate command, at his lack of respect. He had already attacked me. He was lucky I hadn’t ripped his head from his shoulders.

“Get Joclyn to the pool!” he continued, the anger vanishing as he pulled me right back to where I needed to be, to my mate, to the woman I had left propped up against the stone wall, moments from death. My heart sagged, everything throbbing in pain. “You don’t have time for this!” Ryland screamed again, “I can handle it!”