Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(110)
He was right. I needed to let this go. I could punish him for his subordination later, but right now, I needed to save her.
Looking from Ryland to Míra, I swallowed my pride, my jaw tight as I forced the anger back down.
“Don’t do anything stupid, brother,” I said, fixing him with as much warning as I could.
He met the look dead-on before throwing himself back into the fight, leaving me to Joclyn as his half-hearted promise fell on deaf ears, my focus already on something far more frightening: the smear of blood that lined the floor right where I had left Joclyn.
Right where Joclyn had vanished from.
“Jos,” I gasped, my stomach twisting in agony as I turned, trying to find some sign of her, trying to understand where she could have gone so quickly. Nothing was there, nothing except a bright smear of blood that led off into the dark, down the long hallway to the dungeons, to the river of farewell.
“No,” I gasped, the already twisted fear that gripped me tightening until I could barely breathe. I knew what was down there. It was the end … the end of this life.
The tunnels of Imdalind shook around me as the dark opening of the tunnel grew in my mind. The dread of what I was facing transformed into a monster as my fear screamed of the death I would find.
Turning back toward Ryland in a panic, my heart fell further when I found him already gone, following the girl to some new battle. I was the only soul left in the derelict space.
“Joclyn!” I yelled as I turned back to the smear of crimson, pushing myself forward as I followed the sinister path that she had left behind, right toward the dark hallway of dungeon and death.
Running down the hall, I let my magic roll out of me, the power that was so used to being restrained truly free for the first time in centuries. I was ready to fight, ready to rip whoever had taken her limb from limb.
Ready to save her.
“Joclyn!” My voice was an echo as it stretched down the dark hallway before me, the empty corridor swallowing me as the ominous pressure of what I was approaching hit me.
I let my magic stretch away from me in a desperate attempt to find her, knowing our connection should pull me right toward her. I should be able to feel her, to hear her inside my mind.
But there was only a low buzzing as faint as if the wires between us were snapping, one after another.
Joclyn! I screamed again, keeping my voice in my mind as I forced it through the last of our magic, the fragile fibers stretching and cracking under the pressure. Joclyn, answer me, please! I’m coming!
Pushing myself further, I ran down the halls, my heart stuttering painfully as the answer to my plea came, not from my magic, not from my mind as I had grown so used to, but from the shadows ahead of me.
“Ilyan!” A single word echoed back from the dark, the sound distorted as a single cry hit me in the chest, pulling my heart into a broken abyss. “Ilyan, I’m sorry.”
The break in my soul shattered into a ravine of pain, the already fragile wires between us snapping one by one.
“No!” I cried, letting my voice carry over the stone and to the small room that was only steps from me where the sound of the river that carried the dead roared in my ears. “Joclyn! I’m coming! Hold on!”
Pushing my legs faster, I soared over the last few feet, terrified about what I would find in the hall … about whether I would be too late.
Magic roaring to life, I prepared for a fight as I soared into the tiny room, expecting Trpaslíks to swarm the space, to be throwing Joclyn into the depths of the world.
But it was only her, only her frail body at the river’s edge, her body shaking as she fell headfirst into the roaring waters, the current grabbing her and pulling her under.
“No!” I screamed as I rushed toward her, my magic reaching for her, unable to grip her, unable to pull her back.
It was only the desperate grip of my fingers as I reached for her, the slick ribbon from her hair as I wound it between my fingers in a desperate attempt to hold on to her, to pull her back from the undertow.
“Joclyn, no.” My voice was broken as I tried to hold on to the ribbon, to stop it from sliding between my fingers, to stop her from leaving me. Before one beat of my broken heart could stutter into existence, however, it was gone.
The ribbon slipped from my fingers as she was sucked into the dark. She was ripped from me, and the last fragile string of our bond snapped, leaving me alone. Alone as I always had been. Alone as I had been told I would always be.
My throat was ripped into pieces as I screamed, falling to my hands and knees in a desperate reach for the water, ready to throw myself into the foam, to follow her to whatever life followed after this. Ready to die alongside her.
But, with one touch, the water shot through me with a blast that burned and snapped against my bones, pressing against me like a boulder in my gut. Joclyn’s familiar magic threw me back with a protective spell that sent me soaring over the stone of the tiny room.
With a whack, I landed against the stone, my hands and knees stinging and burning from the impact. I felt the burn. I felt my own blood pooling against my skin. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She was gone.
Falling back, I sat on the ground, her blood covering me, my hands stretched toward the swirling water, toward the only thing I wanted in this life, and I screamed. I screamed with the pain of loss I had never hoped to feel, the pain of a thousand years of waiting, the pain of a thousand years with her I would never get, the pain of a life I didn’t wish to continue without her.