Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(112)

“And she can talk, too,” the squeak said, sounding just as irritated as he had been before. “You two need to stop doubting me.”

The squeak was met by a grunt, and the warm hand left my cheek as a blurry outline of a face moved in front of the glow, brown and orange smeared together in a confusing streak that solidified into a face.

“Joclyn?” the deep voice said. The wobbles of color shifted with the single word, making me sure this was the one who was talking. “You are here with us. We pulled you from the river that runs through this cave before taking the dead to the center of the earth. We felt your magic before it faded completely and revived it. You are here, right where you need to be, Imdalind is feet away. You are almost there. Can you hear me, Joclyn?”

I lay there, listening to the voices, feeling the deep reverberation of magic flow from the hand that was once again pressed against my jaw.

“Ilyan,” I gasped, panic rising as my sight flickered into a single image of Ilyan, his eyes hard as he faced his sister, clenching his teeth in preparation.

I knew that face, and it was terrifying.

The image was distorted enough that I could tell I was peeking into the future. It was coming, and I needed to get there before it did.

Before she killed him.

“I need to go. I have to save him.” My stuttered words broke past the burn in my throat as the sight disappeared, leaving me staring at the people above me, their faces doubling and tripling as my vision slowly came into focus.

“You cannot, child,” the calm woman whispered down to me familiarly, her visage finally ceasing its dance, and I saw her for the first time: hair bright in the dark, so pale it looked to be woven from pure light. “There is only one way to help him now. He will understand. He was created to understand. I raised him to understand.”

“Raised him?” I asked as I stared at her. Her bright blue eyes cut into me with a dark familiarity that made my magic pulse and pull.

It was then that the familiarity of the voice made sense. The comfort of her magic and touch, it all made sense. As impossible as it seemed.

“Frain?” I asked. The story I had heard only a few times smashed into my head.

Her name was a stutter on my lips, but her smile was wide as she nodded. I barely saw the movement before my sight obscured her. The same woman who sat before me was now kneeling in an ornate courtyard, dressed in an elegant gown from many centuries before, and standing before her was a little boy I recognized at once, even though he couldn’t be more than eight.

She smiled at the young Ilyan before the sight faded, leaving me staring at the same woman, shrouded this time in the dark that surrounded us.

“No,” I gasped as everything broke in two, death and failure hitting me hard in the chest.

Right then, the pain didn’t matter. The way my head was splitting in two didn’t matter. My heartbreak, however, mattered. My failure mattered.

“Joclyn?” she whispered as she pressed her hand against my cheek, and what I was sure was her magic moved into me. “Siln?? Are you all right?”

“I failed. I didn’t save him. I didn’t save any of them,” I said, the china plate of my soul cracking into slivers.

“What are you talking about, child?” the gruff voice of the second woman asked as she came up beside the first, her annoyance reflected in the dark of her eyes. The rich color glistened through the black that obscured most of them. They were the same as Wyn’s, the same as every other Trpaslík I knew.

“Chyline,” I sobbed, my voice broken by the tears that were flowing freely now.

The woman only smiled, her deep mahogany skin crinkling.

“It’s true, then? I died. I failed.”

The tears fell faster. The pain from the knowledge hit me hard. No wonder I couldn’t feel my connection with Ilyan. No wonder I could scarcely feel my magic.

“Oh, what are you on about, I died?” the squeaky voice mocked. The same blue glow from before joined the women, hovering above me. I turned my head, staring at the face of a tiny blue sphinx. “You have got to be kidding me. Are you really that daft?”

The creature lingered in the air above me, his upturned nose squished up in irritation. Fast moving bright blue wings pushed cold air over me as the Vil? fluttered.

“A Vil?,” I gaped at him, at his beauty, at the familiarity to the being I had seen in sight moments before. The same one I had seen drawn on the walls of Ryland’s mind. The same Vil? who had bitten me.

“Really? Where?” He mocked me further, his irritation mounting. “I thought you said you were dead, not hallucinating.”

“But you are here,” I said, my voice strangely monotone in shock. “And you passed centuries before—”

“You can’t die, foolish child,” Rinax spat as he landed on my chest, perched like a misshapen dog on my still blood-streaked shirt. “Just as we cannot. Your life is the earth’s, and you cannot die until she does. How many times do people have to tell you what’s going on before you believe them?”

The damp fabric of my shirt made odd squelching sounds as he pranced over my ribcage, leaving me staring.

“What do you mean I can’t die?” I asked, my mind stuck on the statement, something that only irritated Rinax more. “Everyone dies—”

“I will not repeat that again,” the Vil? interrupted with a growl. “If I could not taste your magic when I bit you, if I could not sense it in the air around you, I would question if you were the right one. You do not seem like the Siln? that raised me.”