Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(117)

“I would.” The tears had begun to slow as a familiar magic began to swell inside of me, the smooth surface of the water calling to me.

“It is not by your side that you will accomplish your task, it is for him.” Frain whispered, her voice lost somewhere to the side of me. “It is for all of us.”

Frain was right. I had spent the last few months preparing to destroy Edmund and then Sain, preparing to save Ilyan. And now it was here, the possibility to do it all. I had just never assumed it would have come in this way, in a willing death ... in myself walking into Imdalind.

Yet it was here, and I couldn’t turn my back on it.

I stood slowly, my legs shaking underneath me, and the two women moved to support me on either side, weaving their arms through mine.

“You are very brave,” Frain whispered, pushing the dark tangles of my hair behind my ear with her free hand. “My grandson is very lucky to have you.”

My heart throbbed painfully, the reality sitting on me heavily, the weight compounding with each step I took toward the pool.

The water lapped against the bank, the waves increasing the closer I moved. The magic in the air rose as the water reacted to me.

To what I was.

It was something I still didn’t want to admit, but I knew I couldn’t run away from it. I couldn’t deny it. Not with the way my magic reacted to the pool, my sight flashing as a perfect overlay moved over my vision.

The older me stood in the middle of the water, the dark liquid swirling around her as her magic swelled. She moved like a dance, the peek into the past haunting.

And then, just like before, everything around her stopped. The water froze in the air as she turned toward me, her eyes dark with sight as she looked at me exactly as I looked at her.

“The end is here,” we said together. “The time for magic is over. The time for life has begun.”

Our voices faded, but she did not. She stayed heavy in my gaze, beckoning me into the water as my magic continued to throb and pull.

“Tell Ilyan I love him,” I said to no one in particular. “I’ll always love him.”

Without another word, I walked away from them, following Rinax’s light as I waded into the pool and toward the end.

With one step into the water, the world around me seemed to scream in response. The cave shook as dust fell around me, sprinkling over my head. However, I barely noticed, my focus forward, on the woman who was waiting for me.

The cave rumbled again as I stepped farther into the pool, the heat of the Black Water that filled the pool swirling around me. The formerly calm surface was suddenly alive as my magic reacted to it.

Swirls of color twirled like oil over the surface, moving from my skin as I waded in deeper, as if the color was my magic, leaching from me in its own quest to reach home, to be a part of what I was. No, of what I had created I realized with a start. My magic was reacting with a single flash of memory, with a life I had never lived.

Sight flashed bright in my eyes, an image of myself standing before the pool of Black Water I was now swimming in clear. I watched as I filled the depth with my own magic, creating it. The image left in a flash, the black cave rumbling as my consciousness returned to it, my legs pumping wildly as I attempted to tread water in the center of the pool.

The same woman from my sight, however, that haunted apparition of myself, stood still, as though the bottom wasn’t leagues away. She faced me, face hollow and sad as I reached her, her dark eyes meeting mine.

With one intense look, the cave rumbled again with so much force I flinched. Several rocks dislodged themselves from the heights of the cave, falling into the water around us without so much as a splash, the Black Water swallowing them willingly.

“This is not the end,” the other me said.

The rumble of the cave increased as she placed her hands on my shoulders, my magic reacting with a jolt of electricity.

I gasped from the power it filled me with, and I lost the rhythm of my tread, sinking beneath the surface before she pulled me back up.

“Listen to me, child,” she said as I attempted to cough out the water, real fear filling me now over what I was about to do. “This is not the end. This is no ones end.”

I opened my mouth to ask more, but the cave rumbled, and more rocks fell around us.

With the screams of the other three filling my ears, I was pushed under the surface, my open mouth filling with water as I was held there, just under the water.

Panic filled me as I began to fight against the strong hands of myself, fight for air my lungs were desperate for. I grabbed at her hands, reached for her face, frantic to claw at her. However, I couldn’t reach, and she didn’t move. She only stayed above me, the same sadness on her face as my fight slowly left, my arms falling beneath the surface.

I floated there, watching her as she held me, listening to the rumble of the water in my ears. It was just like before, when Wyn and Ilyan were healing my back. Except that this one wouldn’t end with healing. My mind barely registered the thunderous splashes that moved over me, the boulders falling around me.

I turned toward the waves, toward the massive boulders as they broke through the water. One after another, they came as everything slowly faded to black.





WYN





30





“You created me?” I laughed, finally pulling Sain’s focus from his best friend to me, his eyes widening slightly. “You created Thom? Manipulation and lies are not creation, Sain. You don’t really think you can destroy me, do you? That you are stronger than the fire magic?”