Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(120)

“Did you really think you could win?” I asked, stepping toward him as I took control, my magic so strong now that I couldn’t stop the burn from swelling.

It was going to erupt exactly as I had thought.

For the first time since I had learned to control it, I was going to let it free.

Pity, I really liked this shirt.

“Do you want to face me as I am?”

Sain looked at me, true horror painting his face as I finally released him, leaving him to stumble away from me. My skin smoked as the fire took over.

Sain began to run as I caught fire, horror snaking into his eyes as he looked back at me, making it clear I had already started to change. The clothes were burned from my body, and my skin began to follow suit, dripping to the ground in large drops of molten gold. Each drop splattered over the floor, boiling into the rock as I rose into the air. I was nothing but fire and bone as the inferno consumed me.

Sain’s skin began to boil as the air in the room became so hot it devoured him … just as it was me.

I knew he would not survive it.

“Did you really think you would not burn?” My voice was a haunted echo as it flowed around the room.

The man before me screamed and clawed as the last of him was devoured, bursting into flames as the power in me consumed him. As my fire exploded.

With a scream, the last of the fire ripped from me, exploding in a blast that shook the room. It bellowed through me like thunder, dropping me down to the ground in a heap, the skin already knitting back over my bones.

The crackle of flames was loud, echoing over the charred stone as I lay in a heap, crying in pain as my body attempted to put itself back together.

I hated crying. I hated that I felt weak, especially with what I had just done. Powerful magic, a gift from the earth. That’s what they said, but all it did was destroy. There wasn’t strength in this.

Human bones were scattered around me, charred and brittle as they smoked, the scent of burned flesh overwhelming.

Tucking my head into my chest, I forced them from my sight. I didn’t want to think about who they might belong to. I didn’t want to think about what I had done, that Sain might have survived. That Thom did not. I didn’t want any of it.

Not yet.

“Not yet. Not ever!” I sobbed, the words exploding from me as I stared at the floor, skin rebuilding over my bones as I clawed at the ground.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped, the word broken by tears. “I’m so sorry.”

Huddled into a ball, I pinched my eyes shut, crying as the flames died around me, their crackle leaving as silence overtook the room. Only the sounds of my sobs were left.

Then even those died, just like everything else.

Just like everyone else.

Just like me.

I could feel death grip me as I lay there, new skin stretched over my body, my heart shattering over and over again until the tiniest voice broke me out of my sorrow, her warm hand on my back.

“Mommy,” she whispered, tugging at my shoulder with her other hand in an attempt to get my attention. “Don’t be sad, Mommy.”

“Rosaline?” I asked, my voice hoarse and broken as I lifted my head to look at her. The little girl I loved so much was standing amongst smoldering rock and char with a massive smile on her face.

“Mommy!” she squealed, wrapping her arms around me as she fell over me, her long, dark hair swimming around us and the smell of her white cotton nightgown clean in my nose. Like the lavender soap I used to use to wash all her things. Clean. Perfect.

“Rosaline!” My voice was a sob as I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into me exactly as I had when she and I were in the blade together. The thought seemed to wipe away my joy.

“Oh, no,” I groaned, holding her securely against me and pressing my face into her hair, hoping to get lost in the smell of her. “I failed.”

“Is that why you’re sad?” Rosaline asked, sitting up to cup my hands with hers, pressing my hands against her skin.

Her skin. It was so warm.

She was so warm.

“Because you think you died?” She giggled, the sound out of place with the subject matter, but it didn’t matter. The joy in the sound soothed me, the riot of my heartbeat slowing. “You didn’t die.”

“Then how are you here?”

“Because you saved me.” Her smile widened as she squealed, throwing her hands up in the air like it was a party. “Your fire! You freed me, Mommy! You saved me!”

Everything heated and burned, my jaw dropping as I stared at her, the little girl who had jumped up to dance, swirling amidst the dark cave as she giggled, her white nightgown flowing around her.

“I saved you.” It wasn’t a question, even though it felt like it should be.

“Correction.” A voice even more familiar than hers pulled me from my shock, right to my brother, the lanky boy standing next to me, looking at something far off with a cigarette in his mouth. The unlit thing made him look just as he had before the Zámek curse had split his mind. “You saved us—all of us. Everyone Edmund had trapped in that thing, every piece of every soul, you set us all free.” Cail looked at me then, the corner of his mouth twitching like it used to, his jaw moving as he chewed the cigarette. “Remind me to thank you sometime,” he said, a true smile breaking free as he threw some overly singed clothes at me, the shards of fabric scarcely enough to cover me, let alone put on. But they would have to do.