Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(128)

I finally lowered my arms, an odd emotion twisting within me as I pulled her against me. It wasn’t revenge. It was something better, something I hadn’t expected. This weird release of forgiveness. I didn’t think I could have expected it.

I couldn’t have expected the calm.

Expected my own tears to join hers.

Expected my magic to swell in a calmness I had never felt before.

For the first time, I was finally free.

I was finally safe.





OVAILIA





32





I could hear his pathetic cries long before I found him. The vile sound echoed down the stone halls, roaring over the boom of explosions that had increased in number. The cavernous collection of tunnels shifted and groaned in a deep threat of collapse, the explosions slowly ripping them to shreds.

In my need to reach him, I ignored the way the cave was rattling, knowing I was dangerously short on time.

Ilyan’s pained sobs grew louder as my heels clicked loudly down the long, dark hallway, the sound of the river hidden by his cries. His pain tightened my heart, pulling it in fear of what I would find. From what I recalled of the image of him in the sight I had stolen from Sain, I expected to find him holding her broken body on his lap as he screamed.

I had only seen the sight a handful of times, the image force fed to me by Edmund after I had accidentally peeked into Sain’s mind. But right now, hearing my brother’s heartbreak bellow over the stone, it was all I could think about.

The long hall rattled with another explosion, this one so strong I was forced to stop in place, my hand against the wall in an attempt to combat the shift of stone. To keep myself standing, something that was painfully difficult with the sliver of heel I stood on.

This was going to be more difficult than I had expected. If I didn’t need him, I would probably just leave him down in the dungeon to rot.

Just like everyone else.

The shift of stone passed, and I lifted my eyes to the large fissures that were slowly forming overhead, the lightning ripping the stone apart.

There was still time to leave him.

I guessed Ryland was wrong. I wasn’t that heartless.

Fixing a tight scowl on my face, I broke into a run, sprinting into the small guards’ hall my brother sat in, his body folded just as I had seen in sight, his hands pulled forward in that same desperate prayer for mercy.

The image was just as I had seen in sight, the moment just as I had feared. Except, there was no limp body drawn out on his lap, no black hair spread over stone. No death.

Only my brother, covered in blood, his heart broken and shattered over the room.

Days before, I might have rejoiced at the image. I could still feel the vein of pleasure from seeing his pain, from seeing Sain’s success, but it was short-lived, causing an unfamiliar queasiness in my gut.

I felt sorry for him.

I hurt for him.

It was something I hadn’t felt since the child’s, Thom’s child, my tiny niece, soul had been ripped from her body. My chest tensed the same way, and I shuddered, gingerly stepping forward as the room quaked around us, the motion lost in the sound of his cries.

“Ilyan,” I said, trying to keep the acid out of my voice as I reached out for him. “Ilyan, I’m so sorry.”

Ilyan’s sobs lessened as he turned toward me, the tragic pain I had expected clear before it changed, warped into dire anger, an anger that was directed right at me.

“You,” he spat, his voice a dangerous growl as he glowered at me, bits of rock falling from the ceiling behind him and splashing into the frigid water of the river.

In one swift motion, he rose, a mist of icy water spraying over us both as he towered over me. He was covered in a deep vermillion, damp patches glistening over his body, the color frightening against the dark of the cave.

“Ilyan?” I asked, the pain of his loss smothered by the icy rock of my heart. I shivered under the look he had fixed me with, everything within me screaming at me to run.

In a million battles with him, I had never had the full force of his anger directed at me, never seen a glower with the same intensity that was now bearing down on me.

It was frightening.

My eyes widened in fear as the last drop of my sympathy left. My anger rose as Ilyan’s did, magic flaring at the enemy that had appeared before me.

Ilyan’s eyes glinted red as he stepped toward me, magic sparking from his fingers in bursts of yellow flame. His power dripped to the floor of the cave in a hot oil that boiled against the stone with a hiss, melting the rock into a pool of the brightest red.

The cave shook as Ilyan stepped toward me, stones falling around us as the magical charge in the room escalated, mine charging as his did. Even if I didn’t really want to fight him.

“Ilyan,” I said again, my voice shaking dangerously as I stepped away from him, right into the high stone wall that was shivering from the battle it could no longer contain. “I need you to come with me. I have a blade—”

“You helped him,” Ilyan hissed as he took another step toward me, his temper an out of control torrent as he attacked without warning.

“No!” I yelled while the liquid death that dripped from his skin spun through the air toward me. The power mutated into a needle point that, if I hadn’t been ready, would have shot right through my heart.