Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(25)

I didn’t understand what they were saying in the first place. The secret language of twins, something I had heard about on several occasions, but had not witnessed until a few weeks ago when Míra had come into my life.

It was endlessly irritating, but we had chosen to put up with it for now. We needed her to trust us. She only trusted Jaromir right now, and she needed that. Taking away their secrets was simply going to strengthen her distrust of us.

“Meneshte ho botkni che mě, Jaromir!” Míra screamed, the reaction exactly opposite from what I had been hoping for.

My muscles tensed in my neck, my heart rate increasing at the sudden outburst.

“Míra,” I scolded, knowing I was sounding a little too much like a TV dad, “you don’t need to yell …”

The words left my mind with one stern look from the girl in question, sparks zapping around her body in a very clear warning. My magic surged in preparation for restraint, not wanting today to end this way, not after all the progress we had made.

“You need to calm down, Míra,” Risha interrupted, towering over her as she stood, not letting the child’s magic deter her. “I don’t want to have to take you back to the hall yet.”

Míra flinched, Risha’s choice of words affecting her.

The sparks of warning had stopped, but the hatred and anger didn’t leave her eyes, her rigid posture straightening more.

“Zí?, sho to je, víte, sho poch?eduji. Neshbosydňují.” Míra’s eyes were dead as she spoke directly to Jaromir, the anger lessening into a desperate plea, one that he didn’t miss.

As though he had been slapped, Jaromir straightened, some hushed exchange breaking between them before he turned back to me, his eyes as hard as hers now.

“Ale meschi, adi ván donohl.” His voice was as numb as the expression on his face, the mysterious fight they were engaged in coming to a head.

“Dubeche nuchet, dokub schete, ady v?ismi ?ít.” Míra looked at us as she spoke, her eyes still as hard.

We understood nothing, yet her warning was clear.

“I know there is some good in you, Míra,” Jaromir whispered, his focus on his hands before lifting them to hers, his eyes filling with tears. “I know you don’t have to do that. I know you will find a way.”

I jerked as much as Míra did, her eyes shocked before reverting back to anger. Glancing between Risha and me, she feared what we had heard, what we had understood, which wasn’t much.

He had spoken in clean Czech, yet it was still no more than gibberish with nothing to connect it to.

“I know there is good in you, too, Míra,” Risha added, leaning toward the kids and stretching her hand toward the girl in what she probably thought was a sign of friendship.

However, Míra stared at it, her lips sneering in disgust before she stepped behind her brother again, using him as some kind of barricade.

“Then you don’t know me,” she hissed, the bright eyes that should have been full of so much joy and youthfulness cold and dead.

“I know you,” I interrupted, my heart building into a painful staccato as I made the connection, as I truly understood what she was saying. Even the monster in my mind understood. The deep rumble of his laughter rolled within my subconscious, lifting my heart rate further. “I know where you came from. And I know what my father would ask of you. I know you and the hell you are stuck in better than you think.”

“You don’t have a clue. You could never know what he would want of me. What I have to do,” she snapped, the preteen angst ripping amidst the air between us.

So much for the afterschool special.

“I do because my father made me kill my mother.”

Míra stiffened, Jaromir following suit as their eyes narrowed. Míra’s motions were slow as she turned to face me, nose wrinkled in a look that was haunting, something that turned the fear and familiarity I had sensed before up to an eleven.

“He asked me to kill someone,” I continued without waiting for a response, “and I did, not knowing there was someone else I could go to. Not knowing there was a good side.”

The stress and tension in our little group were higher than they had ever been. None more so than from Risha, whom I was certain was crying.

I ignored it, not really liking it when people cried for me.

“There isn’t a good side, Ryland,” Míra whispered, the hatred dripping from her face and leaving me staring at the true little girl for the first time. “Not with this. Everyone gets hurt. Everyone is going to die. I can’t stop it. No matter what, it happens.”

“That can’t be true—” Risha began, her words cut off with one sharp look from the little girl before us.

“It is, Risha. Everyone is going to die.”

My heart stopped beating. The world spun around me as what she said sunk in, as the truth behind it sunk in.

Jaromir looked between us, his nose wrinkled as he clenched his jaw, a different kind of fear taking over him. I didn’t think words more haunting had ever been spoken by a child, ever spoken by a little girl with so much sadness, fear, and hatred in her eyes.

Like a geometric video game, her words began to fit together. Ts and Ls and sticks all fell into place. I could hear the tiny game music in my head, the steady tempo increasing as the beat of my heart did. The sounds moved at a rapid pace in a countdown that I already knew I couldn’t outrun.