Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(34)

The attack, the fire that I could still smell in my nostrils. I needed to get back there before all was lost, yet I couldn’t pull myself from this sight. This was exactly where I needed to be.

This was what I had been waiting to hear.

“Nothing will work unless we can find a guide to know how his sight works,” Alojz said, his voice muffled from the stem of the pipe he had placed firmly between his teeth. “Everything we have done has given us inconclusive results.”

“What was the reaction to yesterday’s assault?” Georg asked, the change of conversation abrasive, especially coming from the usually quiet Trpaslík. His voice had barely risen above a whisper. If it weren’t for the rattle of the long curls of his beard, I might not have even known it had come from him.

My prescience swirled a bit as my head spun, the smell of the smoke that surrounded me in reality smothering me, making it hard to breathe. The anxious excitement over what I was watching did not help much.

They had always spoken of upcoming attacks, of attempts to dethrone me. And while I had always assumed it was something more, I had never had any proof.

Now I knew.

With this dark query, their true plan had been ripped wide open for me to see, revealed by the very sight they were so cleverly attempting to decode. It was a grand plot yet one that reeked of deadly derisiveness. It would never work.

Now that I knew, I would crush them.

“It was a twenty-minute delay, followed by the execution of two innocents. He was grasping at straws. Although, there is a rumor that he burned the victims,” Bronislav’s voice wafted beyond the smoke toward me.

“What do you mean burned?” George whispered, his eyes wide in fear.

I couldn’t stop the nefarious laugh. I was glad they couldn’t hear it. They really had no idea what they were up against.

It made me eager for what was to come. I would definitely burn Georg first.

“With that water he drinks,” Bronislav began, a fear behind his voice that I hadn’t expected. “He burns to see—”

“So he’s looking for us,” Alojz interjected, his own voice shaking. “How do you hide from a being who can see everything?”

How, indeed? I asked myself with a smirk, partly disappointed that they had come to such a conclusion before I’d had a chance to show them what was to come.

“We have every spell and shield around us right now, Alojz,” Georg interjected, his beard shaking rampantly from his chin. “As far as we know, he won’t be able to see us. No one will willingly break. They all want him gone.”

My laugh boomed so loudly I could have sworn some of them jumped, their jerks so large even the table shifted under the weight.

“Simple shields won’t stop me,” I hissed to myself, partially aware that anyone around me in reality would be able to hear what I was saying. “I can see everything, and none of you will get away.”

“Are you telling me that all of this has been useless?” Alojz’s knuckles were white from where he gripped his pipe, the rest of his body remaining calm. That tiny, little thing made his frustration of the failure as clear as my shock.

“No, not at all. We haven’t been at this long,” Georg pleaded, his calm barely able to appease his companion’s tempers. “I am positive Bronislav’s fire will work. Then we will know what we are up against. We will know how to defeat him. I wouldn’t want to act drastically when we don’t know—”

“I think we know enough.” Bronislav’s brow furrowed in anger as he glowered at the elderly Trpaslík before him.

Georg did not recoil as the younger man had obviously expected. Instead, he stood still, his eyes narrowed in silent defiance. The glare he was known for shone clear within the smoke.

The two men were locked in a staring battle, the dim flickering light of the single lamp between them not even pulling their focus. With each flicker of the light, the darkness that surrounded them became clear. A dark that swallowed the remnants of what had undoubtedly once been a bed chamber surrounded us, the shadows of furniture loomed around them like monsters.

Monsters not unlike the Trpaslíks that were moments away from a well placed fist fight.

“There is no point in waiting,” Alojz continued in an attempt to cut a pointless battle off. “There is a match scheduled for next week—the first since Edmund’s murder. I am convinced it is all done in show, a foolish attempt for the filthy Drak to prove himself our ruler, to take his place where our master once sat. To defile the thrown!”

They all growled at that, their voices full of the volatile disgust I had become used to.

“What better opportunity to prove his inadequacy than to destroy him in the very pits that are meant to prove his worth?” Alojz continued. “What better place to demonstrate what he really is? We can dethrone the murderer and squash the Chosen back to the slaves they were bred to be. It is the perfect opportunity, one we shouldn’t pass up.”

It was a glorious speech; I would give him that. And it was one the other two conspirators revered. Their eyes were wide with excited bloodlust as they signaled their agreement.

My own greed grew as they began to snicker. Bronislav produced a rolled piece of parchment from the smoke-filled air that surrounded him. Georg shifted uncomfortably as the parchment was unrolled.

My heart rate accelerated as the familiar schematics of Edmund’s war pits were revealed before me, the ancient lines marked with what looked like red crayon, lines of differing depth and motions crisscrossing over one another.