Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(52)
Well, almost everyone.
“Now who’s the tyrant?” Wyn whispered into my ear with a snicker, making it clear she had heard it all before.
I waved her away, not wanting to ruin this.
She scoffed in reply, but I ignored her, my mind going blank as Ilyan turned to me, gesturing me forward.
Great. Here we go.
Are you ready? Ilyan whispered in my mind, the tension in his voice as clear as it was on his face.
I smiled. Love was dripping from him, smothering the slowly awakening crowd behind him into oblivion.
Ready? I laughed. This is nothing compared to an angry Ovailia who really wants to kill you.
Point taken, he said, a chuckle plainly audible in his words. Come. Let us stand together as king and queen. Those who do not see you as such have no place in our kingdom. They have no place to stand beside us in the battle we are to face. They accept you, or we reject them. This is the time we know. This is when our battle begins.
The crowd began to shift and move as I stepped forward, placing my fingertips against the king, standing beside him as he did me, hand over hand.
His magic moved inside of me, the connection rattling my strength as my nerves twisted underneath my skin in an eagerness to get out. The same anxious energy moved amidst the crowd, theirs in anger. The emotion rushed back into them, ready to explode. To attack, to fight, to run. It was all there on their faces. It was there, running inside of me. And now that I stood on the other side of the barrier, the emotions felt deeper, a density that threatened to explode out of me.
All I needed was another rock to come my way, which I was certain would come in a matter of seconds.
Wyn and Ryland stepped forward as I did, the extraordinary heat of Wynifred’s internal fire spanning over the cool air of the room. Glaring at the audience, Wyn folded her arms over a faded Boston T-shirt, full bodyguard status engaged.
“We stand before you as your king and as your queen. We are your rulers, and as your rulers, we command—”
“She is not fit to lead us!” a solitary voice broke over the crowd, snapping through them in a wave that discharged in tiny pockets of hatred, pockets of loyalty rising up.
Violence erupted in sparks of magic, blasts and bangs echoing amidst the ruins as more than punches were thrown.
A stream of violet headed toward us, Wyn stepping in front of me, ready to face it, only to have it be intercepted by an attack from one of the many Sk?íteks in the crowd. The woman rushed to stand before us in order to protect us, several others following her lead.
One after another, they came, forming a human barrier, ready to protect us, to fight for us.
“We need to protect those who stand with us!” Ilyan shouted above the noise, his magic already moving over them, ready to begin. “Get our people on this roof; immobilize the rest. We will deal with them once they are taken care of.”
“Sounds boring, but you’re the boss,” Wyn mused, winking at me before jumping off the dilapidated slab of roof, fire following behind her as she went into action.
Stay safe, m?j kamarád.
Ilyan followed Wyn’s lead without a second glance, his magic spinning inside me in the same type of mad eagerness I had seen so many times before. I could feel his exhilaration for battle resonating within me, fanning my own eagerness. But they were emotions that did not reach Ryland’s face.
Ry stared at me, wide-eyed, fear and panic pulling at him.
My own heart fell into the same familiarity. I could already feel it trying to eat me alive.
“Ryland?” I asked, my thoughts moving a million miles as I blocked an attack right beside us, trying to pull him out of whatever hell he had fallen into. “We have to go.”
We both internally went right back to the massive hall, his house falling apart around us, to the rescue mission that had been the worst kind of failure.
I almost expected his eyes to darken and his soul to turn black.
I almost ran away.
I deflected another attack to the side as a blast almost hit my feet, shifting the rubble we stood on precariously. I screamed at the movement, falling back into Ryland who was still frozen in place, trapped in his father’s head, his eyes screaming for help.
“You can do this,” I whispered, putting my hand on his forearm without thinking, ignoring the flinch that came from the contact. “You can control him, and you can help us. Ilyan brought you up as his second, after all.”
“I know,” Ryland whispered, his voice so quiet I could barely hear him. “Just, if I lose control—”
“You won’t. And if you do, I’ll …” I stopped midsentence, my voice catching as my head spun, my magic slamming into me so hard I was positive I wasn’t breathing. I was positive I had been hit.
Ilyan?
Joclyn!
There was no other magic in me but my own, no other magic than my sight that was quickly taking control.
My sight …
Joclyn!
“Joclyn!”
I fell to the ground with a thud, Ryland’s scream mixing with Ilyan’s as he tried to catch me. Ry’s magic softened the fall, but it didn’t matter.
Ryland’s voice echoed in my head, the sound bolstered by the screams and explosions that surrounded us. I could still see him before me, but it was fading, the world spinning around me.
The magic moved into me, and though I tried to fight it, I couldn’t. It took control. It dragged me down. Everything was so far away. It was moving away.