Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(54)

With each flash of light, a tall woman appeared, shimmering in and out as she had in my nightmares years before.

My mother.

“No.”

My heart stopped beating as my mouth went dry, the flickering leaving me staring at her bloodied face. Her feet were twisted on the cracked tiles she stood on, surrounded by the long curls of wallpaper that were pulling away from the walls.

A scream pressed against my chest as I tried to run from her. Run from my mother for the first time in my life.

She looked the same as she had the last day I had seen her, down to the chipped yellow nails that I had watched go limp as a trail of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

“NO!” The scream found its way out as my gut tensed and ripped in two. “No.”

“Are you watching?” This time, it was my mother who spoke, the words haunted and hollow before an explosion rattled around us, pulling the sight right to the room I had left more than an hour before.

My brother slept curled in his bed, his blanket tucked around him like he was a toddler.

“Are you watching?” a familiar little voice asked.

I turned, expecting to face Míra, only to come face to face with her brother.

Dramin’s bedroom fell away to reveal the dark hallway outside of Dramin’s room.

Jaromir walked amidst the dark, flinching as an explosion rattled the halls around him. The same explosion rattled my dreams and alerted me to the haunting reality I now faced.

This was now.

Another explosion shook both of us. The boy flinched further as tears streamed down his face. Míra followed behind him with a grin so sly it sent shivers down my spine.

“Are you watching?”

The sound of Jaromir’s steps was hollow in my ears, an odd squelching noise following each step. He walked as though he were dead, forward, unseeing. Until …

At once, the vision shifted, the children jerking around and moving forward and back as though they were being pulled by a string, as though the whole sight was being rewound.

“Here, they walk,” my voice said, the sudden change in direction pushing a fear against my gut.

“Are you watching?” The depth of my voice came again, pulling me right back to children.

But they were no longer walking in the hall.

Jaromir lay facedown in a pool of crimson, the wet spilling away from him like molasses, seeping into his nightshirt like a sponge, bright red. Míra walked away from him in tears, magic sparking on her fingers as she talked to herself, as she screamed and cried. Cried out to Jaromir. Cursed and yelled at him. But she didn’t turn to help her brother. She didn’t try to save him. She merely walked past.

“Here, they fall.”

Míra walked right toward Dramin’s door as everything rattled, stretching her hand across the dark to clasp the knob I myself had closed minutes before. That I had left, foolishly thinking those behind would be safe.

A door I knew at once would never be.

“Are you watching?”

The images faded as the screams of the hall I had left behind filled my ears. My heart raced in my chest as the panic the prescience had been blocking infected me.

“Are you watching?” I said to myself, sitting straight up as reality returned to me.

Ryland’s worried face stared right into mine as he sat next to me, protecting me from the battle that was still rampant.

He was not the only one.

A wall of Sk?íteks and Chosen surrounded us, their backs to us as they battled.

For a split second, I wondered if we were winning or losing, but I couldn’t ask. I didn’t have time. I didn’t have time for anything.

Right now, she was walking toward the door.

“She is moving,” I said to Ryland.

He looked at me in confusion, obviously trying to decide if I was still in sight or not.

“Jos?” he asked, his voice shaking. “Are you okay?”

“Look at me, Ry!” I snapped, not caring about his question. “Míra, she is out. Risha, Jaromir, Dramin, Thom—they are all in danger. You have to move.”

His eyes widened for a second, fear turning into anger as he stood, his shoulders square as he muscled his way past the circle of people.

“Ilyan?” I said aloud, hoping he could hear me. “Did you hear that?”

I did.

“Good. Tell Wyn.”

With that, I left with a small pop . The booming of my heart moved along with me as I moved to another battle.

One that I would win.

I had to.





12





The pop of my return was lost in the screams that echoed inside the dark hall. The only light in the ominous pitch came from the long streams of dawn that permeated the windows in strips of light and dark.

Building shifting and trembling around me, dust and rocks sprinkling over me, the beams shook and shivered from the battle I had left behind. Regardless, I barely noticed anything beyond the heavy galloping of my heart in my throat, beyond the screaming that my magic was already rushing toward. It extended across the hallways and broke through walls, right into the room Míra had already reached. To my brother who had tackled her to the ground.

“No,” I gasped aloud, and Ilyan’s heart beat rushed into my chest as he felt my panic, as he saw the scene inside my mind.