Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(58)

“Jos?” Dramin gasped, his voice odd and distorted as he continued to look beyond me.

I squeezed his hand, leaning over him in an attempt to get him to look at me, to get him to see, but it was as though I was invisible. I was gone, just as he was leaving. He didn’t even squeeze my hand in return.

“Dramin?” I could barely get the one word out.

“You are the most beautiful queen,” Dramin panted, blood trickling down the side of his mouth as he tried to force the words out. Everything came out broken and strangled. “I am so honored to be your brother.”

“You are my brother, the best I have had.”

He laughed at that, although it was pained.

“Always be what you are. Always be …” More blood dripped from his lips with each word.

I waited, knowing there was more. But none came.

None ever came.

I had seen death so often in movies. I had been around death so much over the last few years you would think I would be numb to it by now. That I would be used to it.

I wasn’t.

I never would be.

Pain ripped through my chest so intensely I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. I froze, my hand tightening around his as Dramin’s eyes drifted away to stare at whatever beautiful thing he had seen, his soul leaving to find it. Leaving us all in the calm silence that ripped me open.

My heart turned to ice as that iron cage I hated so much snapped around it.

“No,” I gasped, part of me still not daring to believe. Still expecting a cough, a gasp, a gurgle of blood, and some Míraculous recovery.

There was nothing. Nothing but my tears and Wyn’s tears as she rushed over to us.

I was left to wonder for an eternity what he had been about to say, wondering for an eternity what he had been staring at, where he had gone. Left staring at a man whose heart had beaten so long and loved so much and was now quiet. Part of me wondered if I would ever learn to love as much as he could. As much as he had.

The laugh that was always ready, even in the worst situations, was gone forever. Part of me had been swept away alongside him.

Kneeling on that old stone ground, Ilyan’s arms around me as he cried with me, his own heartbreak matching mine, our two emotions weaving into a desperate pain, I couldn’t move. I sat, clutching a lifeless hand of a brother I didn’t get nearly enough time with, of a family I had always wanted and I had so suddenly lost.

Dramin’s hand fell from mine as I turned toward Ilyan, his hands warm around mine.

Mid-sob, I stopped, turning toward my brother at the swell of his magic that filled the room. I expected to see him staring, to see him sitting, but he was still. Nothing but the ripple of his power as it drifted from his body in a fog that flowed over the ground away from us, twinkling in the red light of dawn.

All that remained of my brother moved away from us in the faintest line of white in the air, the relics of his magic visual as it glistened and glittered. It seeped inside the walls, moved past the windows and out into the air, the bright red of the sky swallowing him whole as he left to find his wife, to find his children, to find the rest of our family.

“I hope you find your way home, my old friend,” Ilyan whispered from beside me, the simple words slamming into my chest, bringing around a fresh round of tears.

I fell forward, over my brother, caught by Wyn. The strength of her arms pulled me into her as she hushed and hummed like the mother she really was.

I lay there, sobbing, thinking of all the people we had lost.

It wasn’t fair.

This needed to end.

“I’m going to kill him,” I sobbed, my voice seething through the tears.

“Edmund?” Wyn asked, brushing my hair behind my ear.

“No,” I said, moving to sit before turning to face the two of them, my pain quickly moving into anger. “Edmund is dead. But Sain … Sain is going to pay for this, for all of it.”

No one said anything. No one had to. They were all stuck in the same paralyzing moment, all in agreement of the proclamation I had made. We had all made the same one at least once. I knew it wasn’t my first time.

A million questions ran inside my mind as the agony of loss fueled them. I stayed quiet, for as the sadness tried to take me, another voice was added to the tears of those around us, one that I hadn’t heard since we had entered this godforsaken city.

From the voice came questions, and they ended in a panicked yell.

“Wyn? Ilyan? Hello? Help!”

As one, we turned toward the other side of the room, toward the man part of me had already counted for dead, assuming Míra had done away with him, as well.

“Thom?”





SAIN





13





The three men shivered before me, their bodies construed on the floor in poor attempts of a bow. They quaked with every step I took before them, the sound of my footfalls loud in the hollow expanse of the hall. The echo of the void made everything louder. I could even hear them breathe in sharp little inhales that accentuated their panic.

“This is a grand hall.” My voice was a loud snap as I continued to pace, sidestepping a large pool of still damp blood that remained from the massacre of a few days ago. “I remember when it was carved out. Three skilled Trpaslíks stood in the large cavern we now use as a walkway, their magic pulsing, moving, melting the rock. That was before the fire magic was lost to your kind. That was before any of you were born …”