Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(6)
I knew the move was meant to calm me—what with the subject matter and all—but the tension of Ilyan’s secrecy was increasing. The weight of Wyn’s arm on my shoulders wasn’t helping with that. I already felt a need to attack her. At least in jest.
“The king and his crazy bride having twins.”
Okay, maybe merely for the sake of attacking her.
“I am not crazy,” I grumbled, the jab about twins not affecting me for once. Of course, I hated being reminded of the whole mess that Sain had left for me. It wasn’t exactly fun being thought of as disturbed by the people you were somehow supposed to lead.
“Well, not in the way any of them seem to believe, anyway.” Wyn’s giggles returned with triumph as she jumped from me to Risha and Ryland. Bouncing between us like a ten year old, she threw her arms around them like some goony best friend, arms over both their shoulders. She pushed them apart, oblivious of the magnetic dance those two were always practicing, even though she wasn’t. She never missed anything. I wished she wouldn’t bring this one up quite so much.
Was I happy for Ryland? Yes.
It didn’t mean I wanted to deduce the number of children they would have or dissect the nature of their bonding ceremony. The whole thing made me a tad uncomfortable.
Shaking my head like Bruno the St. Bernard, I pushed the thoughts from my mind, squishing my face together in an attempt to get myself—and everyone else, for that matter—back on track.
“Is no one else concerned with the ridiculousness of these claims?” I stepped forward, the sound of rocks crunching against stones echoing oddly around the enclosed space.
“You mean about the twins?” Wyn began. With one look, I shut her up, and the playful best friend vanished, replaced by the cold-hearted assassin in less than a second. “You mean that the girl we pulled out of a pile of dead corpses Sain created just so happens to be the twin sister to the boy you and Ilyan saved when Edmund’s damn rats were flying around the city, destroying everyone and poisoning my boyfriend slash fiancé slash baby’s daddy slash love of my life?”
“Yeah, that.” Now it was my turn to restrain the giggles. Who knew Wyn could talk so fast?
“Nope,” she continued, dropping her arms from Ryland and Risha, both of which had looked uncomfortable and now grateful for the escape. “Weirder things have happened, like having Edmund’s son’s best friend slash the Siln? also being Sain’s daughter slash the one everyone was looking for, for like, five hundred years or something.”
“Why is everything slashed?” Ryland chuckled from behind her, running his hand through his curls in obvious confusion. “I, for one, think my former best friend slash sister-in-law has a point.”
Wyn snickered at the response, smashing her fist into his in triumph. “Bones.”
“Why is it former?” I questioned, exasperated, and pursed my lips, grateful when Ilyan wrapped his arm around my waist before I could do anything more juvenile. I could already feel my magic prickle in irritation. A foot stomp wasn’t that far away.
“If we could get back to the children.”
“I think the children have already taken over the conversation, Ilyan,” Risha snarled, folding her arms over her waist as she attempted to help Ilyan take control of the conversation.
Unfortunately, she had picked the wrong way to do this.
“Harsh, Risha.” The playful joy was gone from Wyn. “I’m several hundred years older than you, and I don’t think you want to be referring to your queen or your boyfriend as kids.”
If I had been drinking, I was convinced the liquid would have covered Risha in a glorious shower. As it was, I coughed, all air sucked from my lungs in a very un-queenly fashion.
Ryland turned a brighter shade of red than I had, his jaw snapping open and shut.
“We have much bigger problems,” Ilyan interrupted, his voice a powerful bolt of energy as he spoke in Czech. It crashed off the stone in the tiny alleyway, the infirmary that Jaromir and Míra were closeted up in echoing the sound. “Whether those children are twins or not.”
“Problems?” The single word left my chest in a gasp as the weight of Ilyan’s emotions finally left the buzzing hive of panic and pressed against my mind in a rush, the intensity painful.
Ilyan! I spat into his mind, fixing him with a look of concern I knew wouldn’t go unnoticed by those around us. What is it?
Sadness crossed his eyes before the memory flashed into mine. One of the healers had told him about what he had found inside the girl’s chest, about what they thought it was, unable to tell for certain.
Even with that little bit of information, I already knew.
The reality was ice and fear, winding up my spine.
“No,” I gasped, my mind running the gambit of what this could mean. The same worries and concerns I could feel in Ilyan echoed inside me.
“Huh?” All sign of humor was gone from Wyn now. Her face twisted up as she looked between us. “Can we please not use the whole internal mind jabber right now? Your faces are kind of freaking me out.”
I turned toward her, not wanting to break the news that would affect her more than it had me. Edmund had done the same to her brother, after all.
Ilyan nodded once before stepping into the center of the small circle, his long braid falling down the center of his back. The long, golden ribbon he wore extended to his toes. My own wound throughout the intricate braid he had given me this morning. I wished the braid I had placed in his hair could match. Thank goodness Ilyan was a patient teacher. I would get there.