Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(68)

I started, the similarity in what he had said, in what Damek had said, coating me in panicked fear.

He knew.

He had to know.

The way he smiled. The way he pulled me into him.

This was a warning, a chilling threat.

Sain’s eager grin was ripe with the same malicious intent mine was. The look was so clear I wondered which one of us would kill the other first, whose blood would be a brighter stain against our skin.

Stomach twisting, heart pounding, I stepped closer, leaning in as I breathed him in. I breathed in the bright green of his eyes. I breathed in the smell of blood that infected his skin. I breathed in the tickle of beard against the softness of my cheek.

“My king,” I whispered, letting the hatred drip from me, blending with the lust so powerfully I was certain he didn’t miss either emotion.

He pulled away, his green eyes hungry as his lips twitched. His beard pulled before he leaned into me, pressing his lips to mine with a deep hunger that infected me.

I kissed him back, letting his magic tickle against mine before pulling away with a smile, despite part of me not wanting to. Part of me was dying inside.

Sweeping my hair over my shoulder, I took a step closer, pressing my hip against his. “I live to serve you,” I whispered into the dark, my hatred of this man finally taking control with the realization that I could use him. “Tell me what to do.”

He opened his mouth, but the words were sucked from his throat as the main doors to the hall were thrown open, and Damek rushed in with a look of awe and fear.

“Damek!” Sain screamed.

The intruder froze in place as Sain rushed into the bright open part of the hall. Sain’s shoulders pulled into a tight line of anger as Damek began to wilt beneath his glare.

“I told you not to disturb me, no matter—”

“But, master …” Damek began before the words faded into the clicking and gasping more akin to a fish out of water.

Sain’s hand twitched as his magic closed the man’s throat, punishing him.

“Speak, Damek,” Sain teased, but the request was unneeded thanks to the girl who rushed through the door, screaming like a banshee, her hair wild as it flew behind her, her skin and clothes streaked with blood.

No. It couldn’t be. I had thought she was dead.

“Míra!” Sain yelled gleefully, as if he were a rotund grandfather welcoming home an estranged love one. “I had a feeling I would see you today.”

“He’s dead! You killed him!” the girl screamed, her magic sparking a second before she attacked. The stream of red fire sparkled across the air toward Sain.

His laugh boomed above the current of her magic a second before it vanished. The red dripped to the ground like wax, the fire dissolving to smoke in the air.

Míra’s eyes widened, her anger swept away by fear as she began to tremble.

Sain’s laugh grew deeper. His own magic flew across the air with a flick of his wrist, wrapping around the girl and trapping her inside the deep sheath of black smoke.

Stomach tensing, I took a step forward before freezing.

Damek’s wide eyes met mine, the hushed conversation we’d had clear in the bloodshot gray. Every coded word and hushed phrase stuck out as the scene before me began to unravel. I froze, my stomach twisting as my magic jerked around inside of me, dying to get out.

However, I was no longer clear on who I would attack or even why.

“I killed who, exactly?” Sain mused, his voice full of false promises as it echoed around the wide cavern. “Your master? That weak man who infected you with a ?tít? Yes, I killed—”

“You killed him! I killed my brother because of him – he didn’t have to die.” Míra interrupted, her voice strangled underneath the malevolence that was as bright as the blood on her face. “You killed my brother! He’s dead because of you! Because of both of you!”

With the snap of her anger, Míra’s magic broke free of Sain’s control, a whip of gray hissing through the air to slam against Sain’s chest.

The old man gasped, stumbling back into the dark as the magic moved into him. His blood-soaked cloak fell from his shoulders, waving through the air like a fallen banner.

As my chest heaved with dissidence, my magic prickled against my skin as I waited for the right moment to attack, to know what to do.

“You don’t deserve to live!” Míra snapped before another bolt of magic, another attack moved across the air and right into the old man as the child ran toward him, obviously intent on ending him.

Heart thumping in my chest, pressing against me, eager to watch his end, I did nothing.

I stood and watched … waiting.

Míra sent another attack as she screamed, tears streaming down her face and mixing with the blood that caked over her skin to create haunting rivers of red that flowed over her cheeks, dripping against her filthy clothes in a pool of heartbreak.

“If I can’t have him, no one ca—”

Her words were cut short by the violent snap of Sain’s magic amongst the dark, a brilliant light burning my eyes as Sain fought back, the girl flying through the air at the impact.

She didn’t even scream. She soared, falling end over end before landing with a solitary thump of flesh against stone.

I cringed at the sound, jerking as the silence of the battle stretched around me.