Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(70)

He smiled, obviously pleased with himself. “Good.” He released my arm, and I teetered on my heels, resisting the urge to rub the pressure out of the skin. “Now take this girl and dispose of her. I have no use for her.”

Sain gave me one more look before he turned and exited, leaving Damek and I standing alone in the hall, surrounded by skeletons.

I looked from the girl who lay lifeless on the floor, to the man, the once powerful servant who was now as oppressed as broken as I. The same death in me as clear as it was in him, I would say he was already dead if it wasn’t for the fire I saw in his eyes. The same one that was alive in me.

“Are you going to play?” Damek asked, all sign of shake gone from his voice.

I stared at him, eyes glancing at the door, at what was left of the child and knew what faced me-the same fate I would find no matter my path, it seemed.

It was blood either way.

I nodded.





RYLAND





16





For months, the hospital had been full, healing the Chosen and Sk?íteks who were injured on raids. The air had been filled with the smell of plants and salves and tea. Now the injured had been cleared out to make room for the dead and dying.

The beds were covered with white sheets, the air saturated with the overwhelming scent of blood.

This is a familiar scent for you, isn’t it, son?

Blood was everywhere, staining the floor and dripping from sheets. It covered my chest and hands, infecting my clothes and drying the cotton against my skin in a rigid cast. It dripped from my sagging curls and down my face, mixing with the silent tears that wouldn’t stop.

I didn’t even try to clean the blood, just as I didn’t try to stop the tears.

You should.

Are you so weak you would cry like this?

Ignoring the voice, I squeezed the tiny hand that was clutched in mine, expecting to feel the tiny pressure of his.

There was nothing. The fingers were cold and rigid beneath mine. Jaromir was already gone, a gray sheen painted over his skin, his lips and eyelids a haunted shade of blue.

I stood beside him, staring at the bed right beside his, at the Sk?ítek healers who were rushing to-and-fro in a mad attempt to save a life.

Her life.

Risha’s.

I couldn’t see her through the wall of activity except for the waves of strawberry curls that fell over the side of the bed. The usually soft curl in her hair was damp and sagging from her blood. The same blood that covered me.

It covers you because you were too weak to do what you needed.

Too weak to do what I asked …

No. Weakness does not live in this moment, Father. Muscles tightening, I stopped the voice with a snap, not willing to let it take over. Not now, not after everything Risha had taught me.

I needed to take control.

For her.

For me.

“We need a stronger salve,” I heard one of the healers say, her voice tense, and the lanky man in front of me turned to the nightstand between us.

“Does anyone have any deadwood bark?” the lanky man asked, his hand moving fast as the smell of lemon grass overtook the smell of blood while he began to grind something in a mortar.

“I need stronger magic to stop this bleeding,” said another, their voice panicked. “I can’t knit the skin back fast enough.”

“Where is the queen?”

“She said she is coming.” My voice was as dead as I was, one hollow note of sound that hit against my heart painfully.

A few of them looked up at my response, their lips pressed into the same tight line before they went back to work.

Everything was distorted by my tears, everything except the profile of Risha’s face that peeked out from between the quickly working Sk?íteks. Eyes stinging, I stared, crippled by the sight of blood that seeped from her nose and mouth, as well as her eye socket that was sunken and inflamed.

I swallowed, my throat a painful lump that restricted my breathing. Then I gasped, suddenly uncertain if I would ever get enough air again.

“She’s coming,” I repeated, willing it to be true, although I knew as all the others did that she might be a while. I knew where she was … who she was with.

Jaromir wasn’t the only one who had died.

My heart tensed as my hand tightened around his, his little fingers as stiff and cold as ice.

“Please, Joclyn, hurry. Please,” I growled to myself past clenched teeth.

My heart raced inside my chest with the fear that the healers who flittered and fluttered around the girl I had so quickly fallen in love with were right, that they couldn’t do much without Joclyn’s aid.

But the fear was more than that. It was the fear of what I had said—the terrible admission that I had fallen in love. I had fallen in love with this girl who now lay on a bloodstained sheet, fighting for her life. I was in love with her. And I was about to lose her.

It would figure that I would fall in love, only to lose it again.

No.

I couldn’t think like that.

I wouldn’t.

Pinching my eyes together in an attempt to block out the sound of the Sk?íteks, to block out their panic, I focused on the last time I had seen her, how soft her hand had been against mine. How warm she had been. How much I had wanted to kiss her. How much I wanted to feel her lips against mine.