Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(74)

Sitting up in surprise, I looked at him lying there all weak and limp, his eyes clearly glistening with foreign tears. “Are you crying?” I asked, my mind running over every possible reason for them, from internal bleeding to possession to memory loss.

My heart beat more loudly with each one before he smiled, the wide grin out of place with the tears.

“Wait. Are you possessed?” I asked, my voice shaking with my own tears as his began to flow. “Because I have seen The Exorcist; I am fully schooled in what to do.”

“I’m not possessed,” Thom said with that gruff voice of his, his still strong chicken arms pulling me back into him, holding me against his chest. “I am allowed to be sad, Wynifred.” His voice rumbled through his chest and into me as I lay there, listening to his heart, feeling his magic press against his skin, my own warming within me at the close proximity. “Besides, I have cried before.”

I knew that. I had seen him. I had seen him cry and sob when it had happened, when she had been taken from us. Both then and in the months after.

The temporary comfort I felt vanished, the imagery of that moment, of those tears, hitting me hard in the chest. Her cries echoed inside my head, even without the blade, and I jerked.

Thom tightened his arms around me in what I knew he thought was a show of comfort. However, I was suddenly feeling very trapped.

“I saw her, you know,” he said, breaking the silence, digging the blade I knew I had been stabbed with a little deeper, carving out my heart bit by bit.

I was sure the bottom of my soul was falling out.

That sounded a bit like an Iron Maiden song. They were not my favorite.

“I saw her while I was stuck … wherever I was.” A seriousness that was unfamiliar to him took control of him, and I tensed, my heart beating so fast now that everything was going numb, the world around Thom and me spinning.

I ignored it, though, keeping my focus on the way his hand felt against my back, on the sound of his heart. Everything around us was going topsy-turvy, but those were constant. Now they needed to stay that way.

“I would hear your voice, feel your magic, feel your hand against mine, and then I would dream of you and Rosy and even Cail. But not psychopath Cail. Cail the way he used to be. Cail when he was my friend—”

“It was the blade,” I said, staring at an old brown stain on the sheet that was stretched over Dramin’s part of the room, the white cotton splattered with red.

The imagery was too much, and I sat up, hovering over him, swallowing in a desperate attempt to get the lump out. Part of me wished I could stick the information in his head like Jos and Ilyan were able to. This whole show and tell thing was a tad bit painful.

I was covered in badges of survival, covered in reminders of everything I had done.

“You got a piece of the blade?” he asked, and I nodded.

His face lit up as he pushed himself into a sitting position, the bed creaking as he leaned against it.

I wanted to tell him to lie down or even force him to. What I was about to tell him was going to be a sucker punch, not the story of success that I already knew he expected it to be.

From the moment we had watched Rosaline die, from the moment we had watched Edmund create the jagged piece of blood and stone from the purity of her soul and the magic in her blood, it had been our task to retrieve that monstrous thing.

To retrieve it and to free her.

After so long, I had found a piece.

“I don’t have it anymore.”

Sucker punch! Achievement unlocked.

His face fell, his brow furrowing in what I knew at once was more anger than disappointment.

I sighed. I never really liked facing Thom when he was angry. I would rather charm a cobra.

“I found it inside of Ryland,” I plowed on before more rage could explode out of him. “I removed it when we escaped the massacre, right at the beginning. It’s probably the only reason he’s not such a mess anymore. Edmund was using it to control him.”

“Edmund was using it …”

I nodded. My lips were a tight line as his jaw snapped closed, the hollows of his cheeks more pronounced than ever.

“I should have known better, Thom. I was stupid. If Edmund was using it that way, I should have known what was coming for me.” I sighed, the sound loud and long as I attempted to expel the extra stress that was building up in my gut.

It didn’t help.

“I could hear her voice all the time: during the day, while I slept. But it wasn’t some pretty song or memory; it was her death … always her death. I used to get dreams about it before, but then I didn’t know what they were. I didn’t know what I was seeing. Talon always told me it was another life …” I smiled, the honesty in what he had said hitting me. “This was so much worse than that.”

Thom was silent. I couldn’t even look at him. Admitting that flooded me with far too many memories of that night, of watching my little girl go through that, of Thom running away.

It hurt too much.

Pressing my lips into a tight line, I steeled myself, knowing I needed to continue. “I would put the blade in your hand when everyone was asleep, part of me hoping that maybe you would also hear her, that maybe you could hear the good thing. Maybe it would wake you up.” Shaking my head in embarrassment, I leaned against the footboard, the creaking of springs and frame loud in the silence.