Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(77)

I didn’t know how much more of this I could take.

Sighing, I slammed my head into the wall exactly as Ryland had, regretting the action immediately. That hurt.

“Now who is hurting themselves?” Ryland prompted, the anger still drowning his voice.

“I’m not hurting myself,” I retorted, my eyes burning with the ripple of the impact. “I’m trying to dislodge whatever it is in my brain that is causing this mess and get us out of this nightmare and back to reality.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy, Jos.”

“Nothing ever is.” This time, I did lay my head on his shoulder. I knew I shouldn’t, but right then, there was no monster left in him. There was only my best friend.

There were only two broken hearts.

“I loved her, Jos,” he admitted after a minute, his shoulders tensing into a rock underneath me.

I hadn’t expected that.

I tried to swallow, but it was all dry and prickly. The tension in his muscles moved through me, knotting my stomach.

“No, Ry.” I was barely able to get the words past my desert dry-throat. “You still love her. That doesn’t have to go anywhere.”

“But she does.”

His heartbreak echoed my own. It leached into his words and tensed in his chest, pressing against my own heart so heavily I was having trouble breathing again. The flood of tears came shortly after.

Our sobs were the only sound in the long hall, broken and pained and heart-wrenching until the loud slam of the door interrupted us.

All thoughts of tears were forgotten as Wyn began walking toward us, bottle and glasses in one hand, Thom leaning heavily on the other.

“Thom.”

The one good thing in all of this. The only good thing left, it seemed. We hadn’t lost everything.

Struggling to my feet, I raced toward them.

A wide grin spread over Thom’s own tear-streaked face. “Hey, Siln?.” His voice was soft and weak, his gaunt face pulling oddly under the smile.

I hadn’t noticed how much weight he had lost while he had been lying in the bed day after day. Now, seeing him standing, he was little more than skin and bones. His arms were sticks, the muscles and sinews popping out along his joints and neck like the seams of a puppet. Even his eyes seemed sunken.

I realized I was scared to touch him as I stopped mere inches away before I collided into him. It was something he noticed, and he smiled.

“What? No jubilant greeting for me?” Wyn taunted, her smile as strained as the rest of us, although her joke was unsurprisingly pure.

“I see you every day, Wyn, so don’t be greedy.” I contemplated hitting her then stopped when Ry stepped around me in an attempt to reach his brother, shock on his face.

“Hello again, brother,” Thom said, his voice just as weak as his body looked. “We meet again.”

Ryland chuckled uncomfortably before stepping forward, embracing Thom as though he had known him longer than the few days before Thom had been plunged into his never-ending sleep.

“As long as you stick around, I’ll be glad for it,” Ryland gasped out, his voice strained. “What brings you here? I didn’t expect to see you—”

“We need to see Dramin,” Wyn said, pulling my focus from the men and back to her, back to the bottles she was holding and the door that stood behind us. The door might as well have a spotlight on it.

“We need to say good-bye,” Thom continued.

Their words hit me hard in the chest, sending the stationary room into a spin as a sight tried to take control, tried to pull me down.

Pushing it away, I shook my head, willing the people before me to come back into focus. Still, my heart pounded in my chest.

I was not a fan of being in the same room with my brother, of seeing him one last time … of never hearing what he had been trying to tell me.

I didn’t think I could be there when they pulled that sheet down. I didn’t know if I could see that without it destroying me. I was positive it would.

I had seen Dramin’s funeral far too many times in sight. I knew the moment we all stood on the mountain side and placed that handkerchief on his face was a gateway to something bigger, and now it was here.

I still didn’t want to accept it.

Wyn interpreted the horror on my face as any good friend would. Her eyes softened as she placed her arm across my shoulder, the glasses clicking behind my back. “Don’t worry, Jos,” she whispered low enough that the men who were inches from us couldn’t hear. “We’ll wait. You don’t have to be there.”

Mi lasko? Ilyan’s voice filled my mind, his soft, soothing words pulling me from the horrors of what Wyn was planning.

Ilyan. I hadn’t been certain my stomach could wind itself up in heavier knots. I was wrong.

One word and everything in me was iron and ice.

“Is it done, then?” I asked aloud, forgetting that Wyn was in front of me.

She screwed up her face in confusion, but I waved it off, and her confusion was quickly replaced by an eye roll and a scowl of irritation.

I ignored her. I was getting pretty good at that, especially when I wanted to hit everyone.

Yes, I’ve just left the council.

I tensed, feeling his trepidation. I could feel the fear that was traveling alongside his magic.

I shivered.