Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(83)

Everything from hurting.

Dramin lay in the middle of everyone, the sheet pulling against the icy blast that made it hard to stand, hard to breathe. Everyone was huddled under blankets and ripped coats, gathered around my brother as though we had come to hear him tell a story.

Risha and Jaromir had stayed covered as we had buried them and said good-bye, their bodies wrapped up tightly. In two steps, though, Ilyan went to Dramin and ripped the loose covering off, leaving him lying there, freezing in the winter air.

Freezing.

“He’s cold.” I didn’t think anyone could hear me.

I had been to one funeral before these. I could still vividly see my grandmother lying in a casket, her arms folded against her stomach, against the pretty white dress that my family had chosen for her to wear. Her skin had been strangely pink, a lipstick that was far too red coating her lips. I could see the white satin of the casket and the rose-colored wood of the lid as they had closed it over her.

To me, that was death.

That was the end.

That was good-bye.

I had been wrong.

There was no fancy satin-lined casket. There was no fancy suit or gunk in Dramin’s hair to make him look like he was going to a dinner party and had fallen asleep on the way. There was no makeup to cover the death that had taken over his face, his eyes sunken in, his lips shriveled and black, his skin gray and stretched over sallow cheeks, and a jaw that had shrunken.

He looked forgotten.

There was no soul left in him. Seeing him like that, seeing the life stripped from him until he was nothing but a vacant shell, made me wonder why the mortals tried to make their dead look like there was life still in them.

Yes, there was something to seeing a body the way that you remember them, but then, they are just a person in a box.

This man, he was gone.

You could tell he was gone. All that was left was sallow gray skin stretched over bones. The life was already lost.

“Please, if you knew this Drak’s past, we ask you to join us, to step forward and help us to send his soul away.” Ilyan pulled a large bottle and a handful of white handkerchiefs out of a large burlap bag one of the others had handed him.

They were handkerchiefs I recognized at once, and I tensed, the muscles in my shoulders tightening as my already pained heart began to beat faster.

Thom nodded, his body shaky as he moved away from the support Wyn was giving him in an attempt to reach his friend. Wyn, realizing he couldn’t make it on his own, rushed to his side, flinging her arm around his waist in a bolster of support.

“You can be a man later,” she scolded, and a small chuckle escaped from the dreadlocked man.

“What am I now, a goldfish?” Thom retorted, reaching toward his brother as Ilyan put the six handkerchiefs in his outstretched hand.

“If you keep acting like that, then yes,” Wyn said.

They stood, Ryland joining them, as the handkerchiefs were passed between them, their smiles beginning to fade.

I stood, staring at them, at Dramin, at what was left of life, everything bathed in red.

I didn’t know how long I stood there before Ilyan came over, pulling me toward the others … pulling me toward my brother.

Wyn smiled sadly, her eyes swollen and red as she handed me a handkerchief, and the pace of my heart inside my chest accelerated. I was not quite sure what I was supposed to do with it or even if I wanted to touch it after everything I had seen.

Wyn moved back over beside Thom as, together, the four of them arranged their handkerchiefs in the palm of their left hands, the open palms extended out as though they were handing it to Dramin, yet he didn’t see them.

I expected the brutal wind to pick up the light squares of white cotton and send them into the air like a scarf at a train station, but they stayed, still and calm, magic holding them in place while hair, coats, and blankets kept flying.

Without a word, I followed their example, ready to secure the handkerchief with my magic. The moment it hit my palm, however, the white cloth sagged against my skin, any life that was in it, any life the wind would have given it, sucked dry.

It was as dead as everything else.

The parallels were heartbreaking.

My mind did not need the whispered words that Ilyan provided, his words and magic calm and soothing in my mind.

Thank you, I whispered in response, my voice shaking inside of his mind.

His lips twitched before his focus lifted to mine, his bright blue eyes sad as they locked me in place, holding my confusion and heartbreak captive.

I wanted to tell him it was okay to cry, but I knew at once it wouldn’t matter. He wasn’t trying to avoid crying because of who he was or because of some image he had to portray. He was trying not to cry because he knew Dramin wouldn’t want him to.

“Life is frail,” Ilyan began in Czech, his voice a lullaby that rang across the icy air.

With those few words, everyone’s attention turned to him. Those beside Dramin still stood with our hands outstretched.

“Our lives are strong, but they can be lost within a moment,” Ilyan continued, and everyone nodded in agreement of the stark truths Ilyan was presenting.

I was left in the dark, the same dark I had been swimming in for days. The uncertainty put me on edge, made the emotions harder to handle.

“We have lost this life,” Ilyan’s voice broke, tears beginning to stream down his face.

He wasn’t the only one.