Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(93)

“This is where I die,” he said, his voice as dead and lifeless as hers.

“No!” I bellowed, the word ripping through me again and again as the sight began to move, down more halls, deep into the dark and to that same pool I had seen time and time again, the older version of me standing at the banks.

“This is where we change the world.” She said, her voice the same hollow that had been present in my sights since the cathedral came done.

She left in a flash as a roulette of moments sped over my mind before stopping on the static-filled images of the past: to Edmund who stood in a white robe before Sain, the vile man cowering before Edmund, his laugh booming inside my mind. Slowly, Sain stood, Edmund’s eyes widening as the pathetic man grew before him. A bright red blade glinted in his hand before he plunged it into Edmund’s chest, Edmund’s scream following as the sight shifted, fading to a dimly lit hall and Edmund’s corpse walking along a stage.

Edmund’s call of death faded, the sound overrun by shouts of fear. The sight shifted to his people, to their fear, before the images faded. The shouts increased as the images grew from the black into the same stadium I had seen before. This time, it was full of people. It was full of destruction.

Everyone fought against each other while Sain stood in the middle, laughing. He laughed as the people he was supposed to rule fell to their deaths. He laughed as he forced Chosen to step before him, wastefully ending their lives in an attempt to save his.

The stadium rumbled with an explosion then, and my sight flashed alongside the blast with a single image of the pool, of the blue light. My heart and magic reacted with the same desperation as before.

Sain’s laugh echoed through the still silence of the space, banging inside of my head before the black returned. Everything came back into focus, leaving me staring at the blue sky from where I lay, snow dusting over me.

Ilyan, Wyn, Thom, and Ryland looked over me with concerned expressions. Ilyan was angry rather than upset. He knew I was okay, and from the anger clear on his face, he knew what I had seen.

“Are you okay, Jos?” Wyn asked, her voice uncharacteristically freaked. The panic she stared at me with made it seem like I was dead.

But I wasn’t, not yet.

Without a word, I scuttled away from them, gasping for breath in an attempt to regain my bearings, desperate to put the onslaught of information I had received together in my head.

The icy air bit at my lungs as I heaved, my chest burning with each breath. I focused on the pain as everything fell into place, knowing exactly what we were heading into and not liking it.

Ilyan! I yelled into his mind.

The man scuttled after me, wrapping the fur I had left behind around my shoulders. It was something I was instantly grateful for. The chill of winter was too much for me.

Mi lasko. His concern was obvious. His touch was soft as he reached for me, but his eyes were hard, his jaw set.

I could feel the strength of his fear and anger through our connection, the replay of the sight consuming him.

“You saw?” I gasped, desperate not to have to replay it all for him yet panicked he might have seen too much.

I didn’t need him to see his own blood-covered visage. I hadn’t needed to see it, either.

“I saw enough,” Ilyan said, the source of his emotions becoming clear. “My father is dead.”

I nodded in acknowledgment, letting my memories of the sight flicker through him until he landed on the one I couldn’t shake: of Ovailia and Míra in that dark room, plotting his death.

We messed up. It was hard to keep the tears at bay. It was hard to admit what that choice really meant for us.

For him.

It will be all right, my love, he whispered into my mind, running his hand over my hair as he held me.

His body was tense and fearful against mine. His heartbeat plunged inside of me in a quick staccato beat, fueled by his fear and anger. The power in this man twisted through me, igniting my magic in a heat that burned the air.

“It will be,” I said to myself, my voice swept away by the wind as I leaned against Ilyan. The two of us, bundled together, sitting on the cold ground.

The others came to us in a rush. Ryland and Thom looking troubled. Wyn, however, wasn’t even looking at us. Her focus was passed us, over the small outcropping of hills, toward the broken city that was alive with screams.

“Guys,” she whispered, her voice dead, “I think we might have a problem.”

Heart lodged in my toes, I turned, the wind blowing my hair over my face, over the ruins that were now a battlefield.

Smoke rose from the city in long tendrils, the gray plumes masking the Vil?s that swarmed from place to place, heading right for us.

“We are shielded,” Ilyan announced as he stood, his magic emanating from his skin with a powerful pressure. The strength hit against me, pulling me in. “They cannot see us.”

“Thanks, bro,” Thom said with a grunt. “I’d rather not go through that again.”

“Mortals are idiots,” I growled as I jumped to my feet, glowering at the city as if it had offended me. They kind of deserved it. “We ripped apart the only thing that was keeping them safe. They should be running away.”

They had started a battle as we were about to go into another one.

“No, no, no,” Wyn moaned, breaking past Ilyan and me to get to Thom as a Vil?-laden helicopter nose-dived into the city.