Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(97)

As if it wanted me to be there.

“He’s north of here … miles away … in the cave.” The words came out choppy and broken as my sight began to clear, a faded image planting itself over the vile tent we stood in. I saw a shadow of my father sitting on a blood-covered throne.

“He’s in Imdalind.” Wyn put the few clues together as the faded image of Sain vanished from my view. “I know where he is. Come on,” she said.

Wyn didn’t wait for an answer before she pulled me from the tent and into the air, soaring through the Vil?s and toward the man she was so intent on killing.

I let her drag me, already looking for someone else; already looking for her magic.

For Ovailia.

I needed to find her.

I needed to destroy her before she had a chance to take Ilyan.

I needed to get there first.





SAIN





24





Pain spread over my back, the ends of my nerves erupting in pricks of fire that encompassed my muscles, pressing against me until I screamed. Warm fluid poured over my skin.

My scream was lost in the sound of the crowd, lost in their jeers. It echoed in my ears as I fell to the ground, my magic rushing inside of me as it tried to find out what had happened, as it tried to heal me.

Except, there was nothing to heal. Nothing but the heat of my magic as my shield protected me. Nothing but the bruise from the knife that the man behind me had attempted to stab me with.

They were superficial wounds that would heal in seconds. The man behind me, however, would not survive.

It took the crowd a second too long to realize the blood that poured down my back was not mine. That the knife of assassination was firmly planted in the chest of my assailant and not inside of me.

My pain-filled cry turned into a laugh as I whirled toward my attacker, shocked to see one of the poor boys from the pits behind me, his eyes wide. The child stared in horror at the hole in his chest. The gaping space was still raw and bleeding from where the knife had moved straight through. His eyes trembled as he looked from his hand to his chest and the blade that had embedded itself there.

He gasped, his breathing strained as his lungs began to collapse. Blood drizzled from his slack jaw before he fell to the ground, face first in the mud that was already soaked with his blood.

The cheers of the crowd silenced with his fall. The hollow thud of his collapse was the only sound.

The silence stretched before I laughed, one loud guffaw that drenched the stadium before they began to scream. Many of the weaker ones rushed to the exits, while many more jumped into the pits, anger fueling their rash and possibly foolish decision.

They circled around me, Chosen and Trpaslík alike, magic sparking off their skin in electric shocks that heated the cool air of winter that had found its way in.

Warning seen.

Challenge accepted.

The Chosen who surrounded me far outnumbered the Trpaslík, the dirty servants following orders as they had been trained. Good. I needed that obedience. This was going to be bloody.

The thought made my grin widen.

“Did you really think that would work, Bronislav?” I asked, finally turning toward the man in question.

Joy swept over me at the sight of the horror that encompassed his features. The usually strong Trpaslík wilted before me.

“One stab wound and you would be rid of me. After all you have tried, after all of your secret meetings and magical tests you have given me … That was your end game? To stab me?” The final words gushed out with a laugh.

Turning from him to look at all the people who had jumped into the pits, the angry horde that was slowly moving closer, I made eye contact with each of them. I laughed at their anger as though they were in on the joke.

“Does it matter?” Bronislav finally answered, his voice shaking. I knew he was trying to put on a show for the people who had led him into this disaster. “You are still outnumbered. Even with all the power in the world, you cannot win against all of us. Ovailia has left you. Even your bodyguard is cowering in the corner. There is no escape, Sain, so you might as well surrender.” He ended that with a smile.

Georg stood beside him with the same jeer on his face as many of the others in the stands. Their confidence in their win was disgusting.

“You think I am alone?” I asked, my magic prickling up my spine in irritation of Ovailia’s betrayal, tensing my muscles in an anger I wouldn’t be able to restrain much longer.

In a rush, it left me, spreading over them all like a silent disease, an infection that they could not escape. One by one, my magic found the Chosen. It wrapped around them, leeching into them. It connected with them. I connected with them.

Completely unknown to them, I had cast out my strings. I had set my trap. Now all I had to do was reel them in.

“You think I would go into this day, knowing what you had planned if it was as easy as ‘we have you outnumbered’?” I clicked my tongue, the sound a stab as the pride on their faces began to fade. “I already have you surrounded.”

Fear crept into them as they looked from door to door in expectation of some hidden army.

A woman near me jumped, ready for some unseen foe to barge through when a moan was issued from behind the wooden door. The fear in her was comical. They really did have tiny, unoriginal minds.

“Oh!” I said, pulling them along by the strings I had already wrapped around them. “Not there. No, no, they aren’t there.” My leer grew, a grin that made one of the Chosen closest to me jerk, the man ready to run.