Crown of Cinders

by Rebecca Ethington

  “Are you watching?” my own voice asked again as the lights in the hall flickered with an explosion.

  With each flash of light, a tall woman appeared, shimmering in and out as she had in my nightmares years before.

  My mother.

  “No.”

  My heart stopped beating as my mouth went dry, the flickering leaving me staring at her bloodied face. Her feet were twisted on the cracked tiles she stood on, surrounded by the long curls of wallpaper that were pulling away from the walls.

  A scream pressed against my chest as I tried to run from her. Run from my mother for the first time in my life.

  She looked the same as she had the last day I had seen her, down to the chipped yellow nails that I had watched go limp as a trail of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

  “NO!” The scream found its way out as my gut tensed and ripped in two. “No.”

  “Are you watching?” This time, it was my mother who spoke, the words haunted and hollow before an explosion rattled around us, pulling the sight right to the room I had left more than an hour before.

  My brother slept curled in his bed, his blanket tucked around him like he was a toddler.

  “Are you watching?” a familiar little voice asked.

  I turned, expecting to face Míra, only to come face to face with her brother.

  Dramin’s bedroom fell away to reveal the dark hallway outside of Dramin’s room.

  Jaromir walked amidst the dark, flinching as an explosion rattled the halls around him. The same explosion rattled my dreams and alerted me to the haunting reality I now faced.

  This was now.

  Another explosion shook both of us. The boy flinched further as tears streamed down his face. Míra followed behind him with a grin so sly it sent shivers down my spine.

  “Are you watching?”

  The sound of Jaromir’s steps was hollow in my ears, an odd squelching noise following each step. He walked as though he were dead, forward, unseeing. Until …

  At once, the vision shifted, the children jerking around and moving forward and back as though they were being pulled by a string, as though the whole sight was being rewound.

  “Here, they walk,” my voice said, the sudden change in direction pushing a fear against my gut.

  “Are you watching?” The depth of my voice came again, pulling me right back to children.

  But they were no longer walking in the hall.

  Jaromir lay facedown in a pool of crimson, the wet spilling away from him like molasses, seeping into his nightshirt like a sponge, bright red. Míra walked away from him in tears, magic sparking on her fingers as she talked to herself, as she screamed and cried. Cried out to Jaromir. Cursed and yelled at him. But she didn’t turn to help her brother. She didn’t try to save him. She merely walked past.

  “Here, they fall.”

  Míra walked right toward Dramin’s door as everything rattled, stretching her hand across the dark to clasp the knob I myself had closed minutes before. That I had left, foolishly thinking those behind would be safe.

  A door I knew at once would never be.

  “Are you watching?”

  The images faded as the screams of the hall I had left behind filled my ears. My heart raced in my chest as the panic the prescience had been blocking infected me.

  “Are you watching?” I said to myself, sitting straight up as reality returned to me.

  Ryland’s worried face stared right into mine as he sat next to me, protecting me from the battle that was still rampant.

  He was not the only one.

  A wall of Skȓíteks and Chosen surrounded us, their backs to us as they battled.

  For a split second, I wondered if we were winning or losing, but I couldn’t ask. I didn’t have time. I didn’t have time for anything.

  Right now, she was walking toward the door.

  “She is moving,” I said to Ryland.

  He looked at me in confusion, obviously trying to decide if I was still in sight or not.

  “Jos?” he asked, his voice shaking. “Are you okay?”

  “Look at me, Ry!” I snapped, not caring about his question. “Míra, she is out. Risha, Jaromir, Dramin, Thom—they are all in danger. You have to move.”

  His eyes widened for a second, fear turning into anger as he stood, his shoulders square as he muscled his way past the circle of people.

  “Ilyan?” I said aloud, hoping he could hear me. “Did you hear that?”

  I did.

  “Good. Tell Wyn.”

  With that, I left with a small pop . The booming of my heart moved along with me as I moved to another battle.

  One that I would win.

  I had to.

  12

  The pop of my return was lost in the screams that echoed inside the dark hall. The only light in the ominous pitch came from the long streams of dawn that permeated the windows in strips of light and dark.

  Building shifting and trembling around me, dust and rocks sprinkling over me, the beams shook and shivered from the battle I had left behind. Regardless, I barely noticed anything beyond the heavy galloping of my heart in my throat, beyond the screaming that my magic was already rushing toward. It extended across the hallways and broke through walls, right into the room Míra had already reached. To my brother who had tackled her to the ground.

  “No,” I gasped aloud, and Ilyan’s heart beat rushed into my chest as he felt my panic, as he saw the scene inside my mind.

  Hurry, Joclyn! he yelled, his voice filling me as I rushed down the hall, tripping over my own feet in my desperation.

  I turned the corner of the wide hall and stopped1 in place, everything freezing around me.

  Dramin’s yell echoed beyond the door to my left, his panic clear, but I barely heard it. I barely heard anything beyond the heaving gasps of my lungs as I tried to take in air.

  There, in the middle of the hall before me, was the rigid body of Jaromir, exactly as I had seen in sight. The haunting reality smacked me in the face.

  Jaromir lay facedown in the hallway, surrounded by a pool of crimson.

  Ilyan, the word was numb in my mind as my heart clenched, magic aching as I felt nothing from Jaromir. No whisper of the power he used to hold. No sound of his breath.

  Nothing.

  My eyes stung as I stood there, unable to pull myself forward, unable to move toward … where he was lying there … just as my mother had.

  Just as she had died.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Joclyn, listen to me, Ilyan soothed into my mind, his magic wrapping around my soul as he felt the desperation gripping me. Even though I could clearly see him fighting at least three Chosen, he was with me. He was with Jaromir. I’m sending Etma to him. You have to go, Joclyn!

  His voice was a drum beat in my head as Míra screamed, her laugh mixing with Dramin’s cries, pulling me out of the hell the sight of Jaromir’s body had trapped me in.

  Pulling me right back into the hell that was waiting for me.

  “I won’t let you!” Dramin yelled as I threw open the door.

  His emaciated body tackled the girl to the floor, a flash of imagery before her magic exploded in a wave of white. It sped away from her, throwing Dramin across the room and tossing me back across the hall I had left, right into the stone wall behind me.

  Dramin’s shout mixed with mine as we both impacted with stone and glass and who knew what else.

  As I slid down the stone to land on the floor in a heap, my back aching, the strength of her attack rang in my ears like a bell, blocking out the sound of battle with a hollow noise that pressed against my skull. The pain that was already unyielding against my spine increased against the joints in my neck and shoulders. I tried to shake it off, but everything swelled, my heart aching, my panic rising.

  “Don’t stop me, old man!” Míra screamed amidst the fog.

  The numbing buzz fell away with the pain, leaving me heaving as I tried to reach Dramin.

&nb
sp; While I gasped from the movement, the pain in my back turned into a live wire, jolting through me. I couldn’t stay here and wait for my magic to repair whatever damage Míra had done. I could feel it already trying.

  “I have to do this!”

  I could have sworn Míra was crying, but I didn’t care. I pushed myself up, my magic surging as I stumbled back into the room. My magic ripped the door off its hinges in my desperation to reach Dramin.

  Bottles and dishes, plants, and books were scattered over the floor. Thom’s bed was upturned, the man who had inhabited it for months nowhere to be seen, hidden behind the straw and feathers that had been ripped out of his mattress, scattered around them in waves of white. I saw nothing. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said it was snowing. I would have thought it was … if it weren’t for the red.

  It was sprayed over the floors and walls as though someone had taken an ax to a man. The color was so bright, so present that I had no way of knowing who it belonged to … until I saw Dramin lying on the ground underneath Míra, soaked in it.

  “Try to stop me!” Míra screamed at him as she sent another attack into his chest.

  His frail, magicless body took the full brunt, his scream ripping through me, pressing my heart into my throat.

  I lost it.

  “Don’t touch him, little girl!” I screamed as I ran toward her, my magic crashing against her as I ripped her off my brother then threw her across the room.

  She screamed in surprise, hair and limbs tangling as she flew end over end before freezing as she impacted with the wall.

  As though someone had hit the pause button, she froze, and my magic dropped from her as she took control, falling to the ground like a cat.

  With a snap, she looked up at me, blood streaked over her face, down her hair, staining her teeth red as she smiled at me. Her eyes were a hard glare before she countered. The snap of her magical attack zapped through the air in a shock wave.

  With the tiniest flick, I thwarted her, my magic pressing against her and sending the wave back.

  She fell to the ground with a shriek, dodging the attack and letting the magical pulse slam into the wall behind her in a blast that shook the room with a roar.

  Dramin’s carefully tended bookcases exploded from the impact, sending shards of burning paper, dust, and broken pieces of mugs flying into the air. They showered us in a cascade of flame and smoke, paper and feathers burning against the dim light of dawn like haunted fairy lights. And the air was on fire. The scent was a campfire drenched in the iron smell of blood. The burning embers of paper that fell around us increased that.

  “I should have trusted my sight about you.” My voice was as hard as her eyes, the anger flowing inside of her glaring back at me. “I should have seen you for what you are and destroyed you when I had the chance!”

  “Trusted your sight?” Pain gripped her voice as she pulled herself up to standing, placing herself between me and my brother.

  The man moaned as he rolled over in an attempt to push himself into a sitting position, blood spraying from his mouth with a single cough, with a desperate gasp of air.

  My heart tensed in a fear beyond what I knew. A desperate need to reach him, to heal him took control, but this girl stood in my way.

  She needed to go.

  “Your sight! I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for your stupid sight!” Míra’s magic flared as mine did.

  Her power shot from her hand with more strength than I would have assumed her to have. More power than a girl her age should have. Then again, I was reminded when the pain from the blast moved into me, burned me, sending my voice into a scream in the tiny space, that her magic wasn’t all her own.

  It was Edmund’s, too.

  The darkness in her magic ripped into me, a weight of familiarity infecting me—infecting my brain. Memories and panic rushed through muscles and nerves, burning and tensing everything as I stumbled back, forcing myself to remain upright as I faced a tiny reincarnation of the man I was supposed to kill. The man I was ready to kill.

  Pushing the emotions away, I tightened my jaw, narrowing my eyes as I faced the tiny girl. Her smile was wide, whereas her eyes were sad.

  Joclyn! Ilyan’s voice rushed into my mind, his concern a warmth against my soul that began to soothe away the agony that was infecting me.

  I let him in. I let him fill me, saying nothing. My focus was on Míra, on her rage, my magic bristling, ready for whatever else would come.

  “You all said there was good in me. You’re liars! There isn’t any good in me, not anymore. Edmund saw to that!” Míra screamed as another attack shot through the air, sending feathers and papers flying again.

  I deflected it, but not fast enough, not before it pushed against me, sending me stumbling back over the room, against the opposite wall, sliding to the floor beside Thom’s upturned bed and Thom, who lay underneath it, blood drizzling from his mouth.

  “No,” I gasped, my exclamation unheard against Míra’s secondary scream of excitement.

  With another jolt, she attacked.

  I lunged behind Thom’s bed in an attempt to dodge it, my heart beating a million miles an hour as my focus shifted to Thom, to the limp and cold man who now lay beside me.

  “I’ll kill whoever I need to so I can do what Edmund asked of me! That’s all that’s left for me now. You took everything else away,” I heard Míra scream, but my focus was on Thom.

  I pressed my hand against his cheek, pushing my magic into him and quickly checking for life, for magic, for anything.

  “Your death is all that’s left of me!” Dramin’s scream rose above the ruckus of the room, taking me by surprise.

  I lifted my head in time to see him slam into her like a torpedo, sending them both down to the ground with a thwack.

  Blood dripped down the back of Dramin’s neck as he held her there, his hands moving fast as he grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head. Little eruptions of magic fired all around them.

  “I was told to kill you in order to save Thom. And I will! With my last breath, I will!” Dramin continued to yell as I ducked back down toward Thom, sending my magic into his heart as one little pulse of electricity.

  The beat answered back, his magic a whisper.

  A whisper more than what it had been for the last few months.

  “Thom?” I asked aloud, confused by what I was feeling, by the way his heart rate sped up at the sound his name. That wasn’t normal, not for him recently.

  “Don’t worry, old man; I will gladly take it!”

  Míra’s scream pulled me from Thom as her magic ricocheted across the room.

  Thom’s bed was pushed against us as I cowered behind it. The room filled with green light, and my gut twisted, knowing where the attack had landed.

  His scream was loud in my ears as he flew into the air before hitting ceiling and wall then finally falling to the floor with a clatter of metal and stone.

  “No!” I screamed, my magic flaring as Ilyan’s power flooded me. His ability rushed to my heart as the warmth of the air seeped into my skin to warm me. I could feel the power infiltrating me, bolstering me as the bond that connected us began to move closer.

  I am coming, mi lasko, he whispered.

  The image of the courtyard flashed inside my mind before I swatted it away, jumping over the bed like I was in high school gym class and rushing toward Míra. In two steps, my magic hit her, slamming into her gut and picking her up off the ground, blasting her into the wall across from us, the same as she had done to Dramin.

  She deserved it.

  Míra screamed, her magic moving to counter in a weak attack that I easily blocked. She stayed pinned there, staring at me, struggling against the bind, but she was stuck. The tears you would expect from a child her age finally replaced the monster the child had become. In that moment, she looked human, but I couldn’t trust that.

  My heart ached as I walked toward her, forcing myself to remember that she was E
dmund’s servant and not the child I wanted so much to protect.

  “I gave you a chance, and this is what you do to me?” I was angry. I knew it, and I didn’t care.

  I stretched my magic toward the girl, and Ilyan’s intertwined with mine, locking her in place. I was ready to destroy her or restrain her; it didn’t much matter which at this point as long as I did it fast. I didn’t have much time.

  Dramin was in trouble. He was huddled on the floor, repeating three words like a broken record. The needle had stopped right at the end of the song, not knowing how to continue.

  “What I do to you?” she raged, her body shaking as she attempted to fight against me. Her magic was pressed against my barrier like a battering ram, the incessant pressure painful in my chest, but I kept the shield up, holding her place. “You think I did something to you? I did something for you!”

  “This is not the way—” I began, but she cut me off with a snap, her magic slamming into mine so hard that I was forced to take a step back. Everything strained as I kept the barrier against her, barely keeping her in place.

  “He wanted me to help you!” she yelled, fully crying now. “I had to do it!”

  “You hurt my brother!” I yelled back like I was a child. My heart ached with the need to get to him, to help him, but I was trapped, attempting to battle the tiny assassin. Nevertheless, it was no use. She was too strong. “You were trying to kill him!”

  “Your brother! I hurt your brother?” she screeched, her anger mixing with her magic in a dangerous concoction. “I had to kill mine, all because he wanted me to save you people! And now he’s gone! Now you can all burn!”

  Her last words erupted with anger as I felt Ilyan rush through the door behind me, Wyn’s magic following close behind. Ilyan’s magic flared, rushing against the girl. Her eyes flitted between us in renewed horror. Wyn, however, rushed right to Thom, her strangled breaths hissing inside the room as she dropped beside him, her panic and fear clear in the broken sound.

  “Míra!” Ilyan raged, his voice shaking the rafters as he took control of the bind I had placed on the child. His magic pressed against mine as he walked toward the girl who was still held against the wall.