Crown of Cinders

by Rebecca Ethington

  “I’m sorry. What do you want?” I asked, knowing there was no way she could understand me with the large appendage still caught between my teeth.

  “Let me go, or I’ll zap you.”

  I knew her too well by now to dismiss that the threat, so I loosened my jaw, letting her free.

  She scuttled away from me, retreating to the foot of the bed and away from any other possible foot attacks.

  “That was gross, Dramin.”

  Ah, so she was disgusted. Perfect.

  Laughing, I lifted a corner of the blanket, wiping whatever residue was left on my lips, regretting the need to swallow the now foot-flavored saliva.

  “Hmmm? And I suppose your stinky, little pigs against my jaw were meant as a sign of endearment, then?”

  She wrinkled her nose at my question. “Point taken.” Now she was trying not to laugh, something she was losing at.

  “I think I will accept victory for that, then.” A smug smile in place, I grabbed the volume Joclyn had previously been looking over, scanning the words in feigned interest. Unfortunately, it took me a second too long to realize that the book was upside down.

  Joclyn’s giggles broke free as I turned the book right side up. I still refused to look at her over the ancient type set.

  “If victory required tasting my foot fungus, then you can have it.” With a flip of her hand, Joclyn leaned against the wall by my bed, staring into the darkened room, the lone lantern flickering away in the. Haunting shadows licked against the dark corners, making Thom look more corpse-like than usual.

  Idly twisting and fiddling with the long, golden ribbon that was bound in her hair, she began to stretch her legs out again then thought better.

  “Smart move. I will have you know, child, that it was worth the victory, foot fungus and all.” Closing the book, I met her gaze, smile for smile. I leaned back, as well, grateful for the residual chuckles that moved over me, joy swelling in my chest.

  Joy was worth it, even if it did taste faintly of rotten fish and ocean sand. After all, joy came in unseen packages at times. You never knew what you were missing unless you took chances and opened every box.

  It might have been an odd box that I had opened, but the rewards were great … if only for this moment of happiness. Dismal misery had dwelled in this room since Thom and I had been placed in here months ago, but it had lifted in the last few minutes.

  Part of me wondered if he could feel it, too.

  He lay there, surrounded by plants and pills, covered in bandages and salves. His skin looked grayer by the day, hair dirtier, eyes and lips fading to blue.

  I doubted he would have shoved anyone’s foot in his mouth, but he would most certainly have something to say about it.

  That was the pain in loss—the silence that he had left behind.

  We sat in that silence, the flicker of lantern light dimming as the occasional chuckle became farther apart.

  “Do you ever scream really loudly, just to see if it will wake him up?” Joclyn asked out of nowhere.

  “I can’t say I ever have,” I said. Despite the idea crossing my mind a few times, I wasn’t about to admit that to her.

  For all I knew, she was going to try it, anyway. He did look like he was sleeping. At least, he would if I didn’t know for a fact that he slept all curled together with his butt in the air.

  You walked in on him once, and you never forgot the imagery, even if it had been forty years ago.

  This was a much better look for him.

  “I think I’m ready to try again,” Joclyn whispered.

  My heart skipped a beat as she pulled us back to the conversation we had been avoiding since Ilyan had left us for some much-needed sleep a few hours ago.

  I needed sleep, too. However, I wasn’t quite willing to admit to her how much mortality I had regained.

  Tensing, I leaned forward, my hand soft against her knee, pulling her focus back to me. Eyes glistening in the dim lamp light we sat in, I had been ready to give her a slight nod to prod her forward and support her. With that look, though, everything stopped, and my heart became a heavy weight in my chest.

  “I want to use Thom,” she said, her eyes alive with a frightening plan. My stomach spun as I realized what she was referring to. “He’s connected to his father. He’s connected to Ovailia. His sights might be able to get me past the barrier since that girl showed up and chased them all away, anyway. I need to see into Imdalind. I need to know what’s going on.”

  “Joclyn,” I stopped her, everything twisting around me in a tangle of fear and anger. Knowledge of the girl and why she was here temporarily took away my fear for what she had planned. “He’s not with us. You can’t.”

  “I’ve seen the burn on Ilyan’s arm,” she interrupted, looking away from me and back at Thom’s still body. “I know how you tried to see using me. I know how Ilyan pulled me out of that hell.”

  “Thom is not trapped in a dream, Silnỳ.” The use of the title made her flinch, but I plowed on, keeping my hand against her knee, visibly shaking, the reverberation of my heart making it hard to control. “He is sick.”

  “So was I. So were you. So was Míra. There was sight in all of us.” Leaping from the bed, she stood, hesitant to move closer, as though she were afraid to wake him.

  “There is sight in all of us,” I corrected her with the familiar phrase all Draks were raised with, knowing it was fodder for her.

  Sure enough, she turned back to me, that familiar coy smile on her face, one so similar to one of my younger daughters that it was hard to breathe. Her face was so clear in my mind. I didn’t know how I had missed the similarity between Joclyn and Tearney, all except for the eyes.

  “You always told me to follow my magic, brother. You always told me never to second-guess. It saved you. It knew about Sain. It brought Ryland back. And it’s telling me that there is something inside of Thom that I need.”

  One last glance and I knew couldn’t stop her. I couldn’t say anything that would hinder her plans. I didn’t want to. She was right.

  “If I leave you with anything in this life, I am glad it’s that,” I mused, my heart tensing at the truth Joclyn still didn’t know. “I am happy you listened.”

  “I do that sometimes,” she teased, grabbing a stone mug almost as old as I from my bookcase before carrying it toward her brother-in-law. Her dark hair fell down her back, the golden ribbon snaking over the floor.

  Sitting up farther, I threw my blankets off, dangling my legs over the side of the bed as my heart pounded and pulsed. I needed to go to her, to help her, to join her.

  However, with the way she held herself, the way she looked at him, she didn’t need me. She knew what she was doing, her magic guiding her.

  Her hands gentle, she lifted the blanket from over his feet, folding it away to reveal the yards of bandage wrapped skin that covered him. A single stretch of unscarred flesh was visible above his ankle, skin that would be burned and scalding in minutes.

  The deep sound of Thom’s breathing was the solitary sound as she stood, frozen before him, the mug and her hand inches away from their mark. Inches from sight.

  I tensed, forgetting how to breathe as I waited for her to connect with his Drak, to connect with his time.

  Eyes focused on Thom, she poured the murky water into her palm, letting it flow over her skin like rain before it dripped onto the floor in puddles at her feet. The sound filled the room before she pressed her palm against the skin on Thom’s ankle, connecting her magic, her flesh with his.

  Heart pounding from the memory of the strength of those connections, longing for the return, I gasped as she did. The frantic intake of air was so loud I expected Thom to sit up from the pain. Yet he remained still, as dead and lifeless as he had been for months, not even a flinch from the magic that now infiltrated him.

  “Joclyn,” I gasped, knowing she couldn’t hear me.

  Her eyes were already wrapped in the pitch black of prescience, staring into the future wit
h a power and regality that I had seen from the moment I had laid eyes on the panicked child in the snow.

  A power beyond even what I had seen in my father, seen in any Drak, emanated from her. It shimmered in the air like a wave of smoke, washing over me in a force that sucked the air out of my chest.

  I’d had hundreds of children, thousands of grandchildren. I loved them all, was proud of them all. But seeing my sister—no, seeing the queen before me—filled my heart more than any other.

  “There is darkness here,” she said, her voice lost in the depth of the Drak, hollow with the sight of the future.

  At the sound, I jumped out of my skin with a gasp and leaned forward, desperate to hear more, not caring if I fell off the rickety old bed.

  “It was created by him, and when the light comes, there will be blood. Be ready. The battle comes quickly.”

  I stared at the black of her eyes, trying very hard to ignore the tinge of jealousy that filled me, the desire to see again still burning a hole in my soul.

  The black faded as the ache began to devour me, pulling me out of my own self-deprecation.

  “What is it?” My question was little more than air whispered over the stagnant silence of the room.

  “There is so much death, Dramin,” she gasped, her hand falling from Thom’s ankle as she collapsed to her knees. “So much blackness.”

  Tensing, my heart ached at the sight of her breaking before me. I wished I could find a way to comfort her. I knew of the black she referred to, the hollow confusion her sight had become since that sight with Míra. It was yet another mystery to her ability that drove us both mad.

  “Is he dead?” I hated asking the question and was unsure what person I was even referring to.

  Edmund.

  Thom.

  Sain.

  Ilyan.

  Me.

  I knew she had seen them all. It could have been any of them. I had a feeling any of them would hurt.

  She pulled her shoulders up to her neck, dropping her head as she curled into herself. Time stretched between us as the silence grew, pressing against my chest and making everything spin.

  “Joclyn,” I whispered, my hands shaking against the edge of the bed, attempting to lift my weight so I could get to her.

  “Everything keeps shifting,” she finally responded, her voice dead. “Thom’s alive. Ilyan’s dead. Míra’s there. Wyn’s not. One thing is clear.” She looked at me, her meaning transparent.

  My death was consistent in her sights. Only my death remained the same. It was hard not to admit I was eager for that end. It was hard not to tell her how close that end really was.

  I knew of the sight she had seen with the girl, seeing her walk toward Thom. Joclyn, however, did not know what I had been told in that pure white sight about the girl, about how it would be my last duty to destroy her in order to save Thom.

  I was ready. I simply hoped he lived after whatever happened to me. I hoped he found happiness and lived the life he had earned.

  “And Thom?” I asked.

  “He is there more than not.”

  My tension eased as she nodded, pulling the blanket back over his now burned foot.

  “At least he has a chance.”

  I sighed, thinking of the memory of my last true sight, of the haunted voice, and of the little girl I was supposed to stop, whom I was supposed to kill.

  Joclyn nodded in agreement, her dark hair falling around her as her focus shifted back to Thom, his breathing still a slow, steady pace.

  “I thought knowing everything was a curse …”

  “Sometimes, the not knowing is worse,” I finished the thought for her, knowing for the first time in my life how both sides of this morose coin felt.

  I wasn’t convinced I wanted either.

  “And to think, you lived in such savagery for so long.” I smiled to myself, the joke not lost on her as I reached toward the large mug on my nightstand. The knowledge of the burn this would give me caused my hand to shake, yet I didn’t care.

  “How do mortals do it?” Joclyn teased before lifting her own mug to her lips, freezing halfway through the motion. “Thom is alive more than not …”

  “Excuse me?” I was concerned that she might have broken, stuck on one point as she was.

  “Dramin?” she asked, the use of my name pulling me out of the reverie.

  Dread filled me at the sight of the woman who was frozen before me, her eyes staring unfocused into the contents of her mug. For a moment, I thought she was trapped in sight. But no, this was a look of someone trapped in thought.

  “Joclyn?”

  “The cave … Has Thom ever been inside of Imdalind?”

  Narrowing my eyes at her, I racked my brain, trying to think of a time it could have happened, but there was nothing. Ilyan had kept us too well-hidden. It had been too big of a risk to have anyone see us. “No, why?”

  “They are all in the cave …” I could barely hear her as she turned away from me, her voice a mumble. “All of them …”

  I half-expected her to shout “Eureka!” and plant a flag.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just now … that cave …” she continued as if she hadn’t heard me, her voice broken in weird places. “Where Míra was … Everyone was there.”

  Her wide, fearful eyes met mine as she set her mug back down, jumping from the bed with a jolt. Not for the first time, I wondered if I should tell her what I had seen, guilt and regret pressing against me.

  “Yes, it’s the same time. Nothing else has changed.” Joclyn began to pace the room, her hand shaking as it ran through the long curls that had come free of her braid. The move made me smile, despite the dread not easing.

  “If you don’t give me some kind of clue as to what you are talking about, Joclyn, I may have to report you to your husband.”

  She shot me a look, a slight smile kissing the corner of her mouth as she pointed to her head, her meaning clear. She wasn’t talking to me.

  The knot of fear that was trying to take up residence in my gut eased a bit, while my irritation increased.

  I set my mug down with a little bit more of a bang than I had intended, and we both jumped, Joclyn turning toward me in shock.

  At least I had gotten her attention.

  “Other people are part of this conversation, my dear,” I said, leaning back against the wall as I folded my hands over my belly. “Although, I hope you will send Ilyan my regards.”

  She smiled in full then, rushing back to sit on the side of the bed, hair and ribbons streaming behind her in light and dark that contrasted beautifully in the dim lamp light.

  “Sorry, Uncle,” she whispered, taking my hand in hers. “It’s … I just realized Thom is inside of Imdalind. He’s there … with everyone else.”

  “This hardly seems to be an ah-ha moment,” I sighed, deflating a bit at the anticlimactic revelation.

  “Except, the before and after hasn’t changed.”

  My heart must have forgotten to stop beating.

  “The sights of before are the same …” she continued, “and of after … it’s that … it’s the players.”

  “Now I am really not following.”

  “There was something Sain said when we battled him in Prague. I don’t think I was ever meant to kill Edmund. I think the sight you had all those years ago was about Sain, not Edmund. I can still save him, Dramin.”

  “Which him?” I asked.

  Her eager smile faltered a bit before she glued it back in place. She jumped to her feet, rushing to the door without giving me a response. “I have to go … The council is going to start soon, and I need to see Ilyan …” She froze, her hand on the knob.

  Mine extended toward her as a weird longing overtook me, the relief from before forgotten.

  Joclyn must have felt whatever poison was in the air as I had, for she ran back to me, her arms wide. Her long, spindly limbs wrapped around my neck as she buried her face in my shoulder.

&
nbsp; I froze at the contact, my heart bumping painfully in my chest.

  She had hugged me before, but something about this was different. It sat on my chest like a lead weight, my own guilt accentuating it, making it hard to breathe.

  “I love you, brother,” she gasped, her voice muffled from where she was hiding, making me certain she was trying to hold back tears.

  “I love you, too.” The words flowed as my arms wrapped around her, pulling her against me.

  One squeeze and she broke free, sitting on the edge of the bed with a broad smile, her silver eyes gleaming. “You are the best brother in the world.”

  I didn’t know if she was teasing or being serious, not with the width of the smile on her face. Therefore, I simply chuckled, the sound filling me and lifting the last of the knots that had tightened in my chest.

  “That’s better than being your favorite brother.” I chuckled. “Then I would have been very disappointed in my competition.”

  She laughed as I did before moving across the room, pausing at the door with the promise to return after the council.

  Then it was just me and the invalid.

  For the first time in weeks, I was seriously considering yelling his name, perhaps even throwing something heavy on his head … just to see if it would wake him.

  I doubted it.

  “It’s you and me, kid. Until that kid Míra finds us, anyway.” Grumbling, I lay back, shifting the plethora of pillows into some weird nest shape. I was confident I looked like some weird animal, but it was quite comfortable.

  I didn’t know how long I slept, but it was deep and comfortable, tight and warm, like being wrapped up in those same pillows. I got lost in it, lost in laughing with my soul mate, walking hand in hand with her down the long path inside the forest that we always used to visit as our escape. When the kids got to be too much, when the world got to be too loud, we would walk through that forest. Escape the noise, escape the future, and just exist in our own reality, lost in the present.

  That was the hardest thing for a Drak: to exist in the present and not get lost in the future or in the past.

  This was a past I wanted to get lost in, however. This was a past I missed.

  “Your hair is longer, Dramin.” I could feel her touch against the back of my neck, the calluses that always lived on the tips of her fingers rough yet soft.