Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter ThreeEvaline

Chapter Three

Evaline

A fter dinner, Sage and Lauden retired for the night, and Dean walked me to my door. He tried to convince me to let him stand guard outside of my room overnight, but I refused.

“That’s preposterous, you need sleep too,” I said, but he shook his head, his light brown curls bouncing back and forth with the movement.

“Not really.”

I dropped my eyes to the floor. “You know what I mean. And it’ll look suspicious to any Correntians who spot you that you’re standing guard outside of my door. We don’t need to draw any more attention to ourselves.”

“You know that Sorcerers live in the Madierian Kingdoms too, right? No one will think it strange that you’re here if they think you’re just a normal Sorceress.”

I did know that Sorcerers lived among the Madierian Kingdoms because I’d grown up in one. But I also knew that they usually didn’t use their magic out in the open, and that generally only close friends knew their identities.

I’d never met one in Neomaeros, even though my father had assured me some lived there. Looking back now it was clear that he likely tried to keep me from meeting any of them to protect me from the truth of my magic, of my curse. Especially since my mother did not want him to teach me about my magic.

“I just don’t want to draw unnecessary attention,” I said, and left it at that.

Dean nodded. “Well, then I will see you in the morning. Goodnight, and yell if you need anything.”

I slept as much as I could, but the excitement over what I might find out kept me up most of the night. I imagined what Charlotte might say, and if all of it was true, hoped that Kovarrin would let us back into Rominia without issue.

Morning broke through the skylight windows faster than I would’ve liked and I had to wipe the sleep from my eyes. Once I remembered where I was, I jumped from the bed and raced to get ready. I dressed in an outfit nearly identical to what I wore the day before, save for a new pair of black leather pants and a different long-sleeved undershirt. I donned all the same weapons and wove the wire back into my braid. I knew Correnti should be safe, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

I grabbed the handle of the door, swinging it open to meet the others at breakfast, and found Dean standing there. I shook my head and laughed.

“Were you listening and waiting for me to come out?”

A blush burst onto his ivory cheeks and he shrugged. “I promised to protect you, so I will.”

“Even on the walk from the bedroom to breakfast? In a guarded castle? In a warded kingdom?” I was poking fun, but he looked to the ground as we began walking and pursed his lips.

I realized that he still felt responsible for Maddox’s change.

“Dean, you don’t need to feel any guilt over what happened. All of us know that it wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault,” I said softly, and he winced.

“I appreciate you saying that,” he said quietly. “I just wish I believed it myself.”

A beat of silence passed, and I frantically searched my mind for any topic to ease the air of sadness that his words carried.

I cocked my head then. “Do you mind if I ask you how old you are?”

He looked up at me with surprised eyes. “No one’s asked me that in ages,” he said, before shaking his head. “But of course I don’t mind. I’m ninety-five. Why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “Wyott said you weren’t mated, and Maddox always said that most find theirs within their first century.”

He stiffened as I said it and I immediately panicked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything—”

He waved a hand. “It’s no problem.” His face grew somber as we drew closer to the dining room. “He was right, though.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as we turned and saw the light from the dining room come into view.

He turned to me, gray eyes softening. “Almost all of us find them in our first century.”

Before I could respond, we entered the dining room and my eyes landed on Sage pouring herself tea.

It wasn’t long before we were finishing breakfast and making our way out of the castle.

“That’s going to take hours to navigate,” Dean said, looking up at the steep incline leading up the side of the mountain. From where we stood, we couldn’t even see James and Charlotte’s home. We had only been directed to hike up the path and to turn left when the road forked.

Lauden sighed as he stared up, his short brown hair fluttering slightly in the wind, then turned to Sage. “This would be a great time to test the strength of your magic and create a staircase for us to climb.”

She snapped her head toward him and narrowed her eyes. “I’m not going to deface a mountain in a kingdom we don’t even belong to so that you don’t have to worry about slipping,” she hissed.

I’d never seen her talk to him like that, and part of me wondered if she was as attached to him—and all his misgivings—as I originally thought.

Lauden turned his gaze on me with raised brows.

“No,” I clipped, rolling my eyes.

The rest of the hike went by like that, including a few trips along the way. We walked two by two, Sage and I in the front, with Lauden and Dean behind us. Though, Dean helped catch the rest of us when we slipped on the ascent.

It did take a couple of hours until we hit the fork in the road but once we turned left the path leveled out.

We finally took a break and I thanked the Gods for it. My lungs felt as if a thousand knives stabbed through them with each heavy breath, the bite of the cold air stinging them.

“Oh, Gods,” Sage whispered between breaths, and I turned toward her. She was looking out over the kingdom below us, lips parted and eyes wide. I turned to look at the same time Dean did beside me, and felt the air slip through my lips.

It was beautiful.

The kingdom was far below us but close enough that the winding of the main road could be seen cutting the kingdom up. Roofs lined the walk over a mix of both shops and homes. There were forests made up of tall pines that encircled most of the kingdom, just inside the walls. In one heap of the trees, a pond could be seen glistening.

My eyes moved over it all, but then moved up.

And that was where the real beauty could be seen. To the right, the Madierian, as far as the eye could see. To the left, mountain peaks, just as vast and wonderous as the ocean, but capped with snow.

Kembertus had been close to mountains, but you couldn’t see them from the city. We’d endured the weather that swept down from them, but never got to witness their grandeur. But here, that was all there was.

“It’s vast and interesting, I get it, but so is a tidal wave and you wouldn’t stand around looking at that, so can we go?” Lauden’s voice cut through the air as annoying and unwelcomed as it always was, and I had to stifle an eye roll.

“Say the word, Lauden,” I snapped, turning back to the path. “I’ll make a tidal wave just for you.”

Dean fell into step behind me, and I didn’t miss the soft snicker under his breath.

A half an hour later, a small cottage came into view. As we approached it, Dean held a hand out for the rest of us to stop.

“We’re from Rominia,” he called, answering a question that the rest of us clearly couldn’t hear. “I’m Dean, I’m the only Kova here. This is Evaline, Lauden, and Sage.”

I looked up at Dean as his eyes narrowed in concentration, and knew he was listening to what the Kova inside must’ve been saying.

“We don’t mean any harm, we just want to speak to Charlotte.” Dean’s brows furrowed before he spoke again. “Evaline’s mate is Maddox, Kovarrin’s son. He’s turned, and we heard Charlotte had too, but she came back. We want to speak to her to find out how.”

Another moment of silence before Dean nodded toward the rest of us and started walking toward the door.

When we got close enough, it swung open and a man stood in the entrance.

“James?” I asked as I ascended the steps.

He was the oldest-looking Kova I’d ever seen, but I knew he was younger than Kovarrin. His skin was pallid and he had dark circles beneath his eyes. His hair was black with sprouts of gray and his beard was mostly white. The wrinkles around his eyes deepened as he narrowed his eyes at me.

“Does Kovarrin know you’re here?”

I nodded. “He does.”

He angled his head up, suspicious. “So he doesn’t answer our letters over the decades, but as soon as his son is in trouble, he sends you to gather the very information we offered him before?”

My three companions looked between each other. I hadn’t told them that James and Charlotte had been banished.

I straightened. “Kovarrin did not send me. He advised me not to come. But Maddox is my mate, and I will do whatever I have to, to get him back. Even if it means disobeying the First.”

James looked at me for a moment, and something flashed in his eyes before he nodded and let us in.

“Any tea?” he asked as we followed him in.

“That would be lovely, thank you,” I said, already feeling my skin begin to thaw at the heat of his home.

He swept an arm out toward his sitting room. “Please take a seat,” he said, as he angled for a door that must’ve been the kitchen.

We all turned to the chairs and chaises but stopped mid-stride at the portraits that hung over the mantle of the fireplace.

I heard Dean’s sharp intake of breath and saw Lauden straighten out of my peripheral, as we looked up at them.

It was a pair of portraits, hung side by side. A woman, who must’ve been Charlotte, sat smiling softly at the viewer in each of them, her hands folded nicely in her lap. She sat facing herself, toward the center of the mantle, and wore pretty blouses in each, made of silk and lace. Her warm brown hair was up in the same pulled-back style in each of them. The paintings showed her ivory skin, her red cheeks, and the brightness in her eyes.

Only, in the left painting, her eyes were gray. And in the right, red.

“She never wanted to forget,” James’ voice made Sage and I jolt, pulled our attention away from the mantle, as he strode toward the fire. “After her change, she never wanted to forget. The Kova are powerful, and it’s our responsibility to ensure we never use our abilities to harm innocent people.”

There was only enough space for the two Sorcerers and me to sit on the chaise, and even though I offered Dean my seat, he chose to stand on my other side while James moved to sit in a large leather chair across from us.

“Tell me what happened.”

I explained that Maddox and I were mates, and the more I spoke, the more his brows furrowed.

“You’re not a Kova,” he said. “Do Kova mate with non-Kova now?” he asked, but looked up to Dean.

Dean nodded. “Yes, it seems some non-Kova can mate with Kova,” he said, then shrugged. “We don’t know why, but for right now it seems to only be Sorceresses.”

I opened my mouth to correct him, to clarify to James that it was only one Sorceress so far, but James was speaking.

“How did he turn?”

I told him about the abduction, that Maddox, Sage, and others were taken to Mortithev. That Vasier tortured him, drained him of his blood, and then set him up to turn.

“I see things between Vasier and Kovarrin haven’t gotten any better,” he growled under his breath.

I shook my head. “They haven’t.”

He took a deep breath. “It’s no surprise Vasier would do this. He’s known for draining Kova, it doesn’t seem a large leap that he’d turn them, too.” He shook his head. “I’m surprised it’s taken this long for him to do it, or at least for us to find out.”

I swallowed and sat forward on my cushion.

“The Elders all told me to give up on him, that he was gone. But our bond, I can still feel it. I know he’s not gone, not completely, and after I heard about Charlotte, I knew I had to seek out her help.”

Pain flashed across his face but the whistle of the tea kettle cut him off. It was softer than other tea kettles I’d ever used—less high-pitched.

James got up to grab it and nodded to Dean. “I always forget it’s on, over the years I’ve rigged it so the whistle isn’t so sharp.”

I looked up to Dean, confused.

“High-pitched whistles are painful for us to hear,” he explained, and I frantically tried to think of any time I’d ever made tea around Maddox, worried that I’d caused him pain without realizing it but remembered that every time we did make tea in Rominia, he always pulled it from the fire before it whistled.

“How did you hear about her? How did you know she changed?” James asked as he poured tea into the five cups.

I leaned forward to take the cup he offered me. “So it’s true?”

He pursed his lips and nodded, handing cups to Sage and Lauden. “Yes, it’s true,” he said, then handed a cup to Dean and leaned back into his chair, his own full teacup sitting on the table, untouched.

“She changed by accident. We’d gotten too drunk one night during the Correnti Wind festival and she accidentally drained an injured human.” He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head. “She didn’t know. She would’ve never done it willingly. But the human had already lost blood earlier in the day, and by the time she realized, it was too late.” He opened his eyes, settled them on his wringing hands in his lap. “She ran,” he croaked. “And it was months before I found her. She’d joined some Vasi she found along the way, ravaged some towns and villages east of River Brawn. When I did find her, I had to knock her out cold, chain her up with Rominium, and keep knocking her out in order to get her here. In order to bring her back to me.”

Dean crossed his arms beside me. “How’d you keep her from escaping? We have a Rominium chair for Maddox.”

James looked up at him. “That would’ve been more comfortable for her, if I’d had enough to melt down to make one.” He winced. “I had to bind her ankles together, her hands behind her back so that she couldn’t get free.”

I slid my teacup into one hand and reached across the distance that separated us and took his hand in mine, rested it on his knee.

“I understand,” I said, staring into those old, gray eyes. “More than anyone, I understand. But we need to talk to her. I need to know how she did it, so we can help Maddox.”

I spoke softly, and by the time I was finished, my eyes were misted.

James pulled his hand from mine, pressed his clenched fist against his lips, and turned to look at the flames dancing in the hearth to his right.

I leaned back and set my teacup on the table. My hands were shaking too badly to hold it without spilling as I waited for what he’d say next. The full scope of my hope rising within me, waiting.

I strained my ears to hear if she was in the cottage, hoped to the Gods we hadn’t caught them in a moment of separation, hoped she was here and not traveling or down in town.

He took a deep and shuddering breath and when he turned back to face us there were tears in his eyes.

“I wish I could help you,” he whispered. “But she isn’t here.”

I clenched my jaw. “That’s okay,” I said, flattening my hands over my knees as I leaned forward. “When will she be back? We can wait, or we can come back when she’s available. Or if she’s in another Madeiran Kingdom, we can go meet her.” My words rushed out of me as I planned for every contingency.

He pressed his lips together and gave one shake of his head, a mix of pity and sorrow in his eyes, and I bit back the dread that tried to rise inside of me, shoved it down with blinding denial, refusal, faith.

“She’s not coming back,” he said softly, his words wavering with his tears. His hands shook just as badly as mine. “She passed.”

I saw Dean straighten beside me, watched as tears fell down James’s face, and felt the color drain from my own. Dread pierced through my denial, morphed into grief, as it made its way up my throat. And I felt the sheer and utter press of defeat over my heart.

All of the hope, all of the possibilities I’d let myself believe in, were stamped down. Again .

My own tears filled my eyes as I straightened. I closed my mouth and realized I didn’t know what to say.

Dean’s hand pressed over my shoulder at the same time that Sage’s slid into mine.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said to James, and, Gods, it was the kindest I’d ever heard her voice.

My gaze pinned on the teacup sitting in front of me. On the steam curling into the air above it.

In my peripheral, I saw Sage turn toward Lauden, then Dean, before she spoke.

“Can you please give us some time to talk with James alone?”

Lauden stood to leave, but I didn’t hear Dean move.

After a moment I heard a shuffle, and the two of them walked out of the door we’d come in.

Sage squeezed my hand but turned back to James. “I know this must be very difficult, but would it be too much for us to ask how?”

My eyes moved down to mine and Sage’s hands. I couldn’t breathe as I listened to him speak.

“We…” he started but then paused.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to tell us.”

He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. And I knew he cleared the ache of loss, of grief, of pain from the lump that sat there. As I’d done before, too many times.

“We were going back to Rominia. Kovarrin, he’d banished us,” he said.

Sage didn’t seem to react at all and I thanked the Gods she was taking it in stride.

“She and I, we deserted during one of the wars. We’d tried to go home after she’d changed back, to give more Kova this information. But he never allowed us. Said if we came back, or told anyone, he’d tell our families why we left Rominia.” I looked up at him now and he met my eyes.

“We waited decades, then decided to try to just go to Rominia, to see if he’d change his mind once he saw us. But she wanted to take the long way, travel down to Merwinan and see the coast since we’d spent so many centuries locked up here, protecting ourselves. We feared Kovarrin would send assassins to kill us, for our betrayal.” He clenched his jaw. “But on the way to Rominia, we saw some Vasi. They’d known her when she was one.” He looked down at his hands now. “They knew the danger of that information, that it was possible to change back, and they knew because they’d seen her, known her then. If that knowledge got out, eventually the Vasi would be doomed.”

He looked back up at me. “They killed her without a second thought, and I was only spared because after the two of them killed her, I killed them.”

He took a shaky breath. “It’s been decades and it doesn’t hurt any less.” He looked at me through his teary eyes. “If you can still feel your bond, it means he’s not gone. Not forever.”

I took a deep breath. “A Kova on the island told me that when her mate passed, she could still feel the bond. That it might just be an echo, and he might really be gone.”

I saw realization flash in his eyes. “I understand what she means, I felt that too when Charlotte passed, but it’s not the same. When Charlotte was a Vasi, I felt the bond as if she was asleep. Like she’d wake any moment and everything would be okay again.”

I nodded and gave an involuntary squeeze of Sage’s hand. “That’s how it feels, exactly.”

He looked to the ground. “For the first ten years after she…” He took a deep breath. “After she passed, the bond was different. It was still there, kind of. But it almost seemed like a whisper. Like ringing in your ears after a loud noise.” His brows rose and he nodded to the teakettle. “Like the aftermath of a whistle, but not as disorienting. It wasn’t the bond itself, just the aftereffects. It felt completely different. I’m not surprised that a Kova tried to convince you that yours was the same. The Kova refuse to believe it’s possible when we should be the ones with the most hope that it could be true.”

Sage leaned forward. “Is there anything you can tell us about how she turned back?”

“I only know what I did, and it was weakening her—the Vasi, I mean—and going to her every day. I reminded her about our lives together, how much we loved each other, pushed all of that down the bond even though I could tell it felt different, that she wasn’t totally receiving on the other end. It took years but, eventually, she came back to me.” His eyes drifted up to the portrait on the right, the one of Charlotte as a Vasi. “As for her part, she always refused to tell me much. She was embarrassed, ashamed that she’d let herself change, ashamed of the other side of her that I’d seen for those years.”

Sage furrowed her brows. “How were you both supposed to help other Kova if she never shared the information with you?”

He sighed. “She always said that it was something that she couldn’t completely explain, that she’d have to talk to whatever Vasi needed changing back to draw them out, and that she could explain it to them. She tried to tell me only once, and all she’d said was that they had to find two things; the tear and the heart.”

I realized I’d been holding my breath, that my muscles were tight, that my knuckles were white on the hand that held Sage’s.

James ran his hands over his thighs. “That’s all I can tell you, it’s all the help I have to give. I’m sorry it’s not more,” he whispered.

Sage understood that he was asking us to leave, and stood, pulling me up with her.

“Thank you for your time, James. May the Gods be kind,” she said. She turned to leave, guiding both of us toward the door.

But I looked over at James. Saw the way he turned his head up toward her portraits. Saw the way his chin quivered and his chest heaved with the effort of holding back a sob.

I pulled my hand from Sage’s and crossed to James, where I closed his nearest hand in both of mine and squeezed.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered past a sob. “I’m so sorry.” I took a deep breath. “But I’m most sorry that these words will do nothing to bring her back to you.”

Because he was the only person I’d ever met, who’d ever understand how I felt. And when I saw the effort he’d put forth to hold back his cries, it reminded me of all the times I’d done that. After my father, after Bassel, and after Maddox.

He didn’t turn toward me, only squeezed my hands back.

“I will talk to Kovarrin, if you want to come home,” I said.

His only response was an escaped sob and a bob of his head.

I turned toward Sage who walked behind me as I opened the door, strode past Lauden and Dean, who also fell in step. We continued until I was past the point where Dean had been able to hear James earlier, and where James had heard him. And when I was convinced I was far enough out of his earshot, I sobbed.