Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter ThirteenMaddox

Chapter Thirteen

Maddox

“ W hat do you mean, you can feel something?” Wyott asked, leaning forward in his chair across from me.

I furrowed my brows and looked around us. “I…I can feel a warmth,” I took a deep breath. “And I can smell her. How is that possible?” I swung back to face Wyott. “Is Evaline back?”

He was silent a moment and I could tell he was talking to Cora down the bond, but then he shook his head, a confused look on his face.

“No, I mean they should arrive any moment if they left Correnti this morning, but Cora says she’s waiting for them at the dock, and there’s nothing so far.”

I looked around the room as if she’d appear out of thin air.

I felt the warmth wash over me again, smelled that floral smell that always lingered on her skin, and in an instant, it was gone.

My eyes widened as I flicked my eyes to Wyott’s.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and I opened my mouth to tell him, but in my shock, I hadn’t paid attention to the Vasi simmering in his own anger inside, and he launched forward.

“No!” I gasped as he grasped for control.

He grabbed for the reins, and at my neck to yank me out of control, and for a moment, he succeeded.

I was thrown back, and through the tunnel could see the dismay that flickered over Wyott’s face as he saw the red eyes again.

“Get out!” the Vasi growled at him, but he remained steadfast in his chair.

“Until you can get up and make me, I will not,” Wyott said as I ran forward again. I grabbed at the Vasi and pulled him back as I lunged forward.

The bite of the Rominium bar bloomed over my neck as my body jolted forward against the restraints. But the Vasi doubled back, faster than before, and pulled me away.

I couldn’t imagine what was going through Wyott’s head as he watched us, as the Vasi fought me for control, as neither of us held it for more than a second, both ripping at each other just as the other made it there.

I launched myself forward and slid back in position, and gasped, looking up at Wyott.

His eyes were wide, he shook his head. “Tell me what to do,” he pleaded, and the look on his face reminded me of when we were kids.

He looked horrified and helpless, like when he’d wake with nightmares in the years after watching his father die. I slept on the floor right beside his bed, because they were so frequent, and I’d run to his side. I’d see that same look that he’d had now for so many months.

He’d been horrified of what he’d seen, and helpless to do anything to fix it.

And I remembered what I’d do next. That I’d pull him from bed, and we’d sneak down to the armory. We were kids, and we were dumb. We knew the manor was soundproofed with Rominium, but still. We chose to go to the room furthest from my parents, so they wouldn’t hear us. So that they wouldn’t catch us up and out of bed, far past our bedtime.

The armory was in the manor, it was our family’s personal stock. And after his father died, when he moved in with us, we had an entire section dedicated to Rick. It was where all of his weapons, the ones he hadn’t been wearing when Wyott saw the Vasi drag him away, remained, ready to be given to Wyott when he grew into them. And each time we went to the armory, Wyott would go first to that section.

My eyes flicked over Wyott now while I wrestled the Vasi back, internally. Those same weapons, and some new, scattered over his chest, his hips, his back, and my eyes widened.

The Vasi was fighting for control, but I felt a small sliver of it loose from him. Felt him weaken behind me, get thrown back.

In all my years as best friends, as brothers, I’d never noticed. Never put the pieces together, and now I felt like the biggest fool for not seeing it before.

It was obvious.

Those trips to the armory at night, that was when his obsession with weapons began. Of course, we were young boys, we had always thought weapons were exciting and wanted them, but that was when a shift happened for Wyott. It was when he started wearing them regularly, even around the island. It was when he started to draw again, something he’d stopped after his father died. He drew weapons, holsters, harnesses, that he wanted Otto to make for him.

The Vasi reared for control, but I slammed him back, and it was easy this time.

And just as I understood before, when my friends came to reminisce, I realized that this memory, this kernel of who I’d once been, helped to solidify my control. Made it easy to stay myself.

The Vasi was coming back for me again, so I looked up to Wyott while I had the chance to speak.

“Memories,” I ground out.

Wyott’s brows furrowed. “What?”

“Memories help,” I spit out before the Vasi was yanking me back again.

Wyott’s eyes, down that long hallway, flashed and he nodded.

“Remember when we were kids and didn’t understand how money worked? And we kept running up Kovarrin’s tab at the Blacksmith’s?”

I launched into control and gave a gasping laugh against my hold on my mind at the fact that the first memory he brought up, was about the Blacksmith.

“And it was weeks before my father stopped by and Otto told him the price.”

Wyott’s eyes gleamed as he smiled and nodded, seeing me as myself again.

“And he and my father had to sit us down to chastise us? And we weren’t even angry when our punishment was to give the weapons to the training center for practice, because we got to use them every day, anyway?”

I laughed and tried to hold the Vasi back.

“The best part was that you could tell our fathers weren’t really angry, they were amused. They thought it was funny.”

Something deep in my mind shifted then, and it wasn’t the Vasi I was holding back.

Since the moment I’d found the tear in the veil that held me back, my mind had felt as if it had expanded. In some ways, it had. I had access to this whole other portion of my mind where the Vasi had once been locked away. Even times like now, when I had control, I could still feel that room in the back of my mind.

But now, I felt the space in my mind get a fraction smaller.

The Vasi swatted away my hold and launched forward, in control.

Wyott didn’t miss a beat.

“I think my favorite memory of us as kids was when our fathers took us to Correnti.”

As Wyott spoke I looked up, now sitting in the room behind the veil. It was still too dark to see in here, so I couldn’t tell if anything had changed.

“We’d never seen snow before,” Wyott continued, and I smiled at the memory.

We’d gone for a Ball that Correnti was having and it snowed all night. When we woke up, Wyott and I were baffled at the substance, and our fathers taught us what sledding was.

I heard something above my head, the sound of material sliding over itself, and furrowed my brows.

“We sledded through the night, and by the time we were finished our hair was frozen at odd angles and our fathers had to force us to come inside.”

I grinned, remembering how Wyott’s hair, long even back then, had stuck out at the sides and suspended there from the ice.

I heard that noise again, and something fluttered over my own hair.

When I looked up I still couldn’t see anything, but I reached up and noticed that the tear ended lower than it once had.

My brows furrowed. My hand slid up slightly and flattened over the outside of where the tear had once been torn. Over it, I could feel the distinct markings of three stitches.

My eyes widened and I sprinted forward.

“Remember the secret code we invented for when we were bored during lessons?” I rushed out as I gained control.

Wyott nodded. “One tap of our finger to say, ‘I’m bored.’ Two taps for, ‘What do you want to do after school?’”

I nodded. “Two taps, pause, then a third for swimming.”

The room in my mind got smaller, another stitch.

“Three rapid taps for training,” Wyott continued.

Another stitch.

The Vasi ran forward and I could sense his desperation. He understood what was happening just as I did. He sprang into my place, and I was launched back to the cell. As Wyott spoke, I raised my hand over the stitches again to find that more had closed over the opening.

“Your life has been made up of a million memories, a million moments. Some of them have been tragic, but most of them have been amazing. Like how the first time you met Evaline, she was trying to pickpocket you.” He laughed and shook his head. “And after knowing Evaline all these months later, I wouldn’t have expected you two to meet any other way.”

As I ran I heard more stitches slide into place, and Wyott and I continued like that for what must’ve been an hour. It was exhausting, fighting the Vasi, but I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t going to hide away anymore. I wasn’t going to sit and wait for a better time to act.

The time was now.

Evaline was gone, and more than anything I wanted to be myself when she returned. So she would know that while she was out there fighting for me, I was in here fighting for her.

At the thought, another stitch formed. The tear was little more than a hole in the bottom of the veil, now. Whenever one of us was thrown back into it, we had to crawl out.

I didn’t quite understand how this was working, but the more Wyott and I talked I realized that the veil was a boundary of my soul, and my soul was made up of every moment I’d loved and been loved. And with each memory I recalled, with each moment I felt my heart lurch for them, for her, another thread tied itself off until the Vasi and I were stuck on the outside of it, constantly fighting each other back and forth, trying to be the one that shoved the other through the hole before it closed completely.

The Vasi had control as Wyott laughed—reminiscing on the time we’d hidden in my father’s office and tried to jump out and scare him—when Wyott’s expression stilled for a moment.

I lunged forward into control.

“What is it?” I asked as his eyes widened.

“Cora, she says that the ship just arrived.”

A smile broke out on my face, and my heart soared. Evaline was home, she was finally here.

Evaline, I said down the bond as I reached for it, but I couldn’t feel her. Just that same distant hum.

She wasn’t home.

Wyott shook his head, his brows furrowing.

“She said that it was only Dean and two random Air Casters from Correnti pulling in. She said he’s on his wa—” Wyott was cut off by the sound of the door slamming open, Dean’s tall and wide frame filling the doorway.

Wyott stood up and my head snapped toward the door.

“What is it?” Wyott asked as he took a step toward him, Cora walking in behind Dean.

Dean’s ivory skin was somehow paler than normal as his eyes flicked between the three of us.

“Where is she?” I managed to rasp out just as the Vasi took hold.

I crawled out from the veil and ran back, seeing the confusion on Cora’s face at my battle with the Vasi while I fought for control.

Dean shook his head. “We went to James, he said Charlotte died, and Evaline didn’t take it well.” His words were rushed and Wyott and Cora shared a look of concern.

I flung myself forward. “But it doesn’t matter, I’m getting better. I’m able to get control, now.”

And as if to prove me a liar, the Vasi shoved me back.

Dean turned away from us and toward Wyott and Cora.

“Lauden was out maintaining the wards and the three of us went back to the castle. Evaline asked me to get her tea, but then we experienced a couple of quakes,” his eyes cut to mine as I jolted forward. When he saw my eyes turn gray, Dean swallowed. “They were the same quakes we’d experienced when we were abducted in Merwinan.”

My brows furrowed as I breathed heavily from the exertion, chest pressing uncomfortably against the Rominium bar there.

“What do you mean?”

His hands shook at his sides as he continued. “I ran back to Evaline’s room, and I saw it.” He shook his head. “I saw her and Sage standing over a…a hole in the ground,” he said, and his eyes drifted down to the stone floor of the room, hand waving out to gesture as if he were pointing to a hole, here.

“But it wasn’t a hole, it was a portal. And I know, because I watched them step into it, and then they were gone, out of thin air.”

With shaking hands, he extended a letter to Wyott.

“She left this for you. She left me one too, telling me to mail it. But as soon as I saw them I ran to get Lauden. I searched all night, the entire kingdom. He was nowhere to be found. As soon as morning broke I asked the Ladies to point me in the direction of two Air Casters, so they could maintain the sails all day. I knew I needed to arrive here as quickly as possible, to tell you.”

Wyott’s eyes roamed over the words and I held the Vasi back, heart hammering in my chest.

“What does it say?” I shouted, eyes wild and bulging at the pressure of trying to pull myself from the chair, to pull myself toward Wyott, as if he’d give me the answers any more quickly.

Wyott clenched his eyes, shook his head, but then he looked up at me.

“After you turned, Evaline’s mother told her what all the other gifts from the Gods were. Her gift from Mortitheos was the ability to pass through the veil that separated the living world from the Night. She can go there,” Wyott said softly, his brows furrowing in concern. “And that’s what she did,” he held up the note as if showing me evidence. “Somehow Evaline opened some portal into the Night.”

“No,” Dean interjected, and all heads snapped to him. “No, it wasn’t Evaline who opened the portal.” His eyes flicked to mine, and there were tears in them. “Can’t you see? Sage has the ability to open portals.”

I shook my head. “How do you know it wasn’t a part of Evaline’s gift from Mortitheos?” I asked as the Vasi tried to lurch forward.

Dean’s face crumpled in pain. “Because we’ve been with Sage when she used it before.” His eyes flicked from mine to Wyott’s, to Cora’s, and before he spoke, I understood what he meant. “We’ve been asking ourselves how we traveled to Mortithev and back in only a few days. Even if they’d had an Air Casters for the sails, it still wouldn’t add up. It took Evaline a day to get to Correnti. With an Air Caster all the way to Mortithev it would take several times that.” Dean turned his gaze on me now. “But we were only gone from Rominia for eight days.”

Wyott’s eyes widened at the same time that my hands clenched into fists below the Rominium shields that covered them.

Cora shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would Sage betray us? She has seemed genuinely interested in getting to know all of us. To care for all of us.”

My mind spun with a million thoughts, and the Vasi took advantage of my lapse in attention. He sprung forward and I was flung back. I stood still, in the cell, and thought it all through.

How I’d been wary of Lauden from the beginning. How the timing of their arrival had seemed suspicious.

How Ankin just happened to die and Lauden just happened to be ready and available to become our Arch Sorcerer.

Wyott spoke. “She’s right. Sage, she truly cared for Evaline.” He turned to us. “And Maddox, especially after you turned.”

The Vasi panted, weak and exhausted from the fight.

But I understood then. I understood what Sage had done. I understood what they’d all done.

As I crawled out of the cell, as I ran forward memories flashed through my mind.

Lauden telling us that Sage’s father had taught them how to use their magic.

Every time Lauden had pledged his allegiance to the First. It was never our First, not at all.

And Sage, she’d been involved in this deception not because she wanted to, at least not toward the end. But because she had to. She was obligated to.

“Because Vasier is Sage’s father,” I rasped as I took control. Their eyes all widened as they must’ve recalled all the same memories I did. “It was why she didn’t look hurt in Mortithev even though he made it seem like he’d gotten information from her.”

Dean nodded with pained eyes.

“If they’re in the Night…” Cora said softly. “And Sage is loyal to Vasier…”

Her frightened eyes looked up to Wyott, and I thrashed against my restraints.

“We have to go get her!” I shrieked. “If Lauden is gone, it means Sage already portaled him back to Mortithev.”

Another stitch formed and I knew why.

The veil was the boundary of my soul and I was repairing it with happy memories and love.

I understood why the Vasi started to shake in fear.

Because there was no greater love I had in this world than the one I had for my mate. And now she was in danger, the gravest danger she’d ever been in before, and I would stop at nothing to get her back.

Another stitch formed and I could tell the tear was getting too small, I had to shove the Vasi behind it before it was too late.

He sprang forward, reaching for me. Fighting harder than he had before.

I shoved him back with a growl and saw all the Kova in the room turn to me with wide eyes.

He reared again and lunged forward, and I slammed sideways into the chair, to pull away from him, and ignored the pain that spiked through my ribs at the contact.

“No,” I barked at him and he reached for me, for the back of my neck as he had so many times before, and I lunged forward, away from him. My body followed, and the air was knocked from my chest as the bar covering it shoved me back into place.

I threw my head back and hit the Rominium behind me, felt pain spike up my skull at the contact, but I didn’t mind, because inside I had a firm grip on the Vasi’s throat, and I threw him back into that cell, and I could tell that the tear was almost completely mended.

Then I did what I knew I had to, to finish the job.

I thought of Evaline, how we met. How she looked at the Ball, and how she moved when she fought. How her eyes shined bright when she used her magic and how her smile softened when she saw me.

And in an instant, I understood why the Gods had done this. Why they’d allowed this fate to befall me when I had only ever tried my best in life to be a good man, a good Kova. As another stitch was tucked into place I understood why this had to happen, my change. Why I had to endure this misery, and it had been to teach me a lesson.

My entire life I’d pined for a mate like a lovesick little boy. I’d pined for her, and once I’d gotten her, and she was greater than anything I could’ve ever hoped, I’d taken her for granted. Sure, I’d loved her. I’d fought for her. I’d killed for her.

But I didn’t deserve her. No man ever could.

Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that having a mate wasn’t a right, but a privilege that Goddess Rominiava bestowed upon us.

And with that thought, the final stitch was mended.

I caressed a mental hand down what had once been the tear, felt all the ridges of the stitches beneath my hand.

A smile broke out on my face as I looked to my friends and relished in the silence that filled my head for the first time in weeks.

“The veil is sewn,” was all I said before the darkness took over.