Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter FourteenEvaline

Chapter Fourteen

Evaline

T he moment Vasier pulled his wrist away from my mouth and removed his hand from my head I turned away from him, bent closer to the ground I still laid on, and gagged.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” he huffed as he stood and dusted off his pants from where he’d kneeled down to me.

“ Fuck you,” I barked out and spit onto the crimson floor below me.

“Such poor manners. Where is your appreciation? You’re in the most beautiful castle in the world.” He raised his arms out wide. Then his eyes cut to the windows. “You’ve done me a favor with the windows, to be honest. I’ve been meaning to switch them out with stained glass, anyway.”

I ground my teeth and pushed onto my bottom, scooted a few more feet away from him. My head didn’t hurt from the fall anymore, his blood had healed that. Maddox never mentioned that Vasi blood could heal, too. But I supposed that they were twin species, and probably had most things in common, apart from their eyes and their mates.

I felt my face pale.

Could Vasi compel, too?

I swallowed and looked up to see everyone in the room staring at me. Vasier and Lauden, but past them Sage, and dozens of Vasi.

“What do you want with me?” I snapped, looking back to Vasier. I fought to hide my unease from being around him, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. But his height, his narrow build, he was like a reflection of Kovarrin. Same fair skin, same everything except the eyes and a few added wrinkles.

He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it now. All in due time, little Sorceress.”

I saw Sage flinch at that and my eyes settled on her. To see her small frame standing alone, the hulking red stone of the room looming over her, and the throne over her shoulder, I was reminded of how broken she was. She’d have to be, to have a father like this. Especially with how he’d already talked to her today, and I’d only been here for minutes.

But her pain, her fractures, weren’t an excuse anymore, because I was broken too. And I’d never done anything half as horrific as this.

Her eyes slowly met mine, and I could see the pain in them. And that sight had me throwing myself forward, onto my feet. Had me sprinting toward her. Through Lauden, who tried to step in my way to catch me but who fell to the ground when I shoved a hand to his chest. Her eyes widened the closer I got, and I threw my hands out toward her, but a pair of arms caught around my waist and held me away from her, just out of reach.

“How could you?” I shrieked, stretching my hands toward her. “How could you do this to us?” I shook with anger at the pain on her face. “How could you do this to him ?” There were tears in my eyes, blurring my vision of her own misty eyes and crumpled face. “We accepted you into our family.” I pulled against what must’ve been a Vasi who held me back. “You were my friend,” I cried, and in the space of the heavy breath I pulled in to replenish for new words, Vasier spoke.

“That’ll be enough for tonight,” he said and his footsteps drew closer. “Let’s go, I’ll show you to your bedroom.” Vasier closed a hand around my upper arm and dragged me from the throne room, through the throng of Vasi staring at us, and away from the woman I’d never be able to see the same way, ever again.

When we were in a hallway and the doors clicked behind us, Vasier let my arm go.

“Behave yourself,” he said, eyeing me. “I can’t have you going and killing my portaler.”

“Don’t you mean your daughter?” I snapped. I took in my surroundings, trying to gauge whether I could make a run for it.

And then I remembered the wards.

He shook his head. “No, I don’t. Before anything, Sage is my Sorceress.”

He wove us through several hallways, likely to disorient me. But I memorized every turn. Ward or not, if I was going to make an escape from the island, I’d first need to know how to escape from the castle.

Finally, he stopped in front of the lone door at the very end of a hallway and opened it. The door swung open until it made a soft thud against the wall.

Inside I could see a grand bed with a headboard made of gold. The metal wound in different swirls and arcs, but altogether made up a picture of butterflies dancing through the clouds. A chaise sat at the foot of the bed.

The duvet was the same deep burgundy as the stone walls that stretched up several yards high until they met a domed ceiling. Though it was the same red rock as the rest of the castle, it had a gold painting over it that matched the bed frame. I could see four closed doors in the room and didn’t know where they led.

I took a step into the room and to the left saw a balcony behind two windowed doors covered by a transparent curtain.

The nightstands and armoires were gold, too, to match the bed. In fact, every piece of metal in the room was gold. The hinges of the doors, the knobs, the fireplace poker, and the shield that stood in front of a mighty hearth in the center of the room.

“Is it up to your standards? We gave you the nicest room in the entire castle,” Vasier asked from behind me.

“It’s fine,” I said, turning to face him. “My cell in Kembertus was just as lovely.”

His face fell a fraction. “This isn’t a prison, Evaline. This is—” he started but I cut him off with a raised hand pointing toward the balcony.

“Wards aren’t prison bars, but at this point, we’re really just mincing words.”

He pursed his lips. “This is your new home, Evaline. Forever. You best get used to it.” He cocked his head. “You’ll need time to process what has happened. We’ll leave you alone for a couple days. We’ll drop off food, but you’ll find the bathing chamber is stocked with the nicest soaps and the softest towels. The closet and armoire are filled with the finest attire. If you need food outside of the regularly scheduled times, ask the guard stationed outside of your door. If you need warm water for a bath, let him know, and he will summon a servant. If you need anything at all, in my power, I will give it to you.”

I opened my mouth, but he spoke.

“Don’t be stupid and ask for something you know I won’t give you.”

I shut my mouth.

He held out an open-faced palm. “Your weapons.”

My brows furrowed and I shook my head. “No, I—”

He sighed, cutting me off. “That wasn’t a question.”

I ground my teeth and removed all my weapons, handing them over one by one. A pain shot through my chest as I dropped my father’s sword, the knives Wyott and Cora had gifted me, and Maddox’s Rominium dagger into his hands.

Would I ever see them again?

“Thank you. See how nice it is to cooperate?” He nestled the weapons under one arm and reached the opposite to grab the doorknob. “Let us know if you need anything. Goodnight,” he said, and started to close the door, but stopped before it was fully shut, and turned toward me. “Oh, Evaline? Don’t kill yourself. We’ll heal you before you can die, and your life will be far less of quality the second time around.”

My jaw fell open at his words, and at the fact that it was all he said before he closed the door.

I could hear him walk away, and another set of boots move closer. The guard.

I felt for my magic, and just as Lauden had claimed it would be, my power was dim. Barely there, barely alive.

My heart raced in my chest, and tears fell hot and heavy down my cheeks as I backed away from the door. My head shook, causing some of the tears to fly away, flinging off of my cheeks. The sobs were loose, and I didn’t care that the Vasi outside could hear it. I didn’t care if Vasier could hear it.

A small gasp sounded from my lips as the chaise that stood at the base of the bed hit the back of my legs, nearly knocking me down, but I didn’t look. I only shifted out of the chaise’s way and continued to back up.

Back away from the door. Put as much space between it and me, as I could, as my chest started to move with panicked breaths.

We’d been betrayed, all of us. We’d been fooled, even Kovarrin.

My breaths came faster as I thought of when Maddox and I had first met. How I’d kept him at an arm’s length because I was afraid of being hurt. Afraid of giving someone the power to hurt me.

And I’d given it to Sage, without even blinking. She’d felt safe, but she was not.

My sobs and breaths and tears came faster and I could barely breathe as I backed away until my back hit a door behind me.

I pressed against the wood and fumbled for the knob. I turned it, and finally, I spun.

It was a closet. Deeper than it was wide, but filled to the brim with what had to be hundreds of dresses. Tulle and silk and velvet all peeked out from between each other as they hung on their hangers.

Looking at the gowns, at what would’ve been a closet any girl would love to have—a closet I would have liked to have had this been any other situation—quelled my cries. My sobs softened at the sight of them, my tears slowed until they were only a trickle, and I quieted.

These dresses, this room, they were all nice and beautiful and I knew that Vasier had curated each and every one of them, as if they’d make staying here with him any better.

But nothing would ever fix this, least of all things.

My fists clenched at my sides as I thought of every moment I’d ever been kind to Sage, every moment I’d ever questioned Lauden, and the smirk that had donned Vasier’s face when he’d gotten exactly what he wanted.

Me.

My feet were moving before I knew what was happening, and then my fists were unclenching, grabbing at the dresses.

I ripped them from their hangers, flung them to the floor, across the closet, out and into the bedroom. I threw them as hard as I could, and I screamed.

I screamed and I cried, and when the racks of the closet were bare, I went back out into the room, and continued.

I threw paintings off the wall, I threw pillows out of the balcony window. I pulled books from the shelves.

And the entire time, I screamed.

I screamed for my anger, for my pain. For my own stupidity, for the friendship I thought I had with Sage. For the friends and family, for my mate that I left behind in Rominia. For my friends I’d left behind in Kembertus.

I’d never see any of them again.

I curled into a ball and cried.

At some point in the early morning hours, based on the light blue hue of the sky filtering through the curtains that swayed from the ocean breeze at my balcony, I realized that I was wasting my time.

I sat up and swept my hands over my face to clear my eyes. I looked to the unlit fireplace beside me and tested my magic. It’d been hours, and Lauden said it should come back, at least slightly, after a few hours had passed. I sighed a breath of relief when fire engulfed the logs in the hearth beside me and my face warmed.

I moved to the upholstered chair that stood beside the fireplace. I sank into it, but flung my braid over the edge—there wouldn’t be a moment in this castle that at least my braid wasn’t armed—and tried to slip into the Night.

According to my mother, I should have the ability to do so on my own. I shouldn’t need Sage to do it.

I pictured the dark black of the Night, the hum of the writhing shadows around me, and the sound of my mother’s voice. I focused on it so long that at some point I fell asleep. And where I’d hoped that I would dream of her, that she’d coaxed me to the Night through my dreams like before, I was only met with nightmares. Except when I awoke, I found that the nightmare was my reality.

Because I woke up to the same domed ceiling, the same crimson walls, and the soft roll of the waves through my balcony doors.

As the early morning broke into day, I ignored the sounds of footsteps outside of my room, the call of birds outside of my window, and the bored sighs of the guard outside of my door.

All I could focus on was the curse.

What I once called my fate. My gifts from the Gods.

With every plan that went awry, with every attempt at fixing everything that failed, I couldn’t help but wonder why the Gods made me, why they made my magic. And worry that they’d chosen wrong.

Sometime the next evening, when I’d spent the day testing my magic and discovering that the lock on the door only locked from the outside and pushed an armoire in front of it, there was a knock.

I groaned and tried to ignore it. They’d already come to serve dinner, and when they delivered meals they’d just knock and tell me that food was being set outside the door.

I waited for the call, but there was no voice. I crossed my arms and turned to the fire.

The knock sounded again.

I sighed and stood, shoved the armoire far enough out of the way that I could open the door, and swung it open to see Sage standing there.

Her brows were pulled together. Her eyes were sympathetic, and she held a bottle of wine and two glasses in her hands.

I looked down at them, then looked back up to meet her eyes.

She gave me a small smile. “I—”

She started, but I flicked my wrist and sent the door slamming closed to cut off whatever bullshit apology she was going to try to make, and shoved the armoire back in place.

I laid back in my chair, and after several moments, heard the clink of the wine and glasses against the ground outside my door, and her shuffled footsteps soften as she walked away.