Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter EighteenWyott

Chapter Eighteen

Wyott

“ E verybody go home,” Kovarrin instructed to all the Kova on the beach.

He turned to two of the Kova I recognized as being volunteers in Rominia’s Army, and reached out to grab their shoulders.

“Run around the island. Find any other Kova who saw the Vasi. Tell them what has happened, and tell them to go home. There’s no need to worry until I give an order.”

The two Kova flicked their eyes to Maddox and me over Kovarrin’s shoulder but then settled their gaze on him again, nodded, and left.

A buzz began in my mind. An anxious energy that I quickly pinpointed as coming from the bond.

My heart raced as I turned to Cora, I knew she was distressed, and when my eyes landed on hers, the suspicion was confirmed.

Her eyes were wide, worry etched on her face. Her hands were fisted at her sides, and her heart raced as her eyes remained on the Vasi in the water flitting about their ranks.

“Cora, what’s wrong?” I asked, placing my hands on her upper arms, moving my thumbs in circles in an attempt to calm her.

“My ships!” she rushed out. “My ships, my people. They’re still out there! And they can’t come back in with the Vasi creating a border!”

The color drained from my face as I understood her concern. Some of her ships, whether they were carrying goods or ferrying people between the mainland and Rominia, were gone. And when they came back home, they’d find the Vasi creating a makeshift gate.

I opened my mouth to respond to her, but at the same moment noticed a second racing heartbeat, and turned to see Maddox with an expression that mimicked Cora’s.

I half-turned, removing one hand from Cora to place it on Maddox’s shoulder, creating a bridge between the two people I loved most in this world.

I squeezed his shoulder, and I opened my mouth to comfort him. To tell him that we knew she’d be in Mortithev, or at least we’d feared it. That this wasn’t really news, but before I could, Kovarrin shouted at us.

“Everybody get in the house, now. ”

He didn’t want the Vasi to overhear this conversation.

Kovarrin gestured for others nearby to come, too. Besides the family, he summoned Grant, Dean, Nash, and Fredrik.

The First shuffled us inside and instead of leading us to his study, he went to his war room.

As soon as the doors closed us into the sound-proofed room, with no windows to allow voices to carry in or out, Maddox slammed himself down on the stone hearth. His elbows planted onto his knees, his head fell into his hands, and fingers wound through his hair. He rocked back and forth, cursing and shaking his head, and Rasa ran to his side.

“Maddox,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay, we’ll figure this out.” Her voice was soft and her hand started to stroke up and down his back in her attempt to comfort him.

“He’s loud,” Maddox ground out, and I knew he meant the Vasi.

Rasa looked to Kovarrin with frightened eyes.

“Is there any danger of him coming out?” Kovarrin asked warily.

Maddox only shook his head, but kept it in his hands.

“No. I will lock myself away if there is. He’s just banging on his enclosure, and it’s so loud. ”

I heard the others move to their seats and finally pulled my worried gaze from my brother.

The room was created to accommodate several people, and while the table was large with several chairs, there was space around it for even more bodies.

Kovarrin crossed the room to sit at the head of the table. A map was painted atop the table and he sat closest to the outline of Rominia. Rasa remained at Maddox’s side, but her eyes flicked over to Cora, and I knew she wanted to comfort her, too.

Grant, Nash, and Fredrik all took seats on the opposite side of the table from Cora and I. Maddox and Rasa continued to sit at the hearth, just beyond the opposite head of the table from where Kovarrin sat, and Dean stood a few paces to my left, shifting his weight back and forth nervously.

I knew he was worried for Sage, and my stomach turned.

My brother, my friend, and now the whole of Rominia worried over what Vasier would do next.

Kovarrin turned to Grant.

“We don’t know how long we’ll be locked up here, so we need to check the food stores.”

Grant nodded. “I’ll go first thing in the morning and report back.”

Kovarrin moved his hands under the table and pulled out paper and writing utensils from a cubby.

“Depending on how low we get, Kova will need to stop eating and only use blood to survive. We need to make sure there’s enough food for the humans and Sorcerers.”

Grant listened intently as Kovarrin spoke, as he continued to give instructions on needing to check with the farmers on the opposite side of the island about their crops and when they’d be ready for harvest.

Kova didn’t need to eat food to survive, we mostly ate it out of pleasure, and since there were humans and Sorcerers on the island, normalcy.

Kovarrin turned to Fredrik. “Can you alert the Sorcerers tomorrow that we need to move up our monthly meeting to this week?”

Fredrik nodded.

A council of the Sorcerers on the island, a few for each element besides Fire, since Lauden and Evaline had been the only Casters here, met with Kovarrin once a month to give reports on any natural disasters or major storms that seemed to be brewing.

But I knew this meeting would be to figure out what could be done about the new ward.

Finally, Kovarrin turned to Nash. “Can you help me to start looking for a new Arch Sorcerer?”

Nash nodded, but Maddox spoke then, still with his head down, tilted to the floor.

“You said no one wanted the position before, it was why you picked Lauden,” Maddox spat out the name of the Sorcerer who’d betrayed us.

Kovarrin opened his mouth to speak, but Maddox continued, lifting his head to look at his father. He’d stopped his rocking, but his knee bounced up and down.

“I brought you my concerns about Lauden, and you didn’t listen,” Maddox shook his head. “No one listened, and now he’s helped to take Evaline.”

The three Kova in front of me snapped to look at me, to Kovarrin, brows furrowed.

I sighed and leaned across the table, planting my elbows over the peaks of the mountain range that framed the top of Brassillion.

There was no use hiding it anymore, especially from our closest friends and most trusted soldiers. I told them about Sage and Lauden, about Evaline’s Gods gifted magic. About her curse.

“So…” Fredrik trailed off as he processed the information, his eyes falling to the table. “Sage is the one who took us all to Mortithev.”

The other two Kova straightened, realizing this same information, and they all turned to Maddox.

His face twisted in a cringe, and he placed a hand to his forehead again. He was in pain.

“Everybody needs to calm down,” Kovarrin instructed from the head of the table, and all at once, the tension that had been building in the room, shattered.

Maddox coughed out a bewildered laugh but did not let it interrupt his fidgeting, just flung his head up toward his father, with wild eyes.

“Of course you want us to calm down, we’re in this position because you never made a move,” he spit out. “And because you hired a spy to be your most trusted advisor.”

Every word Maddox spoke dripped with venom. It was hard to believe it was only a handful of minutes since their heartfelt reunion.

“Maddox,” Rasa said in a warning tone, but Kovarrin ignored him and turned his gaze to Cora.

“Cora, you don’t need to worry. Everything will be okay.”

“How can you say that? We don’t even know how this ward works,” she rushed. “I mean, does it keep Kova out, like it keeps them in? I have ships, I have people out there who can’t come home if they can’t get through the ward.”

Kovarrin pursed his lips. “We don’t know yet, but we can’t risk it. Where were they headed? We can send ravens.”

She shook her head. “We can’t. Half of them are probably already on their way back and won’t be making any stops along the way, there’d be nowhere to send the message to.”

Grant wrung his hands on the tabletop, knuckles scraping against the Srotian Sea, and I stood so that I could look between my brother and my mate, as if my attention alone would calm them.

Kovarrin swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. “Do you know who’s on each ship? How many are out there?”

She nodded. “Of course. I keep detailed logs every time a ship goes out and every time one comes in.”

Kovarrin nodded. “Okay,” he said in a calming voice. “Statistically, there has to be at least one person on every ship that has a mate. We will find their mate here, and when they’re expected back, we will wait with them on the coast so that as soon as the ship is close enough for their bond to work, their mate will give them a message to flee.”

“But how do you know the Vasi won’t break formation to attack them?” she urged. “There’s no real reason for them to even have a formation, they’re not blocking us in, the ward is.”

Kovarrin settled his gaze on her. “We don’t know what they’ll do.”

She stopped pacing and turned to face him, hands shaking at her sides.

Kovarrin continued. “We just have to hope there are enough of them to fight off the Vasi.”

“But the Sorcerers,” she pleaded. “They can manipulate the tides, and sink the ships.”

Kovarrin nodded. “I understand. But there’s nothing we can do for them if we cannot escape the island.”

Cora turned to me with wide eyes and I held out my hand for her to take.

There’s nothing wrong with showing concern and emotion for the people that you’ve trained, that you love. I said to her down the bond.

I knew she thought it made her look weak, for a leader to be so emotional about her people, especially since Kovarrin rarely showed emotion for his.

But Cora was an amazing leader. She cared for each and every person under her authority and knew them all by name. Knew their families, their mates. Knew where they lived, their hobbies. She even celebrated their anniversaries and birthdays.

She loved them.

The thought of them out there, alone, with no idea what they were sailing into and no idea of whether they would make it out alive, terrified her.

And the fact that she was here, unable to do anything for them, terrified her even more.

Guilt swirled through her and down the bond. By the way her gaze flicked to Maddox, I could tell part of her fear was for him and for Evaline, now that we had confirmation that she was with Vasier.

“Maddox,” Kovarrin started, but Maddox shook his head and snapped at his father.

“Don’t. Don’t even bother,” he said and his knee ceased its bouncing. “Because I don’t want to hear another excuse for why you haven’t initiated a war against Vasier. I don’t want to hear again how you told Evaline that if she left she’d have no protection from you,” he barked out, and I winced. I shouldn’t have told him that.

Maddox stood and continued. “I just want you to realize that at every turn, Vasier has been right to call your bluff. He knows that these aggressions won’t cause you to initiate war like they would’ve in the past.”

The room was so silent aside from Maddox’s words, that I wondered if every Kova was holding their breath.

“At every turn, you have shied away from what must be done to stop him. And he knows that. You stayed silent while he sent Vasi to attack mortals in Merwinan. You did nothing when he changed me—aside from cry to me about it when I was locked up—and you do nothing now that he has my mate.”

My eyes slid to Kovarrin, but I didn’t dare look at him directly. Still, I could see the heat on his face, the emotion darkening his eyes.

“And even if I didn’t need all of that evidence to know that Vasier can predict your every move, his words today, couriered through that Vasi, would prove it. He was right . You love to be stuck in this cage, where you don’t have to take any action. Because you’re safe here. You’re not out on the mainland, fighting the Vasi who roam there,” he said, throwing arms out to me and to the Kova I sat across from.

“You send us to do that,” Maddox scoffed. “You don’t talk to the kingdoms, who are terrified of the Vasi, because they’ve been making their way closer and closer to River Brawn as the years have gone by. You don’t want to be the one to take action.”

Maddox took a breath, shook his head, and when he spoke again, his voice was low.

“It has taken until now for me to realize it because it is only now that you refuse to take action in the face of acts of war. For some reason now, now that Evaline is involved—now that Alannah is involved—” he cut himself off as realization dawned in his eyes, and barked out a laugh. “Well, that’s it isn’t it?” Maddox breathed. “It’s all different now because Vasier is personally involved this time. In the past, he worked through his troops. But this time, he’s making direct moves at you. At you , his twin. Whatever happened between the three of you—you and Alannah and Vasier—this time, it’s personal for him, which means it’s personal for you.”

Maddox paused and furrowed his brows at his father.

“You’re afraid of your brother.”

He let the accusation hang in the air for a moment before he spoke again.

“Despite the many battles we’ve won in the past, despite the Kova having the numbers. You’re so afraid, it prohibits you from doing what you know, what we all know, needs to be done.”

Maddox looked to Cora, to Nash, Fredrik, and Grant. He looked to Dean, and then back to his father.

“And everyone but you is paying the price for that.”

And with that, Maddox left the room, slamming the door behind him.