Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Evaline

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Evaline

H e flinched away from my words as if I’d thrown a weapon at him, instead of an accusation.

My words rushed from my lips as all the pieces fell together in my mind. The story, the entire story, that both my mother and Kovarrin told me, had a third side.

“You loved her. And she was running away with your brother. Your best friend.”

He stepped back and I cocked my head.

“They didn’t tell you,” I breathed. “They didn’t include you in their plans, because they weren’t taking you with them.”

The pain on his face twisted until I almost felt sorry for him. For this man who’d taken away the person I loved most in this world, and did it with a smile.

That thought renewed my vitriol, and I stepped toward him again.

“So Kovarrin got the girl,” I said and he winced, his fist clenched. “And what’s worse is that she didn’t even want him, back,” I said with a chuckle.

I knew he wouldn’t kill me, he’d gone through far too much trouble to get me. So I continued with my barrage. I continued to say the words I knew would cut him deep, and I did it with pleasure. He’d done so much evil, caused so much pain, that he deserved to feel each and every ounce of this. Of his own.

“She chose him, over you, even though she felt nothing more for him than friendship.”

When he took a step back this time his back hit the table behind him, and it seemed to jostle him out of his reverie. He straightened and scowled down on me.

“I see you’re enjoying yourself,” he mused and cocked his head. “Maybe you’re more like the Vasi than you’d like to admit.” Even though he put on a mask of arrogance, I saw through the facade to the pain that twisted below.

I shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve been hurt too, but I’ve never let it take me to this place. To a place where I was willing to hurt innocent people to get back at a dead woman and a brother a world away who doesn’t give a shit about you .”

He stepped forward so that he was in my face, bearing down on me.

“You haven’t the faintest clue what hurt feels like. You’ve never watched the woman you love choose another man, choose your brother . He and I were best friends before we both developed feelings for her.”

His eyes flicked between mine before he walked past me, struck my shoulder with his, and strode closer to the portrait. He looked up at it with his hands clasped behind his back.

“But where he couldn’t keep his love silent, I did. I didn’t tell him how much I loved her, or that I fucked her almost every night when he’d gone to bed and left her alone.”

I winced at that.

“I didn’t tell him how she cried out my name in pleasure and that I held her at night.” He shook his head. “He thinks that they were best friends, but what kind of best friend keeps something as monumental as that from the other?”

I stared at his back as he went quiet, as he tilted his head up at the painting, before lowering it down, looking to the floor.

“She never returned his love, and she was silent when I said the words to her.”

His voice was hoarse as he spoke, but he didn’t let it stop him.

“And when that day came, when that boy saw her, she turned her back on me. She chose the friendship with a man who was fine with only a friendship. When he told me, it enraged me.”

He turned around now, movements slow and calculated, as he lifted his head to meet my eyes.

“My entire life had been spent in Kovarrin’s shadow. He was always the braver, stronger, kinder brother. In that moment, when he told me where they’d be, I knew I had to confront her.”

His eyes tightened as he spoke.

“And that was when she told me. That just as she never loved him, she never loved me. That she thought we, too, were only friends. Friends that could have fun together, but never anything more.”

Vasier clenched his jaw and gave his head a shake.

“I knew she was only afraid of how she felt for me, and in a moment of weakness, she chose him.”

He cast his eyes down, as if he couldn’t say the words and meet my eyes. But when my gaze shifted over his shoulder, to the painting of my mother that in certain lights and angles, could’ve very well been me, I realized that he couldn’t look at me when he said the words, because it was like looking at her.

“I did let my anger get the best of me that night. But I had been betrayed by the woman I loved. In one sweeping moment, I was going to lose her and my twin brother.” There was a pause as he swallowed. “You can’t know what that felt like. And all of it, it made me snap.”

He finally looked up at me, and his eyes were somehow softer.

“And even when she had a moment to think about what she’d done, as she watched the result of the wedge she’d driven between my twin and I—when we killed each other—who did she reach for?”

His eyes hardened again, and he sneered. “Still Kovarrin. It would always be Kovarrin. I’ve spent the better half of a millennia searching for her. Why do you think the Kromean Kingdoms have to report every Sorcerer they find? Why they have to explain whether they’re a man or woman, their appearance, their element?”

His voice was hard, his chin tilted down, and I swallowed back the fear as he spoke.

“When I felt your magic, for a moment, I thought it was Alannah. But then time went by, and it didn’t happen again. I investigated, and discovered you were her daughter, and when I learned that she was dead, well.” He gave a dry laugh. “I wasn’t going to let something as trivial as her position in the Night stop me from getting my revenge.”

He smiled and a wicked glint filled his eyes, all signs of love and pain dissolved away.

“Me,” I said softly. “I’m your revenge. Capturing her daughter. Knowing she can see it from the other side. This is your revenge.”

A look crossed his features and he nodded.

“I guess there’s no use in hiding it anymore.” He shrugged, then walked toward me, grabbed my arm, and dragged me to the door.

“But she isn’t the only one I’m getting revenge on. My brother is just as guilty.”

I ground my teeth as he pulled me through the door, then down a hall.

“He didn’t deserve her, he never did. But our family, our village, treated him as if he could do no wrong, and it warped his sense of self until he thought he could somehow convince her to love him, or that over time she would change her mind.”

Vasier ground out as he walked at too fast a pace down the hall until I was tripping over my feet behind him to keep up, his grip on my arm getting more painful by the moment.

“His false sense of superiority, his faux morality, it’s all a cover so that no one sees that he’s just a cowardly man who couldn’t face the fact that she was never going to feel for him what she felt for me.”

“But you just said—” I started but he whipped his head to face me.

“Can’t you see? She was lying.” His eyes were wild. “She did love me, she just didn’t want to hurt him. They were friends first, and he thought he had some claim over her. But it was her and I. It was always going to be her and I.”

Nausea crept up my throat at the sight of him, at this lovelorn man who had let these unrequited feelings twist and turn his insides, until he’d internalized it so much that it changed him, so much that he didn’t realize that he was doing exactly what he accused his brother of.

He continued until he threw open another set of doors. Before I could look around, to decipher where he’d taken me, he hauled me to the opposite wall.

“My brother doesn’t deserve the false prestige, his kingdom, or his mate, ” Vasier ground out. “He’s arrogant and self-righteous, and every Kova who has descended from him is just as insufferable. They’re all just as guilty.” He swung the curtain back from the floor to ceiling windows in front of us and threw me forward toward them so hard I had to throw out my hands and catch myself against the panes.

And at the sight of it, at what lay below me, a breath shuddered from my lips so hard and sudden that it fogged the glass before it evaporated.

My eyes widened at the landscape below me. It was a valley. The dip of it was boxed in on every side by the castle and mountains. The ocean was nowhere in sight, and I realized that the throne room must’ve jutted out away from the rest of the castle, because, on that side of the building, the ocean was right outside the window. I craned my neck to get the best view of the valley. Far below, homes sprawled as far as I could see. Rows and rows of houses—some stacked atop one another like in Rominia. In the rear right corner, I could see dozens of ships pulled in from a shore that must’ve sat outside of my view.

Little shapes moved all around, and it took me a moment to realize they were people.

“Vasi,” he said behind me. “Every single one.”

My eyes widened and tears brimmed as I stared down at them. They were tucked away, hidden from any view of the sea. If any Kova did come near Mortithev to spy, they wouldn’t be able to see this.

And this changed everything.

“How many times did Kovarrin convince you that the Kova had the numbers? That it was what won them every war we’ve fought so far?”

His voice was low and calm behind me.

“They were all only battles, in the greater war that I’ll wage over Brassillion, over Rominia.” His words started to rush out faster. “Until all of it is mine, and all of them —the humans, the Sorcerers, and the Kova—bow to me. Until I get everything he’s ever loved. Until he has only lost. And he’ll have to watch me stand with—”

He cut himself off, but I didn’t care what he had to say anymore. I tried to count the people below me. But it quickly became apparent that it was impossible. I knew, just by casting my gaze over the land and the sea of homes and bustling bodies, that it was too many. There were too many bodies for the Kova to fight off, even if the humans and Sorcerers joined them.

“Vasier,” a deep voice called from behind me and I turned to see a burly man standing in the doorway, a dark look on his face. Vasier turned too.

“What is it, Broderick?” he asked, and the man flicked his eyes between Vasier and me.

He looked so familiar with his honey blond hair and thick shoulders but I couldn’t place where I’d seen him before. All the Vasi I’d seen before coming to Mortithev had been killed. For a moment I wondered if he was a man I’d seen once in Neomaeros or Kembertus. Some human who had the misfortune of stumbling into Vasier’s path, and had been changed by him.

As Vasier crossed the room to speak in hushed voices with the man, I tried to listen, and just as I started to throw my magic toward them, to use a tunnel of air to listen, Vasier turned back to me with a grim look in his eyes. He blurred to my side, grabbed my arm, and took me to my room, before slamming the door shut.

I didn’t move for several long moments as I stared at the door he’d gone out of. Because standing there, thinking through everything I’d just seen and heard, it became obvious, what I had to do. With or without my magic, I couldn’t fail.

Even if the curse didn’t require my assassination of Vasier, this would.

I would die trying to kill him before he could hurt anyone else I loved.

But I would have to do it alone. I wouldn’t have the help of the family, as Rasa had once promised.

As I strode forward to shove the armoire in place, I realized that I needed to send as much of my blood to Wyott as I could. And somehow sneak a note to him, too.

He would need to ration the blood for as long as he could. For long enough to buy time to speak to someone, anyone, who might know how to help Maddox—the Vasi—drink from someone else.

Because I was not going to survive this. Of that, I was certain.