Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Thirty-EightWyott

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Wyott

“ I don’t see her,” Maddox said as we entered the marina and moved to stand out of the way of the bustle of its workers. We came to help Cora, and Maddox searched the docks anxiously.

“She’s in her office,” I said, angling my head up to where her office hung over the open air of the marina. I didn’t have to see her to know she was there—I could feel her through the bond—but the windows at the front of her office displayed where she bent over her desk, mouth twisted to the side—a telltale sign of her concentration.

Maddox nodded as he looked up and noticed her, and just as we moved to go ask her what she needed us to do, Saxon walked up and embraced Maddox, and pulled him into a conversation.

“I’ll be back,” I said, nodding to Saxon, and then aiming for the stairs. The wood creaked under my weight as I jogged up them, then I braced a hand on the jamb and swung myself through the open door of her office.

Cora didn’t startle, she knew I was coming, but didn’t look up just yet.

A ledger was open on her desk and her hand moved over it quickly as she wrote something into it.

“Hello, darling,” I said as I walked in behind her and bent to place a kiss on top of her head.

“Hi, baby,” she said without looking up. I looked down over her head to see what she marked, and saw that it was one of the many ledgers she kept for tide tracking.

On top of naval preparations for any battles, organizing trade, and ferrying in and out of the kingdom, Cora and her crew also maintained detailed logs of the tide levels.

She finished writing the date and hour for the entry and released a breath before turning in her seat to look up at me.

“Sorry, I was just in the middle of reviewing the recent tidal trends,” she said, smiling up at me. Her hair pulled back into a high ponytail, but it didn’t stop one tendril of tight curls from falling down the side of her face.

The same smile that nearly always graced my face at the sight of her formed, and I waved my hand.

“It’s no problem, I’m sorry for interrupting. I just wanted to let you know that Maddox and I are here to help. What can we do?”

Her brows twitched toward one another and her eyes shadowed for a moment as she turned her head to look for him below. Once she saw he was still entangled in a conversation with Saxon, she turned back.

How is he? She asked using the bond, to prohibit him or anyone else from hearing.

I shrugged. Brimming with unease and anger .

Kovarrin’s confession had left all of us unsettled, but Maddox had done nothing but pace for the entire day after, so we were back to finding ways to fill our days.

I can’t even imagine what he’s going through, she responded as she stood and made her way to the door. Sorry, I have to check the levels , she said as she made her way to the bay that held the tracking gadget.

It was a device Cora had invented, a buoy that floated in a small bay in the marina, a string tied to its top, then up to the ceiling. Hung from the string was a piece of black dyed chalk that was balanced against a piece of paper that stretched high and wide to cover the wall of the bay. The buoy rose and fell throughout the day, and the mark of the chalk against the paper indicated the tide and its levels. All that the system required to maintain it, was to pull the paper once an hour and put up a new one, and replace the chalk when it was too worn down to reach the paper. All of which was maintained by Cora, or a member of her crew, once an hour.

I can’t imagine either, I told her as I followed loyally behind.

She opened the door and reached in to grab the paper.

I’m sick with worry for her, and I’m not even her mate, she said as she pulled back and handed me the paper, then opened the drawer that had been built into the wall beside the bay, to pull out a new piece.

She finished hanging it, checked the chalk, then took the paper with the newest levels documented and went back to her office.

Just as she sat down to write this hour’s value in the space of the ledger she’d already prepared for it, Maddox walked in.

“Hey, Cor,” he said as he leaned against the jamb. He tilted his head to look at her ledger. “Tides?”

She nodded as she finished her entry and shut the book.

“Yes. Wyott said you guys are here to help?” She turned to file the paper away as she spoke. I knew she wanted to ask how he was, but didn’t want to upset him.

“Please,” Maddox responded, and she nodded, turning to smile at him.

“Can you check the stock of fireworks in the closet next door?” she asked pointing to the wall of her office opposite her desk. A bookshelf held more of her ledgers against the wall that split her office and the closet. “War approaches, no matter what anyone says. We need to make sure their fuses are untainted and that they haven’t gotten damp in storage. If they are, can you go into town and get more?”

She spoke of the fireworks that the marina and the manor both utilized to signal for the deployment of our protective services.

When there was war, when we needed to call in the rest of the Navy or Army, we used two systems. An alarm bell, and fireworks crossed over the sky above Rominia as a message to our soldiers. Blue fire, originating from the marina, brought in the Navy. Red from the manor—from Kovarrin—brought in the Army.

“Can do,” Maddox said and disappeared from the door immediately.

I turned to her and bent to kiss the furrow of her brows—she was still anxious for him—and went to help him.

It took less than an hour to check that they were all in functioning use, and by the time we came back to her office to ask for more, Mitch, a member of her Navy, was running up the stairs.

“Cora,” he rushed out, swinging into her office. The movement caused the twists his hair was styled into to fall over his forehead. “The ships are here.”

Without hesitation, she dashed for the door, and Maddox and I followed as she ran down the stairs and to the wide entrance to the marina.

She stayed just inside the doors, trying to shield herself from the Vasi that stood in the shallows.

Mitch was at her side, a ledger in his hand—he must have grabbed it from her office before he ran down here.

“Those should be—” he was looking down at the pages, ready to inform her on who was sailing into port, but her eyes were pinned on the three ships that coasted toward us.

“It’s Jesse with the Kova who were hiking in the Wicket Mountains, Grace with the store of beef, and Francis with spices,” she rattled off, voice hushed in an attempt to keep her words from the Vasi, I was sure.

His brows furrowed, and I knew he was questioning how she could tell from here, but Cora made it her mission to know every single ship of hers, to memorize the details. To most people, including me, all the ships looked the same, but she had a gift.

She spun to Mitch. “Take two others with you and run for their mates,” her eyes were frantic but her voice was even and soft. He nodded and spun, running.

She turned back for the ships and raised her hands to push her hair out of her face.

“They weren’t supposed to be back for another day,” she hissed under her breath. “I planned for their mates to be here tomorrow, to warn them once they came in.”

“The winds must have been on their side,” Maddox said, and I looked over her head to see that he had a worried expression on his face.

The ships sailed, and it was torture to watch them near the Vasi. They were so far, we couldn’t be sure if they could even see the shore yet, as the Vasi didn’t have any ships of their own on this side of the island.

Cora’s heart raced so loudly that Maddox had to be able to hear it too, and fear rippled down the bond, but all we could do was watch.

The minutes ticked by, and she wrung her hands in front of her.

“Hurry, Mitch,” she whispered as she looked out over the ships.

The ships crept closer, but still, so far we couldn’t see individual crew aboard. What we could see, were the Vasi.

And they turned.

Cora’s breath halted at the same moment that the Vasi moved, that Sorcerers raised waves and aimed them for the ships.

Cora moved, there was no use in hiding in the marina.

She sprinted for the beach, then into the water.

“Cora, stop!” I yelled behind her, but she had always been faster than me.

Maddox was too, and he ran forward, tried to circle his hand around her wrist, to stop her, but was too late as she slammed into the ward and was thrown back.

I caught her shoulders just as her body hit the water, and hauled her up.

“Are you okay?” I asked, but her eyes—her teary eyes—were on the ships, on the Vasi that had ridden the waves their Sorcerers sent them on. On the Vasi that were tossed up and onto the boats by the water they rode.

“No,” she breathed as the water splashed behind us.

Maddox and I turned to see Mitch and two other crew members in tow with the three mates of Jesse, Grace, and Francis, along with some other mates of others on the ships who must’ve seen the commotion and ran for shore, too.

“They’ve been signaling,” Mitch said as they reached us, his flushed russet skin and breathlessness enough to tell us that he ran as fast as he possibly could. “As soon as they were close enough.”

Cora didn’t respond, though, and we all watched with bated breath as we prayed for a miracle. That the ships, somehow, had a crew large enough to fend off the Vasi who attacked. But there were so many Vasi.

I looked down the shore, and then the other side.

It was clear that all the Vasi, if not most of them, left their post of guarding the perimeter of Rominia, to attack our people.

We could barely hear anything, mostly scuffles and the slap of the water against the boats. We were too far.

But finally, there was noise.

Screams.

In front of us, from the ships. Behind us, from the mates.

Grace’s mate fell to his knees behind me, loosed a roar I’d never heard before, and never wanted to again. A roar of rage and ache and loss.

I looked to Cora, saw the tears that fell down her face, then heard the scream of Jesse’s mate. Then Francis’s.

One by one, the other mates that had come down to warn them, watched, heard, felt , their mates die.

Cora screamed and tried to run forward again but the ward pushed her back. I wrapped my arms around her torso, tried to pull her back, but she fought me to try to get to the ships.

“No!” she screamed, tears shifting her voice. “I was supposed to protect them!” She wept as she fought against me, and I felt the visceral pain that cut down the bond.

These were her people, she loved them like family.

And they were dead.