Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Forty-SevenEvaline

Chapter Forty-Seven

Evaline

N o matter how hard I’d tried to sleep, it evaded me. And some time, in early dawn, I’d almost given up when fatigue finally settled over me and I was able to get what must’ve been an hour’s worth of sleep.

And too quickly, it was taken from me by a knock at the door.

I clenched my eyes shut and swallowed the cry of frustration that wanted to come out, and instead stood, tossed the blankets, and covers onto the bed, and walked to the doors while I dragged a hand over my face.

I opened the door, and saw a puzzled-looking Sage standing there, even saw Riley, the guard assigned to me now, look over at me, puzzled.

“You didn’t have your armoire over the door?” she asked, taking a step into the room with a garment bag she held upright and a few large cloth bags balanced in her other arm.

I shook my head as I let her in and closed the door behind her.

“Vasier told me to go straight to bed,” I said, and knew that the guard outside my door heard.

Sage nodded and walked past me to the chaise, dropping her armful onto it and turning to face me.

“We have to get you ready for tonight, but first we need to get you bathed.”

She moved to the bathing chamber and I knew she was helping to prepare my bath.

“Your breakfast should be delivered soon,” she said as she worked and I joined her in the chamber, itching to use my magic to help her heat the water but still unwilling to trust her with this information. I didn’t want Vasier to know that I wasn’t compelled.

When Sage finished, she wiped her hands over her legs and pockets, and took my hands in hers.

“Today is going to be a great day. We’re having a Ball!” she said, excitement in her voice, but her eyes didn’t show it, and as her hands wrapped around mine, I felt something slide against my palm.

My brows furrowed as I looked down to see a small note in my hand.

I have something for you.

My brows furrowed as I looked up at her, but she had a finger pressed to her lips, instructing me to stay quiet.

“Wait until you see the throne room,” she said, continuing the fake conversation we were having for the sake of my guard and walking out of the bathroom and toward the chaise where all her belongings sat. “I stopped by on my way here, and it already looks amazing and they’re not even done yet.”

She reached for the garment bag, and placed her hands over the center where a few buttons held it closed.

“There are so many flowers, and drapes.” She sighed as her hands undid the buttons. “It’s going to be glorious.” Her hands pushed the two panels of the garment bag aside, opening it to reveal the dress beneath.

But laid across the dress, its leather binding looped around the same hanger the dress was on, was a sheathed sword.

My sword.

My father’s sword.

I opened my mouth to speak but caught myself before I did. It still hung open, though, as the tears started, and I lifted my gaze to meet hers.

“We don’t have Balls here very often, but I think you’ll find it’s going to be an amazing night.”

Her light voice did not match her sad eyes as she lifted the sword out of its bag and handed it to me.

I shook my head as I stared at her, and felt the weight of the weapon settle over my outstretched hands.

She mouthed something then, and my eyes dropped to read her lips.

I will save you.

My thoughts raced and my heart thundered no matter how much I tried to quiet it so as not to rouse suspicion in Riley, but hoped he’d only think I was excited for the Ball.

“I’m going to take my bath now,” I said, suddenly, and Sage’s brows furrowed for a moment before I threw my shield around us.

Her eyes widened.

“Thank you, Sage.” I shook my head. “I didn’t think I’d ever see it again.”

I moved to hide it under the rug that sat below my bed and hid the sounds of it shimmying underneath with a shield.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “You were compelled not to use your magic.”

I got up off my knees and turned toward her. “It appears compulsion doesn’t work on me,” I said and her eyes widened, but then shook her head as if to clear it.

“We won’t have much time before Riley wonders why we’re quiet,” she said, turning back to the several bags she had with her. She opened two of them and pulled out the dagger I’d taken from my father’s collection in Neomaeros with its calf holster, then my bandolier with my throwing knives Wyott and Cora had gifted me, and finally, my Rominium dagger.

My eyes watered as I pulled it from her hands. It was the only link I had to Maddox anymore, and the feel of it alone allowed some peace over my heart.

“I stole these from the armory last night after I met with my father. They were hidden there in a room where we keep all of the confiscated weapons.” She shook her head. “It took a while to find them, but I thought if we’re going to escape today, you’d better have them.”

My brows furrowed but I ran to hide them, too. I pulled out some books from the bookshelf, and shoved them in behind them, then reshelved the texts. The shelves were so deep that they allowed for a hiding space in the rear.

Sage motioned me toward the bath.

“Go, before he gets suspicious, and I’ll tell you after.”

But her kindness stirred up guilt inside of me. No matter what she’d done to me in the past, this gesture meant a lot, and I knew I had to tell her. I had to break her heart and free her from a lie all at once.

“Sage,” I said quickly, wringing my hands. “I have to tell you something first.” She threw a nervous look at the door. “When Vasier took me on a tour of the grounds, he said something to me.” She turned back, her brows furrowed. “He told me that he’d killed your mother. That he needed your magic, and that he let you think she abandoned you. But he took you.”

She flinched away as if she’d been struck, and blinked heavy tears from her eyes.

“He was lying,” she whispered.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But I wanted to tell you. It didn’t feel right keeping it from you, whether it’s true or not. He said it to me, and I thought you should know. But if it is true,” I whispered, taking a step closer to her. “Then at least you know she loved you. That she gave her life, in her attempt to keep you.”

Sage only stared past me, eyes unfocused, as tears continued to build before she shook her head and cleared her throat.

“Thank you for telling me. But you really do need to go before Riley is suspicious.”

I nodded and dropped my shield, and bathed.

When I was finished and clothed in a crimson silk robe, I met her in my room again.

“Here, sit down and I’ll brush out your hair while we wait for your breakfast.”

I listened and sank down in front of the vanity, but didn’t miss her red ringed eyes or the tremor in her hands through my hair.

I put a shield over only our heads as she brushed the ends of my hair first, all the way down my back.

“I’ve been trying to dismantle the wards. I haven’t been able to yet, but I will keep trying. Now that I know you have your magic to use, perhaps today before we go to the Ball, you can give me a shield to try again.”

I nodded. “Of course.” I didn’t really have any choice other than to believe her, anymore. Without her help, I wouldn’t be able to get out of the wards, even if Vasier never discovered I was still able to use my magic and that I couldn’t be compelled.

And with the thought of escape, Maeve entered my mind. I knew I had to save her, I’d promised to. But if Sage was going to help to dismantle the wards, and then portal me out, I knew I’d have to tell her about Maeve at some point. The fear that Sage may betray me still lingered, but there was no other alternative.

“Sage, I promised Maeve I would take her with me if I escaped.”

The brush paused in my hair as her eyes raised to meet mine in the mirror.

“She’s the human with the blond hair? The one that tends to the bedrooms?”

I nodded. “Yes. When we leave, we need to take her.”

Sage pursed her lips and nodded. “Okay. Their rooms are in the dungeon, so when we portal out that’s where we’ll go to look for her.”

I wished that I’d gotten a chance to speak to Maeve, hoped with every second that passed that she walked through those doors so I could tell her to be ready, but she hadn’t yet.

I lowered the shield for a bit, so Riley wouldn’t get suspicious, and then put it back up when I thought of another question, one I’d forgotten until now.

I felt stupid for asking, felt silly for having hope, but did so anyway.

“You said you were going to meet with Wyott and Dean?”

Her lips pursed before she spoke. “I did,” she started, but then sighed softly. “I’m sorry, Evaline. I thought they’d be able to help us, but they can’t. My father sent Vasi and Sorcerers to Rominia, he must’ve done it right when we got here.” My heart sank in my chest but I turned in my seat to look at her.

“What happened? Are the Kova okay?”

She nodded. “Yes, the Vasi can’t get to them, but the Kova also can’t get out. The Sorcerers they brought with them created an additional ward that keeps the Kova in.”

My skin blanched and I turned back in my seat, eyes wide.

I didn’t know what that meant for the Kova. How much they depended on imports from the mainland, and how long they could survive without being able to leave the kingdom.

She shook her head. “It’s okay. Don’t let that frighten you.” I met her eyes in the mirror in front of me. “I’m going to figure this out. We will get you out. I swear to you. I will stop at nothing, I will do whatever it takes. Even if we have to keep portaling around the castle while I buy time to take down the ward.”

I nodded, tried to ignore my fear for Rominia, and took my shields down.

A short time later a tray of food was delivered for breakfast. It was littered with pastries and fruits, and with it came pitchers of coffee, tea, and orange juice.

Sage and I shared it. We’d take little moments of using the shield while she caught me up. That her father had instructed her to stay with me today, to prepare me for the Ball. That she was going to try to dismantle the wards as often as she could today, before we were summoned to the Ball.

“Hopefully,” she’d said as we ate. “We’ll never even see the inside of that ballroom.”

The day passed quickly. Riley brought in my dress when it was delivered, and dropped it on the bed. Even from across the room, I could see how large it was. How the several layers of skirts made the dress take up most of the bed, and that it was a deep burgundy.

Sage did my makeup, then her own, before I spoke. “Isn’t today the usual day for delivering blood to Rominia?” I asked.

She furrowed her brows but nodded. “Yes, but I forgot my supplies, and I don’t think my father would allow me to take it, he told me to stay with you all day.”

I pursed my lips, aware Riley could hear the entire conversation.

“Could we send someone to ask if it’s okay?” I asked.

She opened the door for Riley and within a moment he’d flagged down another Vasi to play messenger.

I turned to her as Riley’s footsteps moved away, throwing up a shield.

“Do you really think he’ll let you?”

She shrugged. “He said this ritual is dependent on you being calm, maybe he won’t want to risk upsetting you.”

When the messenger returned with the approval Sage predicted, she turned to me.

“I don’t have my supplies, I’ll need to go get them.”

I shook my head, grabbing the jar of blueberries from the breakfast tray and dumping what was left of them into a bowl.

“No need, use this.”

She nodded, and brought Riley in to make the incision, as we couldn’t let him know that we had daggers in our possession. When we’d filled the jar, he gave me some of his blood to heal my hand as Sage capped the blood.

“Did my father say when I could take it?” she asked.

The guard nodded. “He said he would allow you to depart for a few minutes to drop it off once he comes to escort Evaline to the Ball personally.”

After Riley left and stood outside the door once again, Sage turned to me and I used my shield quickly to speak.

“Take that to Rominia, make sure they know that if I die here tonight, or if Vasier succeeds, it will be all they will ever have for him.”

She swallowed and nodded. “Of course.”

I grabbed her wrist as she moved to attempt to dismantle the ward with the blood she’d just taken. Her eyes shot to mine.

“Tell them I said goodbye. Tell them that I love them all, and I cherished every moment. And that if he ever comes back, to tell him that he was the best prize I ever won pickpocketing.”

She nodded. “As soon as my father knows that I’m back, he’ll seek me out for the spell. And as soon as he feels my portal, he’ll know. You’ll need to put a shield in place for me, one with Air to silence my arrival but also one with Terra, to stop the ground from shaking.” She shook her head. “I don’t think I’d be able to portal in, and stop the quake.”

I nodded. “I can do that. Where?”

There was only a moment before an idea flashed behind her eyes.

“There’s a balcony high above the throne room, it spans the entire back wall.”

I shook my head. “I’ve never noticed a balcony.”

She nodded. “It’s so high that you would only ever notice it if you stood at the front of the room, near the throne, and looked up. Put a shield there, and that’s where I’ll portal in. Once I’ve arrived and can assess the situation, I’ll try to portal you from the room.”

We agreed on the plan, and Sage used the blood, locked inside the shield I put around her, to attempt to dismantle the ward. She tried for as long as we could risk, but in the end, only looked at me with an apology and some tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said when I put the shield around both of us. “I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t strong enough.”

I swallowed back my disappointment and shook my head. “I understand. It’s okay. Thank you for trying.”

She put the finishing touches on my makeup. It was grandiose, the most striking makeup I’d ever had. The eyeshadow started as a silver in my inner eye, then grew smokier, blacker, until it was as dark as Rominium in the creases. Thick black liner coated the rims of my eyes, and my eyelashes were darkened, too.

When we moved on to my hair, I knew what style I needed.

A styled and puffed braid that hung low down my back and wrapped around my barbed wire. The style I’d only worn one other time in my life.

The day of my wedding.

While Sage finished her own makeup, I moved to the bathroom to strap my daggers onto my calf and thighs. I smiled at the press of Maddox’s dagger to my skin, pretended the touch of it against me was his, then swallowed the tears that those thoughts brought on.

When I came out in my long robe with my daggers safely tucked inside of it, I saw that Sage had opted for the same style of makeup as me, but with jade green instead of black.

We were running out of time, so Sage kept her hair in its natural wave and simply took the front few inches of hair on each side and slicked them back, pinning them beneath her hair as if they were tucked behind her ears on each side.

We both moved to my dress, since it was obvious she’d have to help me into it.

“Good Gods,” she said as she picked it up. “It’s the weight of ten dresses.”

“Great,” I said, dryly.

We made quick work of sliding it up and over my hips. It hadn’t come with a slip, so we had to be sure to hide my weapon clad legs in the dress as quickly as we could to avoid anyone barging in and spotting them.

The dress was heavy, and only became heavier as she tightened me into it.

The top was corseted in the back, holding the gown tight to my frame, and pushing my bosom out of the front, where the neckline dipped down into a v-like shape. It then went up to round over my breasts and ended in angled points at my shoulders.

The skirt was the same material, and same color, but bigger and wider than any dress I’d ever worn before. It made my wedding dress—even before I made Aurora take structure from the skirt to make it smaller—look miniature.

Sage had to push through the skirts to corset me, as the material tried to press her away from me. I stepped into the slippers that were delivered with the dress and turned to look in the mirror.

I shook my head but widened my eyes as I recognized the neckline of this dress. It was the same one that had been painted onto my mother’s portrait, hanging in Vasier’s war room.

I pushed the nausea from my stomach and threw another prayer to the Gods. At this point, the constant prayers throughout the day had outnumbered my own thoughts.

I helped Sage into her dress, which was difficult to do with the skirt of mine forcing so much distance between us.

The top of her dress was similar to mine, but the neckline didn’t dive down so deep, making her dress more modest. The shell of the corset went further down on hers, too. Where my corset ended at my waist, allowing the skirt to spill out at all sides from there, Sage’s corset narrowed into a point that looked to land somewhere around her naval, and below it, and on each side of her hips, the tulle skirt fell around her. It was still full, but an eighth of the thickness of mine. And instead of being wine-red satin, her gown was made of emerald velvet and tulle.

Our eyes locked as a knock sounded at the door, and we nodded to each other. Some quiet agreement between the two of us. A silent promise.

She opened the door and I turned to see Vasier fill its frame and Riley’s retreating form behind him.

Vasier was dressed in all black, as usual. His dress pants were spotless and capped a pair of black shoes. He wore a collared black tunic, that looked to be velvet, too. And the entire look was covered with a floor length satin jacket, with collared lapels that stretched down and tapered into the edge of the coat at his waist.

His eyes widened when he saw me, and started to rake over my form, before he quickly composed himself, and straightened, extending his elbow toward me.

“Are you ready to see the Ball we’ve thrown in your honor?” I nodded and passed Sage to curl my hand into the nook of Vasier’s elbow.

“You will go deliver that blood, and be right back for the Ball, yes?” he asked, looking to Sage.

She nodded. “I’m going to clean up here quickly and then go,” she said, waving an arm to the makeup that covered the vanity and the bags that were tossed on all the furniture.

He paused briefly, then nodded. “Fine, but only because the servants are all attending the Ball.”

I had to fight every reflex not to snap my head up at Vasier. To not widen my eyes. Because if Maeve was at the Ball, amongst all the Vasi, I didn’t know how I’d get enough time away from Vasier to look for her.

And then, a second thought. That Vasier truly did want to make this a spectacle, to show all the Vasi, and all the humans, the power he wielded. The ability to bring someone back from the dead.

As Vasier led us out of the room, I threw one last look back at Sage and saw her standing in the room watching us off. She was my last hope, and Gods I hoped she didn’t betray me for a second time.