Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter FiftyEvaline

Chapter Fifty

Evaline

“ C h-Charlotte?” I asked, now that I’d finally found my voice through the shock, through the pain.

Her sad, hollow, eyes locked onto mine, and she nodded.

I shook my head, looking between her and Vasier.

“I don’t understand. How did you bring her back from the Night?” I asked him, then turned to her. “How did you come back from the Night?”

Vasier smiled, his wide and satisfied smile, and I knew he was reveling in each confused word I stumbled over, felt victorious in each and every way I’d so thoroughly underestimated him.

He tilted his head. “Silly Sorceress, Charlotte was never dead.”

My brows furrowed and I turned toward her, but then shrieked as the movement caused my barbed wire to dig into my wrists.

“I don’t understand,” I gasped through the pain. “James said—he saw you die.”

Her eyes lit at the same time tears filled them. “You know James?” She smiled despite her tears. “He’s alive?”

I nodded and tried to keep my arms still to lessen the pain.

“Yes, yes I just saw him a month ago. My mate, he turned, and we needed your help to bring him back,” I said and her pitiful look back at me caused my own tears to form.

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could Vasier reached out both hands and grasped onto mine, then pulled them apart.

I screamed and fell to my knees, nearly hitting my head on the table as I fell and heard the crunch of my kneecaps hitting the ground. My wrists landed on the drain that stood below me and caused another flash of pain up my arms. I felt something beat in my head, felt my magic shudder, and feared that somehow Vasier had already begun the ritual, that my mother was knocking on some internal door, ready to take over.

Vasier rounded the table, picked me up, and stood me back on wobbling legs as Charlotte fisted her hands in her shackles.

“This is not the conversation I’d like to be having,” Vasier snapped, then returned to his position across from me. “Charlotte is only here to aid your mother.” He gave her a sidelong glare, then turned back to me.

He didn’t elaborate, and I knew why. He didn’t want to continue the discussion of Charlotte’s ability to come back from being a Vasi, because he didn’t want the several hundred Vasi in attendance around us to hear it.

“But how is she here?” I asked, despite the fear in my chest that Vasier would hurt me again for asking.

He only shrugged, as if bored. “She was more useful alive.”

My brows furrowed, and I looked at her as I tried to clench my jaw at the feel of my blood seeping from my body, at the slide of it down my hands, to the drain below.

Charlotte nodded, but Vasier continued.

“My Vasi caught her, recognized her, and knew what she’d done. They brought her and James back here. I knew she’d be useful, so there wasn’t any sense in killing her. And after she bargained her subservience for James’ life, I compelled him to believe she died in that attack and that he’d avenged her, then sent him back home.”

My eyes squeezed shut as I tried to clear my mind. Clear it of the pain, of the pound of my heart in my ears, of the way my magic seemed to flutter around me.

I needed to clear my mind, to think straight, because Vasier’s words didn’t make sense.

I shook my head. “What do you mean you compelled him?”

Vasier’s smile widened into one of real and utter delight, and he cocked his head.

“Another secret Kovarrin has kept from everyone?”

When my expression remained confused, Vasier threw his head back and laughed, clapping his hands.

“Of fucking course he didn’t tell anyone,” he said, straightening back out. “Because why would he? Keeping it a secret maintains his power over everyone.”

I shook my head and he continued.

“Kovarrin and I are Firsts. We can compel other Kova and Vasi alike, not just lesser creatures like humans or Sorcerers.”

A breath rushed from my lips and I couldn’t tell if it was from the revelation, or my quickly lightening head.

“You’d be wise to take that lesson from Charlotte. She begged for James’ life, promised her cooperation if and when I needed her, and here she is today, alive, and well,” he said, waving a hand to her and somehow ignoring the bags under her eyes, the sallow of her skin, the jaunt strike of her bones at every joint. She was not well. “And James is back home, safe and sound. You saw so yourself.” He waved a hand to the left side of the ballroom, where Maeve stood facing us with Riley at her side. “If you do the same, you can trust that my promise will stand. She will wake up in Brassillion tomorrow, with no memory of this place.”

I looked to her, but she seemed to stare through me, as if she wasn’t consciously here at all, a bright smile on her face.

I ground my jaw and looked back to Vasier.

“Fine,” I said, low. “Tell me what to do.”

I knew I’d never see my friends again, never see Maddox again. I’d been prepared to die if it meant I took Vasier with me. Maybe this was how I could ensure his death. Give him exactly what he wanted—my mother—who would sit at his side and do everything she could each and every day to kill him.

His smile widened. “That’s what I like to hear,” he said, clasping his hands, then motioning them down to the leather-bound book that sat on the table. “I’ve collected these for centuries. Spellbooks from different Sorcerers and Sorceresses throughout history, from all over the world. I searched them all for locator spells, trying to find your mother. Had Sage try a few of them, but they never worked.” I winced against Sage’s words in my head, her story about how she received that scar on her palm.

“I’ve never thrown a single one away, they remain here in one of the many bookshelves in the castle. But this one,” he said, lowering his hand over to rest it on the cover. “I had to go to my library and fetch it the moment I discovered that Alannah was dead.”

I swallowed and tried to focus all the energy I possibly could on my shield, although I wasn’t sure why.

Sage wasn’t coming back, and she was smart not to. We were overpowered and outsmarted. We’d underestimated our enemy.

I hoped she stayed in Rominia. At least there she could put her portals to good use to help the Kova in this war.

“This book,” he said turning it to face him and opening the cover. “This book has a special spell in it. A spell for Soul Slipping.” He rifled through the pages until he found the one he needed, and stopped. He half turned and over his shoulder, I saw Lauden, and down below the rise we stood on, standing at the front of the crowd facing us, was Broderick. If he was Vasier’s close advisor, it seemed odd that he wouldn’t be up here, too. But I wondered if he was being punished for my assassination attempt.

Lauden strode forward with a smirk on his face that made me want to take the dagger from my thigh and slice his smile right off.

“This spell was created by a powerful Sorceress, one who was determined to bring back the man she loved after he’d been killed.” Vasier shrugged. “But where she failed, the souls trapped together in a comatose state, we will succeed by learning from her mistakes.”

Fear rushed through me at the thought of that, at my mother and I being trapped in one vessel together, but I held onto it. Forced myself to focus on anything but the pain searing through my wrists.

Vasier slid the book to Lauden, who looked at my wrists, down to the drain that it fell down.

“Has she lost enough?” he asked Vasier, and the First nodded.

“Plenty.”

Lauden nodded, then reached forward and grabbed my arms roughly. I shouted but didn’t dare pull away.

Lauden held my wrists over the golden bowl that sat on the table until a cupful of my blood settled in the bottom.

“This spell requires not only your blood but for you to have lost nearly half of your supply. It’s the only way to make room for your mother’s soul—for her magic, too.”

I swallowed, and my eyes flashed to Lauden as he started to chant a spell. Words I’d never heard before, in a language I didn’t understand.

He said the words again and again, then raised his own palm over the bowl and brandished a knife, and cut his palm. His blood fell into the bowl, mixing with mine, and my eyes widened.

Vasier was forcing him to use blood magic.

The blood in the dish started to ripple, then started to circle, spinning in on itself until it made a whirlpool in the golden bowl.

Vasier pulled a small vial from inside his coat, a hidden pocket, and brought it forward.

He uncorked it, then spilled its contents into the bowl.

White-silver hair.

I gasped and he smiled.

“You didn’t think your mother was the only one who stole something for a spell the night she created us, did you?”

My brows furrowed and I thought back to that night, to that memory she’d showed me. How she’d scraped her nails down his face until his blood coated her hands while he choked her. And when Kovarrin had found them, when he’d interjected and ripped Vasier off of her, Vasier had grappled for anything to hold onto as he was flung backward, and in his left hand—a clump of her hair.

And through all of the fighting, through even dying and resurrecting, he never let it go.

Lauden began new words, holding his hands over the top of the bowl. The blood still swirled, the hair nowhere to be found in the spin of it, and my eyes widened as the basin started to glow, a bright light beginning in the middle of it and emanating outwards.

Vasier’s gaze was on me as the light brightened, and I tried to ignore him, staring down at the bowl.

But then I heard it. A voice in my head.

Evaline?

Tears sprouted in my eyes and I let out a breath.

Mother. I responded back. Hearing her in my head, it was just like when I was young, and when she’d saved me from Bassel and Lonix.

What is happening? Her voice was frantic and I had to swallow the lump in my throat.

A spell. Vasier is forcing your soul from the Night and into my body.

My mother screamed inside and I felt her wriggle around in my head as the light in the bowl grew and grew.

No! She screamed. I won’t hurt you!

I told her that I didn’t have a choice. That he had my friend.

No. She cried, but her voice was louder inside, and I knew it wouldn’t be long.

My grip on my shields began to slip, and I let them go. There was no use in maintaining them, and a part of me knew that the only reason I had left them up so long was so that I wouldn’t have to reckon with the fact that I was well and truly giving up.

A sacrifice.

“What’s happening?” Vasier roared.

One moment I was staring into his deep crimson eyes, and in the next moment I was pushed back, looking at the same scene but from further away. As if my vision was only able to be seen through a tunnel.

“Stop this!” my mother shrieked, but the words came out of my lips.

Vasier’s eyes widened, and softened all at once, and he smiled.

“Alannah?”

Something slammed inside my head and I tried to wince away from the feeling, but realized she was the one with control over that part of me, now.

My mother looked down at our wrists, then up at Vasier with angry tears in her eyes.

“What have you done, Vasier?” she shrieked, raising our hands toward him as if to show him the wounds. “What have you done to my daughter?”

He only shook his head slowly. “Nothing. Don’t you see? I’m doing this for us,” he said, reaching over the table, over the bowl, and grasping our hands in his.

A murmur broke through the crowd, shock at confirmation of what Vasier had been able to pull off, but it was all too much.

Too loud.

The crowd, the whir of the blood, my mother’s thoughts in my head, the pounding in my mind.

My mother looked to Charlotte, who winced. Then to Lauden, who smirked.

Then to Vasier.

“This…” she said, tears in her voice and her eyes as she shook her head. “This is too far,” she whispered softly, tilting her head, and looking deep into Vasier’s eyes. “Even for you.”

Vasier swallowed but hid the look of insecurity with another grin.

“No,” he whispered back to us. “Don’t you understand? I’m doing this for you. To bring you back here, to me. So we can have the life we always wanted.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head violently. “This is not a life I’d ever want. And the fact that you can’t see that only shows how little you knew me,” she urged and Vasier’s eyes flashed.

“You’re only angry because it’s your daughter. But in time, that pain will heal. And then it will be you and I, forever.”

My mother shook her head. “No!” she screamed. “No. This is why I didn’t choose you that day!”

Vasier’s eyes hardened.

“I didn’t choose you because you always take everything too far. Kovarrin and I could’ve just run away, but you would’ve found that boy and threatened him. Or killed him. Burned the village to the ground to make me happy.” Tears welled in her eyes as she shook her head. “Kovarrin would’ve helped me escape. He would’ve done what I wanted, which was to move along to another village, one that didn’t know about me. But you, you would’ve forced our village to accept me. You would’ve forced something that didn’t fit, just as you are doing now.”

Vasier’s body straightened and his hands shook at his sides.

There was a slam in my head, again and again. As if someone was trying to break in.

For a moment I wondered if it was my father. Consciously, I knew it couldn’t be. There was no blood or hair or any other personal belonging of his in the spell bowl, but I nearly convinced myself I was wrong when a masculine voice filled my head, too.

What are you doing?

My mother’s eyes widened—my eyes widened—at the voice at the same time that a shiver wracked our frame. Because even if I wasn’t in control of my body, even if she was the one moving in it and breathing in it, it was still my body. And my body—my heart—would know that voice anywhere.

I slammed forward, realizing for the first time that I could . If I tried, I could overtake her, and Gods knew she handed the reins over happily.

We jerked forward, and Vasier’s eyes darkened as he seemed to understand, but I didn’t care.

My head turned to the balcony, to the place where I’d held a shield in case Sage portaled in.

I blinked the tears away—I needed a clear view.

And there, up on the balcony, were four bodies. Three men, one woman.

And standing in front of them all, hands poised on the rail and leaning as far forward as he could as if to give me the best visual of his eyes—was Maddox.

A sob worked its way out of my throat as I stared up at him, as he smiled down at me, and even from here I could see the way his chest shook with cries of his own.

“Maddox?” I asked breathlessly.

Yes, sweetheart. It’s me. I’m here. I came for you.

Tears streamed down my cheeks. Is this real? I’d lost so much blood, and everything was so loud. There was too much happening, and I was so afraid of losing him again that I couldn’t bring myself to believe it.

Yes, Eva. He said and I cried out through a smile at my nickname. Yes, it’s real.

Maddox smiled at me, and my heart shuddered in my chest.

Vasier followed my gaze, and I think he shouted orders. There was a tizzy of movement in the rear of the hall, and I knew Vasi were heading to them.

We’re going to get you out of here. Maddox said down the bond, looking down to see how far the jump was, then looking to the ceiling.

No, I said, remembering Maeve. Save my friend, Sage knows who she is. I showed him the image in my mind, where Maeve was located in the ballroom.

They will get her. But I’m getting you.

But Lauden cut himself again, dripping more blood into the bowl and I felt my mother seize control again.

“Gods!” she yelled, jerking back into place, and shaking our head. “No!”

My heart raced, my body shuddered, and my magic inside seemed to boil to the surface, begging to be used. As if it understood this fork in the road. This life or death of me—Evaline—inside.

Vasier reached across the table, grabbed our throat.

“Give her to me, Evaline,” he growled and we made a gagged sound. “I’ve waited long enough!” he screamed. “Give her to me!”

My mother was in control, and she only shook her head. “This is not the way, Vasier,” she said, her voice barely able to get through his grip on our throat.

The crowd made a noise, something between surprise and confusion, and Vasier looked out at them.

I took the opportunity to seize control again, tripping forward until my mother fell back, and I reached out as far as I could and bit Vasier’s arm.

He hissed and turned back to me, but I’d sufficiently distracted him from whatever had been out in the crowd—them saving Maeve I hoped—because a second passed and a body slammed into Vasier, knocking him back across the stage, sailing into several of the musicians sitting with the orchestra.

With his hand free of my throat, I took in a deep breath, but choked on it as Wyott stood up, he’d been the one to take out Vasier.

And behind me, I heard feet land on the stage. Charlotte’s eyes widened and I turned in time to look up and watch as Maddox straightened and reached for me.

“Evaline,” he breathed, and another sob fell from my throat.

“Maddox,” I cried back, looking up into the completely—wholly—charcoal gray eyes I’d fallen in love with.