Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Sixty-FourMaddox

Chapter Sixty-Four

Maddox

E valine’s guilt slammed down the bond so hard that for a moment I questioned whether it was my own.

I wrapped my hand around hers and tugged her toward the shops.

“She’ll be okay,” I whispered to Evaline when I knew they were out of Dean’s earshot.

She looked up at me, eyes sad, and shook her head.

“It’s too much,” she said as we walked. “It’s too much to feel sorry for her, and feel afraid of her. Afraid of what she may do next.”

I let go of her hand and brought mine up her back, slid it until it wrapped over the muscle between her shoulder and neck, massaged her there for a moment to ease the tension I could see coiled up, then wrapped my arm around her and tugged her into me.

“Everything right now is too much, but I think I have something that will make you feel better.”

Her face brightened as she looked up at me, smiling wide.

“What is it?” She asked, moving her hand up to her shoulder to hold mine that rested there.

I nodded toward Otto’s shop, and her eyes followed. When she saw the telltale mark of a Blacksmith’s storefront—the hammer and anvil sign—she nearly bounced with each step.

“What are we getting?”

I smiled down at her as I felt her excitement through the bond, and felt the relief that eased the weight on my chest.

She’d been through so much, and I just wanted to do something that would make her happy. I knew she and her father used to shop together at the Blacksmith in Neomaeros when she was growing up, so I wanted her to go, pick out whatever she wanted.

“Whatever you want,” I answered her as we met the entrance, and I leaned forward to grab the door, and hold it open for her.

Her smile turned from me to the store, as we entered and she immediately went to the shelves on the left, displaying several available daggers, knives, and swords.

Otto popped his head through the door that led to the back of his shop and smiled when he saw me.

“I knew that was you,” he said, moving fully into the doorway. His eyes moved around the room, and I knew he was looking for Wyott, and when he saw Evaline, his eyes sparkled. She wore the bandolier of throwing knives on her chest from Wyott, and her Rominium dagger at her thigh. She’d wanted to be safe, worried that if anything went wrong with the wards, and the Vasi entered Rominia, that we’d need to fight. “I see you’ve received your throwing knives,” Otto said, positioning himself behind the countertop, and Evaline swung her head to face him.

She joined Otto and I at the counter, nodding. “Yes, I love them,” she said, placing a hand over her chest, over the knives.

Otto nodded down to her Rominium dagger, or at least the handle and cross guards he could see, anointed with a Madierian Sea Blue Topaz.

“Who made this?”

Evaline pulled it out of her holster and handed it to him, and he held it in his open-faced hands, examining the blade, the handle.

“A Blacksmith in Kembertus,” I said. “I didn’t know at the time if she would come back with me to Rominia, and I wanted to make sure she had a strong blade.”

Otto nodded as he looked down at it, then cocked his brow.

“Where’d you get all the Rominium from?”

I swallowed, and realized that I felt guilty to have to tell him this.

“He had to melt down a few of my weapons.”

Evaline’s head snapped up to mine, eyes wide, but Otto only chuckled.

“You mean my weapons,” he said, clarifying that he’d made them.

I cringed. “Are you angry? It wasn’t meant to disrespect, I just wanted to keep her safe.”

He handed Evaline back the dagger and shook his head, smiling at me. “Of course I’m not angry, they’re yours to do whatever you want with.” He nodded to Evaline. “And I can understand wanting to protect the person you love.”

He looked at the dagger in her hands again, before his gaze flicked back up to mine.

“The Blacksmith did fine work, hopefully, he stays in Kembertus, otherwise he’s going to put me out of business.”

We made a bit more small talk, and then he asked Evaline if there was anything she wanted from the shelves, or if there was anything custom she’d like.

She looked up at me, and I laughed.

“Don’t look at me, this is your first custom weapon you get to pick out all on your own.”

She smiled as she took the sketch pad he handed her.

“You may regret saying that when you see the price,” she muttered jokingly and I smiled.

“Trust me, nothing you get could ever match what Wyott and I have already spent here.”

Otto laughed at that, and I wondered if he recalled that same memory that Wyott and I had when he was helping me to come back. When we were kids and ran up too high of a tab here.

“I have something I’d like you to make, actually,” I said, pulling my eyes from Evaline and the sketch she was already beginning. “Evaline has always worn barbed wire in her hair, to stop people from yanking her braid.”

Evaline straightened and looked up at me, eyes wide.

My hand brushed over hers, which held the sketchbook, and I looked back to Otto.

“Vasier destroyed it. Is there any way you could make her a new strand?”

His brows rose as he looked to her and crossed his arms.

“I could definitely do that.” He tilted his head, tried to see the length of her braid, and she slanted her shoulders so he could see the length of it down her back. “Is there anything specific you want it to be able to do, or just have spikes?”

Evaline’s brows furrowed and I heard her heart pump faster.

“What do you mean, what else could it do?”

A sly grin grew on his face, and I immediately knew I brought her to the right man for the job.

He loosed his arms from his chest and reached for the pad in her hands.

“May I?”

She nodded and handed it over, and he turned the page to begin a sketch of his own.

“Before, with your barbed wire in Kembertus, you must’ve had to hide it right?” he asked as he moved the sketching chalk over the paper.

She nodded. “Yes, women couldn’t have weapons.”

He tilted his head as he looked down. “Do you still want it to be hidden, now that you’re here?”

That took her aback, based on the slight tilt of her head, before she looked up at me, mouth open.

“I guess I’ve never thought about it being visible.”

I shrugged. “Before, the barbed wire didn’t actually stop anyone from yanking at it unless they already felt it there. If it was visible, no one would touch it at all. Or at least, not if they were smart.”

I watched as the thoughts raced through her mind, knew she was picturing it, and slowly a smile widened on her face.

She nodded and turned back to Otto.

“Yes, I want it to show. And I want it to be Rominium, there’s no point in making it silver anymore. I want people to see it. I want them to know that they can’t touch me.”

He nodded as his hands moved over the sketch and I could tell he was excited, too, by how quickly it moved.

“How big can you make the spikes?” she asked, and his smile only widened.

“As big as you want.”

They continued to talk over the wire, and finally, the sketch was done. He showed it to her, pointed at all the different spikes he could add, and she nodded faster and faster with every word he said.

“Now, onto what I meant by what the wire could do ,” he said, holding the pad to his chest as he pointed things out to her. “We could add burs to it,” he said, adding small squiggly balls to various points of the wire. “That way if anyone did see the wire, and still chose to yank it, they’d really pay the price.” He added a few more, then looked up at her. “I could make the burs sturdy enough to hang onto the wire for everyday wear, or the wear and tear of you braiding it into your hair every day, but weak enough that if someone actually grabbed it, they would embed into their palm and once the palm was pulled away, they’d pull free of the wire.”

He set the pad down, his smile triumphant as he looked between the two of us.

“Holy shit,” I muttered, trying to picture it.

Her eyes were alight. “I love it.”

I realized that she likely didn’t understand what Otto was really saying, she didn’t know that the Kova weren’t just physically stopped by Rominium, but our healing was too. Just like when Wyott held the dagger in my neck, and the Rominium didn’t allow it to heal, the burs would work the same way.

“If a Kova or a Vasi grabbed it, the burs would break off into their hands, and wouldn’t heal.” She looked up at me, brows furrowed and Otto jolted forward, must’ve realized that she hadn’t even understood the brilliance in his design yet.

He nodded. “Yes, exactly. If a Kova or Vasi grabs it, their hand will be wounded, and they won’t be able to get the burs out easily because they’ll be so small, and their hand won’t heal because the burs will stop the healing around it.”

Her eyes widened, and her smile did too, somehow, and she nodded.

“Yes, absolutely yes.”

Otto nearly buzzed with his excitement and tore the page from the sketchbook, then turned it back to the page she’d been drawing on.

“What else did you want?” he asked, looking down at it.

She waved her hand. “The sketch isn’t done, but I was hoping you could make me a brace—a holster to keep a small dagger on the outside of my forearm.”

He nodded. “Absolutely.”

They went over the details for the holster, and he took measurements of her arm, but still planned to make it adjustable so it could always fit over whatever clothing she wore. She wanted a black holster, with roses branded into it to give an embroidered look, to match her throwing knives.

For the dagger itself, she wanted one that ran the length of her forearm, including the handle, and just wanted a simple Rominium dagger.

By the time we left, neither of them could wipe the smiles off their face.