Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Eighty-ThreeEvaline

Chapter Eighty-Three

Evaline

I forced myself to focus, despite the fear that ripped through my gut and the uneasy feeling that only a handful of hours ago, we were celebrating. We were happy. For a moment, we’d forgotten about the war.

But Vasier was prepared to remind us.

I shut my eyes, pictured the stretch of the main street that began at the base of the castle—my prison for so many months—and ended at the inn where I’d met Maddox.

I knew the portal was ready before I even had to open my eyes to see it, because I heard the screams.

We stepped in, Maddox, Sage, Grant, and I, first. When my boots hit the ground, there was a squelch, and I looked down to see a puddle of blood below me, a dead body to my right.

I clenched down on my jaw and looked up as I heard Sage portal back out behind me.

There were Vasi coming from every direction.

Maddox and Grant shifted beside me until I felt their shoulders press against the back of mine, on each side. They were forming a triangle, each of us having the backs of the other so that we saw all threats from every direction.

A Vasi came for me at the same time Maddox jolted back into us, clearly making impact with an adversary, and Grant grunted behind me.

The Vasi smirked as she neared, but I was already pulling my father’s sword out of my left hip’s holster and brandishing it in front of me.

Her eyes landed on the sword, and she reached for it mid-lunge.

Her hand closed over it, shoving it to the side.

My magic jolted into action, and I sent a spray of the blood puddled beneath me up into her eyes.

The others portaled in behind us, and the sound of their own battles beginning was instantaneous.

My Vasi was grunting, throwing her hands to her eyes to clear the blood away, and I took the opportunity to shove my sword into her chest. She screeched, but I didn’t stop moving, I flicked my wrist, sending the sword swirling in a circle around her heart, dislodging it from where it was held in place in her chest.

She gasped and flung herself back and away from me, causing my sword to free from her chest and fall from my hands. Before she could heal, I jumped forward. When we made impact, she fell backward at the same moment my hand slid into the cavity of her chest.

I braced my free hand on the ground as we hit the stone, and my other squeezed around her heart and pulled it free.

Her head fell back against the street and I jumped to my feet, letting her heart fall from my grasp, and turned to survey the battle.

Dean and Sage were engaged in fights of their own.

By this time in the other kingdoms, they’d already made for the ward. But there were so many Vasi around us—too many—that at once I understood why they hadn’t yet.

I felt a movement behind me, my battle instincts—a gift from Vestari—sensing them.

My braid swung around my head as I spun to face the aggressor. The Vasi hissed against the slap of my barbs across his cheek.

I lifted a foot to the Vasi’s chest, stomping onto it and kicking him back.

His eyes were wide, his hands reaching for his face and the Rominium burs that embedded there, but I didn’t hesitate, only picked my sword up from the ground, and took off his head.

I was going to need Otto to add more burs far sooner than I think he planned.

There was movement in my periphery, and I turned to my left to see another Vasi coming.

My eyes widened and my skin went cold.

Not for the Vasi heading for me, but for what lay in the distance behind him. On the horizon, past the buildings that surrounded us, to the wall that rose up above all else and surrounded this city.

For the dozens of Vasi jumping down from its top, entering the city.

I turned to Sage, eyes wild and heart rampaging in my chest.

“Sage, we need a ward!” I screamed as loud as I could, a hand raising to point at the wall.

Her head swung to me, and Dean took a protective step in front of her to stop the Vasi reaching for her.

Her eyes landed on mine, saw the terror, and followed my pointed finger.

Her jaw dropped and she grasped onto Dean’s arm, opening a portal below her.

“Eliana!” Dean screamed.

The Kova turned at the sound of her name, and dodged the Vasi who’d been swinging at her. She left him on his backswing and sprinted to Sage’s side, and then the three of them were gone.

I turned to face a sound approaching from my right, the Vasi running for me.

He lunged forward, hands reaching for me, but slowed when he saw my sword.

“You know we don’t want to hurt you, Sorceress.” He lowered his hands. “Just come with us, and you can stop all of this killing.”

He waved around us, as if attempting to divert my attention so that he could make his move, but my gaze didn’t falter from his face.

No more sacrifice. Maddox gently reminded through the bond, clearly having heard the Vasi’s words.

But I hadn’t even considered going with him, not for a moment.

I didn’t want these people to die; I didn’t want any innocent civilians to. But the only way to end this war was to kill Vasier and stop the Vasi. And that just wouldn’t happen if I was jailed with him again.

I could have all the magic in the world, all the gifts from the Gods, but it didn’t matter if it was only me, against an entire kingdom.

I won’t. I responded to Maddox, at the same time that I struck out a beam of fire through the Vasi’s chest.

Before I could turn, survey the battle, or look for the others, someone pushed my back, and I was flung forward, slamming onto the ground.

I reached out to catch my fall, landing against the ground and all that covered it. Namely, blood.

But just as hands slid on my back, as Nash’s voice sounded behind me, apologizing for bumping into me during a fight, I noticed where my right hand had landed.

Not on stone, but on something soft. I knew it was a body, I’d been tripping over them with every Vasi I fought. There were so many dead, both human and Vasi, beneath us.

I looked over, expecting to see a Vasi, perhaps one of those I’d killed in our time here, but it wasn’t.

Wide, green eyes stared back at me.

He was dead, on his back, his head tilted to the side in an expression of horror.

No matter how much blood or dirt coated his face, it didn’t hide the mess of red hair that sat atop his head.

I yelped and shoved myself away from Nikolas as Nash pulled me to stand.

“Are you okay?” he asked in my ear, but I was still staring down at Nikolas. We’d never been great friends, but acquaintances. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen him and realized it was on this very street when he and Antony had spoken to me only days before I met Maddox.

A shaky breath shuddered through my lips as my wide eyes scanned the rest of the street below us.

It was easy to spot the Vasi bodies against the humans because the Vasi were heartless, or headless.

And there were so many more human bodies.

In all the kingdoms we’d saved before, I hadn’t taken time to look at the dead. There hadn’t been as many as here, but still, I hadn’t looked. I was more focused on stopping the threat, and by the time we did, we were forced to move on to the next kingdom.

But now, I looked.

A few feet away, I could see a long pink day dress coated in blood, fair skin splotched with it.

Brielle’s eyes were closed, but I knew her all the same.

I shook my head, stumbling back.

I heard Nash call for Maddox, shake me gently, and speak in my ear.

I pulled myself from his grasp, turned, and ducked down to look at all the bodies I could.

Many I didn’t recognize—I didn’t know everyone in Kembertus—but many I did.

The Blacksmith. The lord I’d pickpocketed on the anniversary of my father’s death. The jeweler that Bassel had sold his diamonds to.

Some of the bodies were lopsided, or strewn across others. My hands gently moved them aside, trying to identify the dead.

My gut screamed for me to move, that there were threats all around me, but I didn’t stop. Only kept my head down, kept myself low, and searched.

Someone spoke in my ear the moment before I felt Maddox’s hands curl around my upper arms.

I still moved, spotted a woman flat on her face, and stumbled over to her.

Evaline, I know this is a lot, but we need you to fight , Maddox said softly down the bond, but followed loyally behind.

My shaking hands fell to her shoulder, and I delicately pulled it toward me, turning her until her back rested on the ground.

When her neck turned and her head fell back, rolled toward me, the sob that had been sitting in my throat for minutes now choked out of me, and I shook my head.

Natalia’s ivory skin didn’t glow like it normally did, but was sallow. Dim. And her eyes, her kind eyes were empty.

I was shaking my head, hands swiping down her cheeks, as tears fell down mine.

I’d barely known her. We’d barely had time as friends before her visits to my room had become shorter—courtesy of Therese—but I knew the length of our friendship wasn’t the reason for my grief, for my remorse, it was what Natalia had meant to me.

She’d been the first person in Kembertus to show me kindness, she’d been the first person my aunt had handed me off to the night I’d entered the kingdom. Natalia had helped me, and had been my friend when I needed one most, before Therese had gotten to her.

She’d been my lifeline.

And then even when she stopped, even when she ignored me so as not to upset Therese, Natalia still helped me. The night of my wedding to Bassel, when she’d caught me in my uncle’s study, covered in blood.

She’d let me escape without alerting the guards. She was the reason I left with my life that night, she was the reason I was here today.

Kneeling over her dead body.

The guilt tore through me faster than the grief did.

I shook my head and noticed Maddox was kneeling behind me, pulling me into his chest.

I know, I know. He kept repeating.

I shook my head. “I should’ve taken her with me,” I cried, swinging my head. “I should’ve gotten her out!”

Just like Maeve, I’d left Natalia here unprotected.

Maddox pulled me back into his chest.

“There’s nothing we can do now.” His voice was heavy with emotion, but stern in my ear. “We can only protect the rest.”

Protect the rest.

And in a moment, I remembered. Remembered what I should be doing and who I should be protecting.

My eyes widened and I ripped myself from Maddox’s arms, turned, and sprinted down toward the inn.

I dodged the Vasi who leaped for me, sent walls of air—hard and compact—toward them until they slammed into the building they stood in front of. I ducked outreaching arms and hurdled bodies, and felt Maddox behind me. Knew he realized exactly what I had, the moment I started to run.

I felt his arms wrap around me, pick me up, and take off at full speed until we hit the intersection of the inn, and he turned right.

We pushed past the gate of the Orphanage, heard the creek of its hinges screech into the air, and crossed the yard I’d watch them all play in.

This street was quiet, and I thanked the Gods. It appeared most of the fighting was in the heart of Kembertus.

I ran up the steps to the porch, ripped open the door, and inside there was only silence.

I ran forward, ripping open doors, Maddox doing the same.

“Priscilla! Megin!” I screamed for the children and felt my heart beat faster and faster when there wasn’t a response.

But Maddox stopped, turning to me.

“Downstairs,” he whispered. “There are heartbeats downstairs.”

The home was ripped apart, furniture flung back and forth, a mess before we’d ever arrived. And I’d worried that it meant horror, but perhaps those were only the signs of a quick run to safety, instead of a Vasi attack.

I ran to the door that I knew led to the basement, flung it open, and bolted down the steps.

The stairwell was dark and before my eyes, a subtle glow of blue light lit it. Neomaerie’s moonlight filtered through my eyes, and I remembered my mother’s words.

“When you need the light in the darkness.”

The door at the bottom was shut, too. My hand reached for it, but the handle was locked.

Maddox was behind me, but I didn’t wait for him, I shoved my shoulder into the door at the bottom of the stairs, fighting against the lock.

I called for the children and hit the door again, and when it gave I stumbled into the room with the might of it.

I heard a shuffling, little feet sliding against a dirt-covered stone floor, and small screams.

I turned to face the children, and saw them all there, huddled together in the dark. The older held the younger in their arms, and they all scrunched up together with their backs against the basement wall. There weren’t any adults, and I wondered where Lillian and Monte were, where the other teachers were. Wondered if they’d locked the children here to protect them, only to meet a worse fate themselves.

My smile widened when I saw the children and I immediately outstretched my hands toward them, but instead of relief or happiness in their small faces, I watched as their eyes widened and they screamed, pushing back away from me.

“No!” I heard one scream at the same time another shouted to stop.

My light reflected in their eyes, and I realized that they couldn’t see me past the light, that they didn’t know who I was.

I blinked, dropped my light, and just as darkness encroached into the small space, I reached toward where Maddox stood in the arch of the doorway and tried to pull a panel of the wood off of the jamb.

Maddox yanked it free for me when my hand slipped from the wood.

I needed light, but I didn’t want to frighten the children by holding a flame in my own hand.

My hand found the top of the shaft of wood, and I lit it. I turned toward the children, bringing the light close to my face.

“It’s me, it’s Evaline,” I said softly, holding up my other hand so they knew they were safe. “I’m here to save you.”

In a moment their little faces were crumpling into tears as they all scrambled to their feet, ran for me.

I handed the wood to Maddox as I fell to my knees and opened my arms for them.

“It’s okay,” I whispered as they all made impact with me. I folded my arms wide and tried to hold as many as I could.

They cried that they were scared, that Amy, one of the teachers who’d been there with them that night, put them down here and told them to be quiet, no matter who knocked at the door.

That they heard her go up the stairs, that she never came back.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “We’re going to protect you.”

I kissed foreheads and ruffled the hair of those too far.

“Evaline!” a small voice cried, muffled by the press of her face against my shoulder.

Priscilla pulled her face away to look up at me, and I smiled, a small, relieved laugh choking out between tears.

“It’s going to be okay,” I promised. “You’ve all been so brave, but I need you to continue being brave for me, okay?”

They all gave their little acknowledgments, as I stood.

“This is Maddox,” I said, pulling the lantern from his hand. “He is my husband,” I said, they knew that word more than they would fiancé or mate. “And he is going to help me keep you safe.”

I didn’t completely know what to do, but I knew I had to get them to safety. And right now, Kembertus was not safe. I didn’t know how Sage was doing on the wards, but I knew that there were so many Vasi in this city, that it would take hours to rid them all.

We need Sage to portal them to Rominia , I said down the bond, and his response was immediate.

I can’t hear them, I don’t know if they’re at a wall, it’s too far.

Go, I said back. Go find them, and if she’s done with the ward, bring them here.

I could feel his hesitation down the bond as my hand closed over the little ones, as I felt their hands on my legs, on my arms, wanting to hold onto me for comfort.

I knew Maddox didn’t want to leave me here alone with them. Knew he was afraid of what would happen if the Vasi found me, and I was the only thing that stood between them and these children, but I turned to look at him.

“Go.”

His eyes shadowed, but he nodded and ran from the room. I heard his feet upstairs, heard the door shut, and then his voice down the bond.

I love you.