Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Eighty-FiveEvaline

Chapter Eighty-Five

Evaline

B ringing the extra Kova, and having Sage and Dean free of the ward securement and able to help, was the only reason clearing the rest of the kingdom of Vasi was even possible.

By the time I’d swept the city with my magic, the sun was setting on bodies lining the walk and all of us were sluggish with exhaustion.

Maddox and I walked past the inn, the same one he’d promised to teach me to fight in. The same one I’d fed from him for the first time. Immediately, he tensed.

“There’s still someone in there,” he whispered. My head swung to the door.

“Didn’t the others try to gather all the wounded humans?”

He shook his head. “Maybe they missed someone, or they refused to leave.”

Concern tightened over my heart as I reached for the door and ducked into the inn.

“Nathaniel?” I called. I knew he traveled frequently, but if he was here, I had to help him. Had to let him know that Aurora was safe.

Maddox followed in behind me, and I felt dread sweep down the bond from him.

There’s so much blood , Maddox whispered down the bond.

“We’re here,” Nathaniel’s voice called from behind the desk. I ran over to them, rounded the desk, afraid of what I’d find but thankful that his response meant he was alive.

My face fell when I saw Nathaniel hunched over, and a pain tugged at my chest when he looked up at me with tears in his eyes, leaned back, and revealed Haekin’s dead body, slumped behind the counter.

I fell to my knees beside them and swallowed the lump in my throat. I’d barely known Haekin, but I’d seen him around town enough to know he was the sweet, quiet type. No one deserved this death, but especially not him. Standing loyally at his post, working the inn when the kingdom was attacked.

Nathaniel looked back at Haekin, too, and I felt Maddox hover behind us. The Innkeeper’s shoulders shook as he let out silent cries, and I placed my hand over his, where he curled his fingers into the shirt at Haekin’s shoulder.

“I’m so sorry.”

Nathaniel tilted his head so that he half faced me, half faced Haekin, and clenched his eyes shut, sending a few tears sliding down his warm, onyx cheeks.

“He was like a son to me,” he said softly, his voice shaking with each word. “I had Aurora, and I had Haekin.”

His eyes shot open and he turned, tried to stand.

“I have to get to her, has Neomaeros been hit?” he asked, looking to me, his eyes frantic.

I shook my head and steadied him, lowering him back down.

“She’s safe, she and Jacqueline both are. Neomaeros has been hit, but right now they’re not in the kingdom. They’re safe.”

A breath of relief shuddered through his lips and he nodded, tossing his head back to face the heavens.

“Thank you,” he whispered, but then his eyes filled again, and he looked back down to Haekin. “He was just a boy.”

Haekin was close to my age, but I knew that he must’ve seemed younger to Nathaniel, especially if he regarded him as a son.

“He’s worked with me since he was seventeen. I always expected him to leave when he got older, to travel, but he always stayed.” Nathaniel’s face crumpled as another sob set in. “Gods, I hope he didn’t stay to watch over the inn while I visited the businesses in the other kingdoms.”

I raised a hand to caress down his back, trying to give him any comfort I possibly could.

“Don’t think that way,” I whispered. “He wouldn’t want you to hold that over yourself.”

Nathaniel nodded, gave a small swallow, and tried to take a deep breath.

My eyes skated down his form, trying to look for any injuries that he may have and need to be healed from.

“Are you hurt?”

He shook his head. “No, I was at home when the fighting started. I just came to check on him, now.” He looked back to me. “I couldn’t leave my home before, it wasn’t safe. But he was here, and he died here, alone.” His face crumpled, and I pulled him into my arms, and let him cry.

When he’d calmed, Maddox and I had walked him back to his home and promised to send word of his wellbeing to Aurora and Jacqueline. I would’ve told him to get to Neomaeros as soon as possible, but with these attacks happening seemingly everywhere, I didn’t want him to take a risk traveling outside the newly formed wards of Kembertus.

I warned him to stay in this kingdom. That there would be a war, and he’d be safe if he was here. I didn’t tell him the rest, didn’t want to overwhelm him all in one night, and knew my next stop was the castle, anyway. To tell the rulers—my family but only by blood—to inform their kingdom, on their own.

After we left his home, and started walking back up the main street, I saw the Kova around us were still working to help search for any humans who were still alive, and by the way they sifted through the body-covered stone street, it appeared that they thought some humans might be stuck below.

I ground my teeth and steeled myself for the wave of nausea that rolled through me at the sight.

Maddox’s hand on my shoulder steadied me, and I swallowed past the unease, and pushed forward, eyes rising to the castle that stood in the distance. Each and every time I’d ever made this walk ran through my mind. Each miserable day, missing my father. Each horrid fight with Therese, dreading my return to the castle. Each moment I spent planning my escape from all of it.

And now, I walked into the heart.

When we met the castle’s grounds, I knew something was wrong.

In the other kingdoms, after we’d saved them from the Vasi, the castle was full of the citizens. But it was immediately clear that Kembertus was different.

Because the grounds surrounding the castle were full. Citizens stood on them, and from where Maddox and I shouldered through a few rows, it appeared they were mostly at the door of the castle, overflowing into the gardens on the other side, near the rose garden.

The crowd was filled with bleeding humans, with infant wails, and with shouts.

With pleas.

To be let in.

“They barred the fucking doors,” Maddox said, lifting on his toes to look at the doors that stood a few paces ahead, the crowd still a sea between.

Disgust ripped through me, because of course they would. Of course my aunt and uncle would keep the doors locked and keep the citizens out. Of course they’d hoard resources, safety, for just the two of them.

Rage seared through my veins and I had to force myself to ease my steps, to soften the move of my shoulders through the crowd, as I stormed forward.

When I tripped out of the line of the crowd, I tried to wrench the door open, but it wouldn’t budge.

I knew I could use my Fire to burn it down. I knew I could use my Air to blow it out. I knew I could ask Maddox to burst through it.

But instead, I reared my head back and screamed up at the windows above the door. They were closed, but they’d hear me. I knew they would.

“Cowards!” I screamed, and the crowd behind me didn’t let a beat pass before they joined.

“Greedy!”

“Monsters!”

The crowd grew angry and pressed in closer behind me, and I swore under my breath.

I wasn’t trying to elicit this reaction, especially not with the children amongst the crowd behind us.

My head cocked, looking for higher ground to stand and get attention, and before I could even look to my right, I knew exactly where to go.

“Follow me,” I said to Maddox, as I shoved my way to the rose garden.

I hadn’t seen it in months, but it should still be there. A stone bench that always sat at the base of the largest stretch of hedges.

The last time I’d seen it, the bench had been temporarily moved, and replaced with an altar.

We walked out of the crowd, and a few paces away from where the right flank of it stood, was the bench.

An odd feeling filled my mind then, a sense of dread and heartache, and I realized it was coming from Maddox.

Guilt was swift in my gut.

“I’m sorry,” I said, stilling my stride and turning to him. “I didn’t think.”

He gave me a smile, but it didn’t reach his sad eyes.

“It’s okay, it’s over now. Just a bad memory.”

He nodded to the bench behind me.

“You don’t want to wait to tell the kingdom? With the Lord and Lady present, like all the others?”

He knew my plan, of course.

I gritted my teeth and shook my head.

“I’m clearly the only Manor who knows how to lead.”

Maddox’s smile grew slow on his face, and his eyes were alight as pride swelled down the bond.

“Then go lead.”

I turned on my heels and stormed to the bench, jumping upon it in one move and whirling to face the crowd.

“Kembertus, if you want to understand what has happened here tonight, listen to me!” I shouted above them all. It only took a moment for heads to turn, for them to start to move toward me.

I looked to Maddox.

Is this okay? I asked him down the bond, realizing that I needed to ask him whether he was comfortable with a Kromean Kingdom knowing of the Kova.

He nodded. The Madierian Kingdoms know, it’s only a matter of time before word spreads.

I took a deep breath and looked back out over the crowd.

They filed closer slowly, but I began. I told them what we’d told all the other kingdoms. Of the Kova, of the Vasi. Why they’d been attacked tonight, and how a Kova’s blood could heal.

There were scoffs at that last part, so I took my dagger just as Lady June had done in Correnti, and showed them how it worked with Sage’s blood.

It wasn’t a minute later that my aunt and uncle were barreling out of the castle’s side door, the one that led to the rose garden, a shield of guards around them, pushing through the crowd to get to me.

“Do not listen to her!” my uncle snarled. “She is some sort of monster, come back from the dead!”

They stopped at the base of the bench, and behind the guards that protected them, I saw my uncle’s contempt and my aunt’s disgust.

I shook my head. “I never died. Your son only thought I did.”

Therese shook her head wildly, her blond hair following the movement.

“No, that’s not possible. He told us you were killed, and he barely escaped with his life. He would never lie to us.”

I scoffed at that, eyes bulging from my head.

“Did he tell you that he never intended to bring me back for your bounty at all?” I snapped. “Did he tell you that he tried to sell me to the leader of the very monsters who wreaked havoc on your kingdom tonight?”

Surprised gasps fluttered through the crowd, and my uncle took his opportunity.

“Yes! She is the woman who killed Bassel, heir to Vestaria! She is the reason Vestaria stopped trading with us, why they’ve cut all ties.”

There was a murmur in the crowd, but I looked to Therese.

“You have nothing to say? Nothing to add?” I spit out at her, but she stood there, raising her chin. I fisted my hands to stop their tremors, and felt Maddox move behind me. “You do not want to tell them that I begged you not to make me marry him? That I tried to tell you, twice, how he hurt me? How he attacked me, yet you refused to listen?”

Hushed whispers slithered through the crowd, but Therese only crossed her arms.

“You would have had a fine life in Vestaria.”

I laughed. “You told me yourself how miserable it would be. But you did not care, because to you, I was only ever property to sell.” I whirled to the crowd. “But the truth is that I am the rightful heir to Kembertus. My father was the heir after his, and I am Wallace Manor’s only child.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my friends, the other Kova, file in beside Maddox, flank me on all sides.

Elijah rolled his eyes. “You cannot be serious.”

“Watch yourself, Uncle,” I said, low. “If you keep speaking to me like that, I just might become interested in taking my position.”

My uncle was quiet and only stared back at me. I didn’t know what he saw in my narrowed gaze, but whatever it was, scared him enough to bark at his guards.

“Seize her! She is still wanted for treason, for execution!”

His guards moved one step toward me, but nothing more, when the land below them jolted up, and knocked them all back.

My aunt and uncle looked up at me, righting themselves from their stumble.

“I suggest you find another course of action,” I warned. “You’ll find that controlling me won’t be as easy as it once was.”

“A Sorceress!” someone in the crowd yelled, just as my aunt and uncle shouted to their guards to take me.

The guards made another move, but the land I’d tossed up, lit now. A bright and roaring line of fire separated us.

“Threaten me again, and you’ll force me to be cruel,” I snapped at them, felt the tension of all the Kova behind me, as they prepared for a fight.

I turned to the crowd.

“There is nothing to fear from Sorcerers and Sorceresses. They are a peaceful people, who often use their magic to help humanity.” I raised my hand to the walls around the kingdom. “Why do you think the attack stopped? A Sorceress here tonight put up a magical barrier, one that will never allow another Vasi to pass these walls. She protected you. She’s never met you. She’s never even been to Kembertus. Yet she came here tonight, risked her life, to protect you.”

I looked to my aunt and uncle, because I knew even they didn’t know the truth.

“Vasier, the leader of the Vasi, has controlled the Kromean Kingdoms for far too long. It was his decree that Sorcery was ever illegal at all.” I turned back to the crowd. “And it was only because he was looking for my mother, another Sorceress. And then after her death, he was looking for me.”

There was movement out of the corner of my eye, and I heard the weapon flying through the air before I saw my uncle’s movement.

I turned toward the dagger that aimed straight for my face, the path of it wobbly and uncontrolled.

The Kova behind me did not move, Maddox did not budge.

They only watched as I struck out a hand, and caught the blade, an inch from my face.

The edges of it bit into my palm, caused blood to coast down it, then to my wrist, and down my forearm. But I ignored it, and the pain, and slowly lowered the dagger to my side.

“I told you not to threaten me again,” I said, tilting my head.

Therese turned to the crowd.

“You see! Sorcerers are evil!”

I only shook my head. “That didn’t sound like an apology.” I turned to the crowd. “And the only people I’m cruel to, are those who are evil. Like the man who attacked me in the middle of the night. The men who’ve tried to kill me. The Vasi who’ve tried to abduct me.”

I turned back to my aunt and uncle. “And to those who once sold me away, without a second thought.”

Therese straightened. “You think we will apologize? This is the way of the world, Evaline. Women in a ruling family are married off to whatever political alliance is best.”

Our last fight, the one we’d had after she saw me making eyes at Maddox in the market, slammed through me. How she’d promised me that the world my father had taught me to believe in, was gone. That this way, her way, was the only way left.

But now, I didn’t scream back. I only shook my head.

“Not anymore.”

And for the first time, I did consider sticking around Kembertus. Ruling. Or finding a suitable candidate, to rule just and fair over the city, just as my father would’ve.

But I couldn’t. At least not yet. I had a curse—a fate—to fulfill, and that couldn’t be done from Kembertus.

I turned to the crowd. “If you would like to be healed by one of my friends, line up over here,” I said, pointing to the empty rose garden to my left.

Slowly, humans started to shift, and the Kova around me moved to help them.

Maddox stayed by my side, though, as I jumped down from the bench. The land that I’d jutted up sank back into place again as I walked over it. When I met the guards who stood in front of me, my uncle gave them an order to step apart so I could see the rulers. The guards still stood in front of me, a barrier caging my aunt and uncle in.

I smiled and looked forward at them. Lord and Lady of Kembertus. My own personal jailers.

Never again.

I gave them each long looks before I took a deep breath.

“I am not your enemy. But you have always made yourself mine.” My eyes settled on my aunt, but hers only went cold. “We are going to heal these people and leave. Rebuild your kingdom. Feed your people. Share your castle with them when it is cold, since their homes are uninhabitable because of the dead bodies or because they were destroyed in the fight.” My eyes settled back on my uncle now. “Do what your big brother would have.”

His jaw tightened at that.

I looked between them both.

“I hope to never see you again,” I said, softly.

With that, I spun on my heels, only to feel pain splinter up my scalp at the same moment my aunt shrieked.

A smile lifted on my face as I turned to face her, clutching at her bloodied hand.

“Even when I try to leave peacefully, you try to control me?” Her hateful eyes pinned on me, but I continued. “You have lost. You cannot have me. Let me go.”

“No!” she screamed, stepping closer. “Your duty as a member of the ruling family—as a woman of the ruling family is to marry. It is all of our duty. And if you cannot marry Bassel, our previous ally’s heir, then we will marry you to a new ally.”

My brows furrowed and my uncle looked to her with just as confused of an expression, but she simply stepped forward and shoved the guard standing in front of her toward me.

“Seize her! Or you will be executed in her place!”

The guard’s eyes widened as he faced me, and slid his hands over my arms quickly in a tight grip.

Maddox tensed at my side, but made no other move.

“What do you think you will be able to do with me?” I prodded.

My aunt stepped forward. “If we need a new ally, it seems this Vasier will make a good one. He’s wanted you before, and if we gain his favor, his kind will never attack us again.”

My eyes widened as a giggle slipped from my lips.

Part of me was absolutely appalled at her words, at her gall, but another part couldn’t help but notice that at present, she was doing far more politicking than Elijah ever had.

And the words—the cruelty I threatened earlier—reared before I had a chance to think them through. Before I had a chance to stop them.

“Why don’t you ask your son what happened the last time he tried to make friends with Vasier?” I snapped. “Oh never mind, you can’t. He’s dead,” I snarled.

Therese’s eyes widened at the same time Elijah paled, and Maddox’s guilt slammed down the bond.

It meshed with my own.

Because the way Therese stumbled back, the way her face twisted with pain, the wail that loosed from her chest, made me regret what I said. I should’ve told her in a better way, with more kindness. No matter how awful she’d been to me, no matter how many times I’d hated her with everything I’d had, or how many times she’d threatened me, a mother didn’t deserve to learn the death of her child, like that.

She fell into Elijah, but behind them, I could see someone else shoot out from the castle door. I saw the salt and pepper hair of Raymond before I saw his face, and as soon as he was at her side, she grasped onto him, instead of her husband.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled before Maddox pulled me away.

And as we walked to the other Kova, all I could think about was how Therese hadn’t questioned me at all. How she seemed to believe the words—true words but from her enemy nonetheless—without a moment’s hesitation. And the further we walked, the more I wondered if she’d had an instinct. Some motherly intuition that told her something had happened to him. That perhaps she had only been convincing herself that she was wrong until I’d said the words.

She loosed another cry, and shame sunk through me.