Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Ninety-SixEvaline

Chapter Ninety-Six

Evaline

I felt Maddox’s fear shoot down the bond at the same time that Wyott was thrown into the water.

Without hesitating, I shot my hand out toward them, my magic running for him, scooping down into the water, and picking Wyott up from it, rising to set him on the nearest ship to him. A ship clear across the chasm of open water amid our formation, in line with us, the same distance from Vasier as we were.

The water that rose up with him, was red.

So much blood had spilled, and we all turned to the cause of it.

Vasier.

We ran for him again, them faster than I.

I ran up the platform of the ship I was on and launched myself forward. I almost made it—this ship was closer than most others. As we neared the front lines, there was less space between ships as Vasier’s fleet collided with ours.

My Air lifted me the extra foot I needed to make the leap, and then I was throwing myself off of the platform, onto the deck below me.

A shock radiated up my ankles, my shins, at the contact with the wooden deck, but I rose and pushed to keep running—

A scream ripped me from my thoughts and slowed my feet.

Because it was loud, it was agonized. It was a scream I’d heard before, it was a scream I’d sounded off before.

The roar of loss, the shriek of agony at watching someone you loved die.

I’d know it anywhere, no matter whose throat it ripped from.

But as I turned, as my feet stopped completely below me and spurting blood and the spray of water shot past the front of my face, I saw them.

Charlotte, drenched in blood. She was reaching out, her hand gnarled into a desperate grasp, to James.

He stood only a pace from her, and clear across the ship from me, but even I could see the hole in his chest.

My skin went cold, my head shook involuntarily as I watched his knees give out. Time slowed as his body hit the deck, his back falling onto it, his arms spreading out, and his legs twisted beneath him.

Charlotte was still screaming, reaching for him, taking a step for him. My eyes traveled up to her face, saw the rage and agony twisted there—

She jolted forward, falling to her knees. She landed right in front of James, her hands bracing herself against his thigh and abdomen, as a hand burst through the front of her chest.

“No!” I screamed across the ship as if that would do anything to help her.

As if anything could be done at all.

Her head tilted slightly, eyes caught mine.

But then the hand was being ripped out of her back, and she fell forward until she was splayed across her mate.

Her head rested on his chest, ear pressed to where his heart would lie if it still resided within it. Her face was tilted toward me. They could have looked like two lovers lying in bed on a rainy day.

But they weren’t in bed, they were on a ship in the middle of a war.

They were dead.

And her eyes, her dead, empty eyes, were still locked with mine.

Grief hit me in the gut. Death surrounded me on all sides, followed me through my life.

Once, I’d thought I’d grown used to it. But now, as I watched the war continue all around their bodies, I realized that I was wrong.

Because these deaths, they struck me to my core.

I barely knew the two Kova, but I knew enough that their deaths stole my breath.

James’ sad eyes flashed through my mind. The waver in his voice when he told us she was dead, and the look of sheer disbelief and love and happiness when he saw her again.

They’d been separated for decades.

They’d only had a few days together, some of which were spent fighting Vasi.

And now, they were gone.

I threw a prayer to the Gods, to Mortitheos. Begging him to allow them to wake quickly in the Night, to be together again.

But just as I finished the thought, a pain erupted in my side and I was thrown sideways.

A Vasi had been thrown into me during battle, and the impact sent me sailing into the wall of the ship beside me.

My momentum sent my upper body reeling over the side of the ship, and I threw out my hands, kicked out my legs, trying to catch myself.

I gasped as a pain erupted up my thigh. I eased my feet back to the deck, hand tightening over the wooden banister of the ship, and propped my left leg up to look at the damage. A cut split my skin across the entirety of my thigh. It began just inside my knee, and ran up my leg, curving halfway through to aim back inward for my inner thigh.

Blood fell from it, but not fast enough to kill me.

I gritted my teeth, looked to the banister to see the metal rope tie-off that stood there, the top of it split into two prongs, and one side of it was covered in blood.

It wasn’t sharp, but I’d been thrown into it so hard it’d ripped through my pants and thigh.

I felt Maddox’s worry burst through the bond.

Eva, are you— I didn’t hear the rest of what he said, as another Vasi made contact at my side, and tossed me over the edge of the ship.

I gasped as I fell, arms and legs moving to catch myself, but my magic swelled, and I only fell onto a platform of water, before it rose to drop me on the same boat as Maddox.

His hands pulled me from the water as it fell back into the sea.

“Are you okay?” he yelled over the roar of war, and pulled my face up to meet his.

It was the first time I’d seen him up close since the fighting began, and I breathed a sigh of relief at his safety, the image of Charlotte watching James die filling my mind.

Maddox’s hair was pasted down onto his head by blood and water, and his eyes were wide, wild. I nodded, bracing a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” I said, then shook my head. “Charlotte and James are dead,” I yelled, and couldn’t hide the sorrow in my voice.

His eyes hardened and he shook his head, tilting to look behind him, to where Wyott fought on the opposite side of our fleet’s formation, then forward, to where we aimed. For Kovarrin and Vasier.

He turned back to me. “It’s time, Eva,” he said, his voice hard. “You can end it all.”

I swallowed, set my jaw, and nodded, felt the way my magic buzzed within my veins, so fast and hot that it hurt.

We turned and ran forward, nearly jumping out of our skin as movement closed in on each side of us. It was Grant and Fredrik, Nash, and Eliana. Their eyes were set forward. The six of us made it to the front of the ship, and leaped to the next.

Our boots thudded against the deck of each ship we ran across. Blood sprayed over our path with each Vasi the Kova around me cut off from interceding us. The war raged on all around. I saw Sage a few ships away from Vasier, saw Dean make it to her side and fight beside her. Saw Wyott running for Vasier just as we were, on the other side of the fleet.

When we hit each ship’s bow, Maddox pulled me into his arms to make each leap, and then we were running again.

We made it to the front of the formation, first. As we all made the jump to the next ship, the first Vasi ship that met our fleet, I turned to look for Wyott. He was a few ships back on his side of the formation, fighting two Vasi. Fear ripped up my spine as I saw another Vasi coming up from behind him, and just as I was going to try to call out to him—useless considering he’d never hear me from here—he spun and decapitated that Vasi.

We landed, and my attention was pulled forward as we continued to move.

Ship by ship, until we were landing on the front rise of the ship Vasier and Kovarrin fought on. There were Vasi all around them on the main deck, but none of them interrupted this fight.

And that’s when I realized that they’d been instructed not to.

The Vasi could easily kill Kovarrin, there were dozens of them on this ship, but they didn’t, only watched.

Vasier wanted this death for himself. No matter if it took longer, no matter if it was harder. He wanted to kill Kovarrin.

He wanted his revenge.

Maddox set me down, and the five Kova and I stood on the platform above, watching as Vasier pulled a dagger from Kovarrin’s hip holster, and swept it across his abdomen until the deep gash spilled blood down onto the deck between them.

I felt terror rip down the bond from Maddox, looked up to see his face, contorted and shadowed by fear at the sight of his father losing his fight against Vasier.

They were both strong, they were both well-versed in battle. But Vasier held much more hate, and sometimes, hate was a better weapon than anything else.

Kovarrin almost folded at the pain, but Vasier reversed the swing of the dagger, bringing it toward Kovarrin in a backhand before it sliced open Kovarrin’s jaw.

Maddox took a step forward, and I knew he wanted to go help his father when Vasier’s eyes rose to meet his.

They slid over our group, slid to mine.

And that smile, it was the same one I’d seen before.

When I found myself in Mortithev when I discovered he was Sage’s father, when I couldn’t use my magic in his kingdom.

Each and every time he knew he held some sort of deception over me, he gave that same twisted smile.

And that’s why my skin went ice cold as his mouth dropped open.

“Protect the one true First, my children,” he called out.

The war was quieter here, there weren’t so many people enthralled in battle. No other Kova but our group stood upon the ship, just the dead bodies of a few that’d made it this far.

The war raged behind us, but here, sound traveled farther.

So when he yelled the words, and when all of the Vasi—on this ship, and every ship in a three-layer span around us—straightened at the exact same moment, when they all snapped their heads to him, when their eyes went dim for a moment, I knew.

He deceived us, even his own people, again.

“They’re compelled,” Maddox breathed as all the Vasi turned to us. As they dropped in closer to Vasier, lined up in rows and rows as those on other ships jumped to our ship to join their brethren.

He’d not only used the same type of phrase-summoning compulsion as he had on Sage, but he’d prepared a mass compulsion. A mind manipulation over his own people, to protect him and his revenge, because he truly trusted no one, but himself.

I looked down at them as they got into formation, and looked to the ships to my right, where more Vasi ran over. The ships ahead, where the reinforcement forces ran from. To the ships to my left, where more Vasi left the battle. Amongst them, a bob of honey-colored hair.

Wyott saw the compulsion, maybe he even heard it, and ran toward our ship.

The rows of Vasi protecting Vasier were nearly six lines deep. They cut in close to him, the free space around him, around Kovarrin, spanning only a few paces wide, just enough room to give the two brothers space to fight.

My breaths came fast as I looked up to Maddox, then down to his father.

No risks, I reminded him down the bond, afraid he’d jump in after him and be killed instantly.

He only grunted, and nodded, and I knew the panic was constricting his throat. Knew he couldn’t speak, eyes wide and misted as he looked down at his father, as Vasier flipped the dagger in his hand, and stuck it through Kovarrin’s side.

Kovarrin fell forward, blood spewed from his mouth.

Vasier was being cruel. He could’ve killed him already, but he drew his death out.

Maddox shook beside me, the war raged behind us, and my heart slammed against my chest. So hard I could feel the beat of it reverberate off the bandolier that crossed over it.

I hadn’t used the throwing knives yet, I think I’d forgotten I had them, but the idea formed now to try to throw one, to stop Vasier for at least a moment from killing Kovarrin.

My hand drifted up, plucked one slowly, as Vasier kicked Kovarrin in the back, so that he fell to his knees, more blood spilling out below him.

“I’ve waited a long time for this, brother,” Vasier said, voice dripping with venom. “For the moment to see you again. For the moment you realized that I am—that I’ve always been—better.” He circled Kovarrin, and the Kova looked up at him. “To make you watch as I burn your kingdom to the ground. As I take everything, everyone, you’ve ever loved, and turn them, or kill them. It doesn’t matter much, really.”

Vasier continued, but I looked down at the throwing knife in my hand.

Kovarrin stumbled to stand, and his voice was filled with pain as he spoke.

“Vasier, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was going to run away with her. I’m sorry I didn’t choose you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t find you after.”

Vasier spit out a laugh, and shook his head, circling Kovarrin.

“You think I’m angry you didn’t take me with you? Or that it’s been eight centuries since I’ve seen you?” he spat. “Gods, brother. Even after all these years, all this time to reflect, you don’t see it.”

Kovarrin looked back at Vasier, brows furrowed.

“Alannah and I were in love,” he told his brother. I looked up as the information hit Kovarrin like a blow, as his head cocked back and surprise lit his face.

Vasier continued to tell him the story, the same one he’d told me.

But I only looked down at the throwing knife, trying to shift my grip on it from the hilt to the tip, so I could throw it.

As I looked down, as my hand slid over the engravings on the handle, my eyes roved over them.

Silver roses, for the Silver Rose myth.

Ice seeped through my veins as I recalled it, the story Wyott had told of the alleged third way to kill a Kova or Vasi, and time seemed to slow around me.

I heard Kovarrin gasp, and looked up to see Vasier’s hand through Kovarrin’s gut, Kovarrin’s wide, scared, eyes landing on me all the way at the edge of the ship.

And the sight of them, of the two brothers fighting, reminded me of the last time I saw them fighting. When my mother showed me the memory of the two, of the night they were created. I remembered her fear at their battle, her sorrow when Kovarrin fell, and her desperation to save him.

I held my breath as the words slammed into me.

From despair borne centuries toil.

My mother had been determined to save Kovarrin, and that desperation had made her unthinking, made her make a mistake.

She created the Vasi, and Gods knew how many people had died because of it.

And since then, there’d been so much carnage. Kova and Vasi fighting one another, Vasi mercilessly killing humans. It was why the Gods had been angry at her creation. Not only had she created, but she’d created an evil entity, one that the Gods could not control.

Duty called for ways to foil .

The words slammed into my head. The Gods knew they needed to stop the Vasi, to give them some weakness.

I turned to the ship to my left, I saw a Vasi rip the heart out of a Kova who, like Wyott a couple ships away, was running to help Kovarrin.

A beating heart plucked from a chest, rids the world of the pest.

My chest moved with a heavy breath and as I looked to the ship to my right, I saw a Kova behead a Vasi.

A gnashing head ripped from the shoulders, ends the march of death’s soldiers.

I looked down at the throwing knife in my hands.

A silver rose’s lethal cleft, restores the balance of all that’s left.

I tilted the knife, heard Vasier still droning on and the spurt of Kovarrin’s blood on the deck of the ship below me.

But my eyes were on the knife, on the blade, as the tilt caught my reflection. Showed me my own wide eyes, blood smeared between them.

I remembered my injuries then, felt the way they throbbed with pain. The burns on my upper body, and the throb of the cut on my leg.

My eyes slipped past the dagger, to rest on the deep gash on my thigh, my flesh cleaved in two.

My breath stopped at the thought, and my eyes flicked from my cut to the knife in my hand, and back to my blood.

A silver rose’s lethal cleft, restores the balance of all that’s left.

My heart hammered against my chest, and my hands holding the blade shook, as I thought back to my father’s note. The one I’d found in Neomaeros all those weeks ago.

“A silver sword for my silver haired girl.”

A silver rose.

My eyes moved back down to the blood, my fingers prodded into it, and I raised them toward me, my head tilting.

Lethal cleft .

My mind spun, thinking of every time my blood had been consumed by an immortal. The Vasi who killed my father, who’d looked down at it in confusion. Who fell away from me. Me, a young woman, not strong enough or fast enough at the time to kill a Vasi on my own. My magic from Vestari hadn’t been unleashed yet, I was only a human girl. With a human girl’s strength. I’d thought I’d just caught the Vasi by surprise when my father stabbed him, but maybe I caught him by surprise because he’d just drank my blood.

The Vasi a few days ago, in Neomaeros. The one who’d grabbed my barbed braid, that’d been covered in my fresh blood. He’d been confused too, and maybe not only because his skin couldn’t heal around the Rominium.

And Maddox. That my blood had helped him when he was a Vasi. That the Vasi had become weaker, when fed my blood.

I locked my knees as the realization flashed through my mind.

My mother’s blood created the Vasi. We thought my blood might help bring them back, make them a Kova again.

But it wasn’t a cure.

It was a poison.

I’m the Silver Rose, I realized, breath seeping from my lungs.

The bond sprouted to life then, as Maddox heard me, as I sent the thought down the bond without realizing it.

He turned to me, as Vasier went on about his revenge, as he hit Kovarrin again.

I looked up at my mate, and as my eyes moved up, I caught sight of Wyott landing on the deck of the ship beside us. Saw him stop to look at Maddox and me.

I raised my blood-covered fingers toward my mate, raised the hilt of the dagger, too.

“I’m the Silver Rose,” I said quietly.

Maddox’s brows furrowed, but then his eyes moved over the blood, over the knife, and his face steeled.

He understood just as much as I did.

It was never a myth, he said down the bond. It was a prophecy.

My eyes moved to Wyott, and I saw his were wide. Saw him look down at my hands. I didn’t know if he heard me, or only read my lips, but he fell back a step and his skin paled, and I knew that he knew.

Kovarrin shrieked as Vasier brought him to his knees again, hand on Kovarrin’s throat.

Maddox’s fear beat down the bond, and we looked down at him.

I showed Maddox the plan, mapped out my moves down the bond, saw him nod at my side.

I looked up at him, memorized every feature of his face, saw Wyott move out of my peripheral, and then Maddox and I did, too.

We each planted a foot on the edge of the platform, I twirled the knife in my hand to hold the hilt, and we launched ourselves down toward the gap between all the Vasi and the Firsts.

My fingers tightened around the handle of the knife as we fell toward the deck, toward the hoard of Vasi who looked up at us.

“No one hurts the Sorceress!” Vasier yelled below us, but the words were garbled through the filter of my heart beating in my ears.

Maddox and I landed at the same time, but the Vasi grabbed him immediately, and he had to spin to fight back.

My momentum drove me to my knees until I was rolling forward.

The world spun around me as I folded in on myself, my hands pinned between my chest and thighs. I sank the dagger into the cut on my leg and choked down the grunt of pain that tried to slip out of my throat.

When my foot met the deck again, I planted it. My roll stopped, my knee bracing against the deck on my other side, as I looked up at Vasier, standing only a couple paces away.

I flipped the dagger in my hand until I pinched the tip of it between my fingers, held it down at my side.

Vasier’s eyes lit, and he tilted his head, throwing Kovarrin down at his side, gasping in pain.

“We didn’t learn our lesson with the last assassination attempt, Evaline?” he chastised but he straightened, squared his shoulders to me, as if to give me a wider target. Taunting me to hit him.

“Last time, I was alone,” I said, lifting my chin toward him.

Vasier’s eyes flicked to Maddox, and I didn’t have to look to know that he was struggling against all the Vasi around him,

Vasier’s eyes drifted back to me. “It looks like you’re alone here, too, Sorceress.”

I gave a shake of my head. “I’ll never be alone again.”

My heart raced as fear for Maddox and fear of failing at this assassination, too, beat through me.

I heard Maddox shriek in pain as Vasier looked down at me, a smirk on his face.

I felt for the bond, knew it was open. My magic rose within me, seared through my veins, up and up until it rested behind my eyes, just as it had the night I’d killed Lonix.

Only this time I didn’t use the magic for myself, I shoved it down the bond, gritted my teeth against the feel of it sliding, searing its way down, until it wasn’t my veins that ached from the heat of it, but Maddox’s. Until I felt the pain from him, down the bond. I reached back down it, told the magic what to do, and knew it worked when light erupted beside me.

Vasier’s brows furrowed, and he turned to Maddox as my Fire roared around my mate, from him. My magic swelled through his veins, my Fire rolled along his skin, so hot and so high that the Vasi around him shrieked, and backed away.

And that was all we needed, all the leverage he required to pull his sword and swing it through a few necks.

And Vasier, he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at my mate, at his nephew, who wielded the magic only a Sorceress was supposed to be able to.

But I was looking at Vasier. I was looking up at him from where I still kneeled, as I cocked my arm back.

Behind him, I saw the spray of water as the ship bobbed, saw the shift of the gray clouds above, and a distant movement that struck up through the sky.

I brought my arm forward, flicked my wrist, and loosed the throwing knife.

Vasier’s eyes flicked to me as the knife ripped through the air toward him.

But he did not duck. He did not sidestep to avoid it.

He didn’t have to, because it sailed to his left, directly over his shoulder.

A cackle fell from his lips at the same time that he looked down at me, eyes lit with amusement.

“I see aim isn’t one of your many abilities,” he said, but I wasn’t paying attention to him.

Only to the dagger that flew through the air, toward the gray sky behind it.

And then, the movement I’d been looking for.

The target I’d been aiming for.

Wyott soared through the air behind Vasier. He’d leaped from the other ship behind the First, his body aimed for us, but his eyes on the silver dagger that dripped with my blood.

He reached out for it, timed the spin to grab the handle, and my eyes flicked back to Vasier.

When our eyes met, his widened and he started to turn, but Wyott was already landing behind him, sinking the dagger into the side of Vasier’s neck.

Wyott backed away, chest heaving for air, eyes pinned on Vasier.

All of ours were, as the First stumbled back, hands reaching up for the wound.

The dagger only stuck in far enough so that my blood would enter his system.

So that it would course through his veins.

Vasier ripped it from his neck, and all the Vasi around us shifted to look at him, to reach for him.

He gasped, he sputtered, and we all watched as the wound did not heal.

His brows furrowed as his eyes landed on mine, blood still pouring from his neck.

He dropped to his knees, facing his brother and only a pace away.

Kovarrin straightened as far as he could and reached for Vasier.

Vasier didn’t speak, only gurgled out blood, as his eyes widened, and he looked down at his brother’s outstretched hand.

“I’m sorry,” Kovarrin croaked, and I wasn’t sure whether it was from his wounds or his grief.

But Vasier knew which caused it, the way that maybe only a twin could, based on the way his sad eyes lifted to his brother’s. As they filled with tears, before they went still.

His sounds stopped as he fell to his side, head hitting the deck.

The blood that spilled from Vasier’s neck shifted to run across his throat, pooling on the wood below him.