Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Ninety-SevenMaddox

Chapter Ninety-Seven

Maddox

T here was a small, ever-brief moment of silence.

The battle still waged around us. The others didn’t know what had just happened, but those of us on this ship, we knew.

The Vasi who’d been fighting me, let their hands fall as we all turned to face Vasier’s dead body, as we all tried to confirm it with our own eyes.

Wyott stood on the opposite side of the opening from me, and his eyes looked up to meet mine, so wide and so surprised that I knew no words would come out when his mouth dropped open.

My father let his hands fall to brace himself on the deck too, as he tried to make a move toward Vasier, one hand stretching out toward his brother. Even from here, I could see the tears that fell from his face, down onto the deck below, mixing into the puddle of Vasier’s blood.

And Evaline was pushing herself up, bracing her hands against the knee of her injured leg, and trying to stand.

I was at her side in an instant, helping her up and letting her lean on me. As her shoulder fell into the center of my chest, I saw the burns over her back. I ground my jaw at the pain I knew she felt. At the understanding of which Sorcerer had put them there.

Just as Evaline tried to put pressure on her injured leg, tried to stand on her own, she grunted at the pain, and every pair of Vasi eyes fell to her.

Their faces contorted into rage, into hatred, and just as they started to storm us, I heard her voice down the bond.

I’m sorry, she whispered, before an ear-splitting whistling sound ripped through the air.

Myself, and all the Kova and Vasi around me winced, cried out against the pain in our ears, and one by one, our knees hit the deck.

Evaline showed me the memory now, of watching not only the Kova in Widow Maker Plains who’d been disoriented after Sage’s portal seemed to misfire, but Broderick, Maeve, and Sage, who hadn’t been dosed with Rominium. The way the sound had debilitated us all.

And I understood why she did it, but thanked the Gods when it was over.

Every immortal on the ship fell to their knees, and the sound of war around us halted. As she looked out, and showed the image to me down the bond, I could see as every ship around us did the same.

She brought the war to its heel, and stood above us, raising her voice high so everyone from the rear of Vasier’s fleet to the rear of ours could hear.

“Stop!” she threw a hand to Vasier. “Vasier is dead!” she cried, exasperated. She turned in a circle as if to address every single Vasi still living on the ships around us.

I heard a wave of gasps, of cries, filter through both fleets. But nothing more.

“You’ve been fighting this war— his war,” she snarled. “For revenge.” She was silent for a moment, turning, eyes flicking to meet the eyes of several Vasi around her.

And across the way, I could see Sage through the bond, through Evaline’s eyes. Saw the grief on her face, saw the tears streaming down it, and regretted that this was how she’d discovered Vasier’s death.

He was horrid, but he was still her father.

An evil man is still someone’s family, and I was only reminded by the way my father continued to crawl for his twin.

“We can live in peace!” Evaline roared, offering an option that none of us had ever discussed. And it was only now that I realized that we’d never sat down together, or with my parents or Cora and Wyott, and considered what we would do when Vasier was dead.

I think a part of us had never thought it would truly happen, he’d avoided so many battles before we thought he’d refrain from this one, too.

“Just don’t kill humans to feed,” Evaline continued. “Don’t take them as slaves. Do as the Kova do, compel them not to feel pain from the bite, and then compel them to forget.” Her eyes drifted down to mine, and I knew she was recalling a time when they were red.

“You’ve been sold a lie. You don’t have to give in to the hatred in your heart, you don’t have to live an evil existence.”

She turned, shaking her head. “You’ve been listening to the words, the convictions, of a man for centuries, who’s been manipulating you.”

Her hand swung for Sage.

“He compelled Sage, his own daughter. Left a trigger phrase in her mind, and he did the same here, today, with you all.” She looked out over the ships toward Rominia, to the Vasi there that hadn’t seen the compulsion. “He ignited a compulsion in dozens of Vasi here! How many other compulsions, phrases, does he have embedded in each of your minds? You show him blind allegiance, but what does that get you?”

Her eyes fell to my father now, and she pursed her lips.

“I understand. I’ve seen it here too.” Her eyes rose again to the Vasi around us. “But blind allegiance only results in soldiers who don’t think for themselves, and a kingdom too reliant on one life for guidance. Submit to us, promise to live peacefully, and we will let you live.”

My father’s hand met Vasier’s shoulder, bunched into the fabric, but he tilted his head up to look at Evaline.

“The Vasi and the Kova are the same. You’ve been taught to think you’re inherently evil, but that’s not true. You can love, you can feel. I’ve seen it. You can learn to balance the good and evil within you, you can learn to accept both sides. Or, if you want, you can come back. Like Maddox did. Like Charlotte did.”

The stun that the whistling noise had caused eased. At the same moment I felt myself return to normal, gather my bearings, I knew the Vasi would do the same. And as they moved, her words falling on ignorant ears, I jolted to her side.

She gasped as they ran for her, but threw a shield of air around us. A little ward of her own, just like she had in Mortithev. The Vasi gnashed at the edges of it, beating to get in, and she fell below me. I caught her, lowered her to the deck, and held her on my lap as much as I could in the small space we had.

Her legs tangled up beneath her, and that was when I realized how much blood she’d lost.

The wound at her thigh gushed, and neither of us had noticed because of the shock of Vasier’s death.

I shook my head. “You must’ve cut the artery when you swiped the dagger for blood.” I breathed, fingers prodding around the outside of the wound.

“I can’t hold it,” she whispered, and I looked down at her face pressed against my chest, cradled in my arms. “I can’t keep the shield up.”

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I’ll get you out,” I promised as I noticed how pale her face had become. I swung my head to look around us, to look for Wyott or my father or anyone’s blood she could drink to heal herself, without turning.

But there was no one, only the faces of a hundred enraged Vasi.

Evaline grasped onto my wrist, and her fingers were ice cold.

“There’s no time for anyone else, Maddox,” she rasped, her breathing labored.

I shook my head, tears piercing my eyes. “No, there has to be someone.” I shook my head harder. “Not like this, Eva. Not when it’s not your choice.”

Her hand tightened over my wrist, and I looked down at her.

“I’m telling you that it is my choice.”

I shook my head. “You don’t understand, the change is different for everyone. Some people can turn instantly, some pass out at the intensity of it and don’t fully change until they wake. You can’t go unconscious out here, there are too many of them, I can’t protect you,” my voice rushed as the panic set in and I swung my head again, begged the Gods for Sage to appear, to portal Evaline out.

“Maddox,” Evaline gasped and pushed my wrist up to my mouth. “There’s no time, and there’s no other option. Do it,” she pleaded. “At least this way there’s a chance I don’t lose my magic and the shield, that you don’t die.”

I blinked hot, heavy tears from my eyes, and sank my teeth into my wrist.

Before I lowered it to her mouth, I used my free hand, the one that held her head to me, and brushed some hair from her blood-spattered face.

“I love you,” I breathed, and some noise from outside the shield sifted in. It was failing. “Until the end of my days.”

She didn’t respond, and I knew the wall was going to fall away around us.

She pulled my wrist to her mouth, and I prayed as she drank.

Gods, please. Please let her turn quickly. Please, no matter what, keep her safe.

And as I loosed the prayer toward the heavens, as I watched Evaline pull away and throw her head back, my blood still on her lips and her eyes closed, there was a response.

For the first time in my life, after hundreds, maybe thousands, of prayers that I’d sent to the Gods, they answered.

Not with an action. Not with a sign.

With their words.

At once I heard eight voices fill my head, drown out all other sounds. The sound of my own heart beating in my ears, and Evaline’s below me.

You’ve protected her well, their voices said. The feminine and masculine voices of the eight Gods of this world filled my mind, and my eyes widened.

You’ve fulfilled the fate we set for you, Maddox Vicor, and you delivered us our new creation. Thank you.

Their voices dissipated from my mind at the same time I looked down at Evaline with furrowed brows.

What had they said?

But Evaline ripped a breath through her lips then, sucked in a gasp of air so desperate it was as if it was the first she’d ever taken.

And when she opened her eyes, when I saw that they were not gray, and they were not red, I understood that this breath was her first. The first of her new life.

Her eyes were not those of a Kova, or a Vasi, but remained her natural Madierian Sea blue. Within them, even in the darkness with which we sat as the Vasi bodies above us blocked out all light, I could see the glint of silver flecks in her irises.

Her eyes were wide, and they darted all around.

“My Goddess,” I breathed, and for a moment wondered if that was what she’d become. If the Gods were happy with her work, with the fulfillment of her curse, they’d allowed her to join their ranks.

She looked up at me, hands flying to her ears, and I knew I’d spoken too loud for her new hearing abilities.

“Put a thin shield around them,” I whispered. “Just until you acclimate to it.”

Her eyes flashed with understanding and she nodded, slowly pulling her hands away.

“I feel different, and the same,” she whispered. “Is it done?”

I nodded and pulled one of the silver daggers from her bandolier, and flipped it so she could see her reflection in the blade.

I watched from behind the knife as her eyes fell to it, as they widened, and her fingers came up to prod the area around them.

“You’re not a Kova, and you’re not a Vasi.”

Her gaze stayed pinned to her reflection. “Then what am I?”

Just then light flooded into the shield where we sat. Not from her eyes, but from the absence of all the Vasi around us, as they all moved away.

We looked up to see the Vasi look at something off the ship and Evaline dropped the shield, while I pulled her to stand.

And when we stood, we saw what all the Vasi, what all the Kova and Sorcerers, were staring at.

A figure rose from the waves and stood atop a platform of seawater.

Her skin was golden and her hair was wound in tight brown ringlets down her shoulders. She wore a sleek blue dress with fabric that slid down her body and folded in waves that were reminiscent of the very water we floated upon.

And when her mouth opened to speak, when my eyes drifted up to hers, I could see the same Madierian Sea blue color in them as Evaline’s.

Merwinna.

“It is time to rest, my waters have seen enough blood for one day.” She spoke, and it was then that all the others around me must’ve realized who she was—what she was.

As gasps filled the air, the clouds cleared from the sky, and the sun burst through. Its rays fell down in beams, and one of them landed right beside Merwinna, parting so a form could step through the sunlight to stand beside her.

Kembertic stood with a wide smile and turned to us, his black locs moving over his shoulders as he did, and the golden cuffs that decorated them shined his light back to us, too.

And then there was a rustling on the coast of Rominia, and we turned to watch as the sand spun together, up off of the shore and above our heads, dropping into the figure of Arlomandric. His blond hair a match for the very sand he erupted from, and he adjusted the jade green crown on his head.

Evaline gasped as the blood on the deck of the ship shifted beneath our boots, and we all jumped back from it as it swirled in a pool before erupting up into a spray that sailed over all of us, and dripped into the Goddess of Bloodshed, Vestari, whose signature sword swung from her hip and holstered dagger sat upon the ivory skin of her thigh. Her eyes moved to Evaline, and I heard the breathlessness in my mate as the Goddess smiled at her.

The clouds descended from above, wind shifting through them before they sank down toward the platform beside Vestari. Correntan stepped onto the ever-widening platform of water, his short and straight black hair still rustling in his wind as he landed, the silk of his gray shirt fluttering with it, too.

The sky darkened and sent shadows in every direction before Neomaeries appeared beside Kembertic. Her eyes shined just as bright as I’d seen Evaline’s as her taupe skin reflected the light of the sapphire undertones of her cheeks.

The night sky shifted away, back to day, but before the shadows could disappear completely, Mortitheos stepped out of them, encased in all black, the fabric contrasting his fair skin.

My heart stuttered in my chest as the last Goddess appeared, the final of eight Gods, because I’d spent my life worshipping her, praying to her, for my mate who stood to my right.

Rominiava appeared out of nowhere, stepping out from between the other Gods, and cast a loving gaze to Rominia, and then down at all of the Kova who held our breaths as we watched her. She had dark bronze skin like my mother, and a bump in the bridge of her nose like me. Her hair was long and straight, black as it fell over her shoulders, and she smiled at us.

With all eight of the Gods standing before us, the world fell silent, as they each lowered their gaze to Evaline.