Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Ninety-NineMaddox

Chapter Ninety-Nine

Maddox

T ime moved both fast and slow after the Gods erupted into beams of light.

Some Vasi fled, immediately. Some looked amongst themselves, as if silently questioning what the best course of action was.

Evaline and I tensed and prepared for a fight with the Vasi who surrounded us. But it never came.

They seemed to believe the threat of the Gods—maybe all they’d ever needed to bow to peace was an ultimatum from beings greater than both our species, combined.

In the distance—at the rear of the fleet—we could hear Cora giving orders. To tilt the sails, to gather all the dead that they could from the water, to gather the dead on the boat, Kova and Vasi alike.

The sound of her voice, at the instruction to move, seemed to jolt Evaline, Wyott and I into action. As the Vasi cleared, my father’s form was unveiled on the deck of the ship.

“Father,” I rasped, running over to help him.

The First kneeled on the wooden deck, blood sliding down his face, his side, his arms from all the wounds he’d endured today. But he didn’t seem to notice any of them. The only pain that was clear, was loss.

My father’s bloody arms were still wrapped around Vasier as he cried. Kovarrin had pulled his twin up onto his lap, and cradled his face to his chest, to his shoulder. He must’ve dragged a hand down those crimson eyes at some point because they were closed. And Kovarrin’s were too, as he wailed, rocking the two of them as the ship rocked below.

As they sat there with their telltale eyes shut, they looked like any other beings. Like they could’ve been Sorcerers or humans. Like they might’ve looked once, when they were only brothers and not Firsts.

I looked to my brother, saw the tears that brimmed in his eyes, and knew that they matched my own. I’d been lost from him—saw the pain when I was locked away in the Vasi—and the pain was not one I’d ever wish upon anyone. My father had already lost Vasier once, he’d lost the brother he’d had nearly eight centuries ago. But none of us, not until recently, had ever considered that he had kept his hope—his love—alive for Vasier all these centuries later.

We’d never seen them together before, never saw their bond. We’d only known life after the tear between them. After the discord.

But still, after my father’s confession to Wyott and me, we’d understood that this moment was one he’d dreaded for centuries. One that paralyzed him in fear.

And as Wyott and I dropped our eyes back to the brothers, it appeared that someone else discovered the love Kovarrin still had for his brother, despite everything. And the pain, the guilt I could feel wreaking havoc in her mind, caused her knees to hit the deck in front of Kovarrin.

Evaline’s eyes were wide and wet with tears as she sat in front of him, knee to knee.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, trembling hands lifting as if she wanted to comfort him, to help him, but then discovering that there was nothing she could do, nothing she could say. Her hands only hovered in the space between them as my father released another sob, and looked up at her.

He pulled one hand away from his brother, one that helped to hold Vasier’s torso over his lap, and reached for her.

I watched her wince as if she feared he’d hit her.

She didn’t block the move, only opened her eyes in surprise when he curled his hand around her cheek and pulled her to him.

Tears fell down her bloodied cheeks as he pulled her close, until he held her face to his opposite shoulder. Until he embraced her and dropped his lips to her head the way a father would when trying to quell the fear in his daughter after a nightmare.

“It’s okay,” he whispered against her hair, his tears sliding into it.

My body tensed and shook all at the same time as I tried to hold back the sobs that ached to rip from my throat.

Her shoulders shook as she cried, but her words were still audible as she pressed her face into his shoulder.

“She’s sorry, too.”

My eyes widened as I understood who she referred to, and I stormed down the bond to see the world through Evaline’s eyes as she pulled back slightly, and looked to Alannah, who sat behind Kovarrin and Vasier. Watched as tears fell down her own face, how she didn’t attempt to control the sobs as she opened her arms to curl one around my father’s back and one over Vasier’s chest.

It was clear my father couldn’t feel it, or see her. No one could, except Evaline, who’d pulled Alannah through the veil.

He looked to Evaline, eyes wide for a moment as he understood her meaning, too, and then his face crumpled in pain, and he pressed it to Evaline’s head as they cried again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t protect you,” he said softly, when their cries had dulled.

She shook her head and Alannah’s face contorted into pain as she watched them, as she looked down and stroked a hand over Vasier’s forehead, as if to clear his hair from his eyes.

“I understand why you didn’t want to leave,” Evaline said as she looked up at him, and at the words my father’s head tipped up, and I realized that he was looking at me.

I pulled myself away from Evaline’s mind, came down the bond back into myself, and saw my father’s guilt-ridden face swing from me, to Wyott. He raised his hand from Evaline and beckoned the both of us, and Wyott and I moved forward at once, dropping to our knees.

I curled around Evaline, Wyott embraced my father’s shoulder in front of Evaline, and my father kept one hand around his brother, and switched the other between my brother and me, holding our heads to him, whispering his apologies and his gratitude that we were all safe.