Chapter 31 Eviana #2
Providing a weakness.
“When did you see her?” Corbin asked, always too observant.
“This afternoon,” she answered shortly.
“When, Eviana?” Lange growled, the flames of their fire dancing in the small gust of wind that fed it. When she pressed her lips together, he added, “We can’t help if you keep information from us. Surely you’ve learned this by now.”
She didn’t say anything right away, debating what to reveal. She had to try, she supposed.
“She found me. In the woods,” she finally answered.
“The fuck?” Lange said, sitting up straighter. “Why didn’t you just grab her then? We could already be running.”
“And go where?” Eviana hissed. “Where are we going to hide a child that Valter will be seeking as surely as he is hunting me? I can’t take her until we have a plan.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you dragged us all the way here,” Lange spat back.
“Maybe you should go fuck yourself,” she sneered.
“Everyone calm down,” Corbin interjected. “Knowing what she looks like is helpful. We don’t have to sit and watch the children for hours anymore trying to pick out which one is her. Now we just need to figure out our escape plan.”
“And how to keep these cursed woods from preying on her,” Lange muttered. “The three of us is one thing, but a child?”
The truth was, Eviana had been avoiding this part of the plan, hoping something would come to her on the journey to the Estate. But she’d come up short, and now it was fucking her over. Until they had a solid plan, they couldn’t take her.
“Let’s say the woods weren’t an issue,” Eviana ventured, interrupting Corbin and Lange’s bickering. “Where would you suggest we go?”
“To Tessa,” Lange said immediately.
“We have no idea where she is,” Corbin countered. “Where do we even start?”
“Arius Kingdom, I suppose,” Lange mused.
“Absolutely not,” Eviana interjected. “I cannot set foot in Arius Kingdom. It’s too… No.”
“We could try Achaz Kingdom,” Corbin said, pulling on the back of his neck. “With the rumors we’ve heard, I don’t think she’s there, but it is closer.”
“Except we have to go deeper into the woods,” Lange said flatly. “Not to mention cross the Wynfell River.”
“Which wouldn’t be an issue for Corbin,” Eviana said, things starting to fall into place in her mind. “And I already told you the woods wouldn’t be an issue.”
“That was hypothetical, bellana. The woods will absolutely be an issue, and I still cannot go along with making a child endure them.”
“She wouldn’t be enduring them,” she replied. “She has befriended them.”
The two males stared at her, clearly not knowing what to say or if to even believe her. She couldn’t blame them. For hours, she’d been trying to work out the same.
Priya would have powerful earth magic, just like her.
Then there was Mansel’s Nith blood. Earth and creativity.
The Sprytes, Nymphs, and Imps were spirits of nature and dreams. Clearly her power made her connected to them somehow.
If they could use that, they could easily go deeper into the woods.
No one would hunt them there, and the child would be able to keep the woods at bay.
In theory, anyway.
She had no idea how deep that power went, but in the end, it was all they had to go on.
“We go to Achaz Kingdom,” Eviana said in the silence that had descended. “From there, we figure out a way to get in contact with Tessa.”
Lange was shaking his head. “This isn’t a plan. This is banking on dreams.”
“What better place to do that than in the Dreamlock Woods?”
“This place is nightmares and tricks,” he retorted. “Not hopes and dreams.”
“Then please share your superior plan,” she said flatly, holding her palm above the ground and toying with her magic. Soil swirled, bits of leaves and debris among it.
Then it was swept away on a gust of wind.
She lifted her eyes, glaring at Lange.
“Let’s sleep on it,” Corbin said. “Let’s get some rest, and discuss this again in the morning. Maybe something will come to us.”
Lange muttered an agreement, but Eviana said nothing.
She was taking the first watch tonight, and she remained silent as the males settled down beside each other.
Corbin’s arm looped over Lange’s waist, keeping him close, and it didn’t take long for them to slip into slumber.
Even breathing and steady heartbeats. They always slept more deeply together.
Lange wasn’t wrong. Tessa was probably their best bet. There was some kind of mutual understanding between them, with her visits at the Faven palace and the “gifts” she would leave behind. Eviana simply had no idea how to contact her.
With a sigh, she stood, stretching her legs and back, then she stilled at the sound of crunching leaves. Godsdammit. She was too exhausted to deal with a Dread-Nymph right now.
Retrieving her dagger, she made her way in the direction the sound had come from. She could handle the Nymph. Then she could rest while Corbin took over the watch.
Her steps were slow and tentative, trying to spot the Nymph in the dark. They blended in too easily, one with the woods and all that. So it was no surprise to her when she didn’t find a Nymph, but instead was pulled into a nightmare.
“Eve,” Valter purred as she rounded a small curve in the path she was trying to follow.
She swallowed thickly. It’s a vision, she reminded herself. She just needed to play along and not get sucked in until she could find the Nymph.
“I will admit, you were rather clever with this whole thing,” Valter went on. “Then again, I’m not surprised. You are my Source for a reason.” He ventured closer, a flashlight in one hand that lit up the area around them.
Eviana scanned the trees, hoping the light would reveal the Dread-Nymph, but there was nothing. It had to be staying hidden in the shadows and trees, which was inconvenient and irritating.
“I had you bred especially for me,” Valter continued, close enough now to wind strands of her hair around his finger. Then he yanked on them. “And still you chose to betray me. After all I have given you.”
She hardly felt the pain in her scalp, too used to his mannerisms after decades. It wasn’t real anyway.
“Yet a part of me always knew this day would come,” he continued. “It’s why I took…precautions.”
Eviana gritted her teeth. Where the fuck was this godsdamn Nymph?
“I heard you met her today,” Valter said, circling around her now, his fingers trailing along her shoulder and down her spine. “She is beautiful, isn’t she? Just like her mother.”
“Stop,” Eviana hissed, unable to help herself. Even knowing this wasn’t real, she couldn’t sit and listen to this.
“Finally, a reaction,” he crooned. “It has been so long since you’ve let those emotions slip. I’ve missed our time together correcting that behavior.”
Eviana pressed her lips together, taking a few steps forward. She felt his hand slip from her back. She just needed to go deeper into the woods. The Nymph had to be hiding there.
“But after all these years, those behavior corrections wouldn’t serve my purposes anyway, would they, my flower? I knew they would eventually become useless, so I took precautions for that too,” he said from behind her.
She ignored him, making her way to the trees. Her hold tightened around the hilt of the dagger, and her eyes strained to see in the shadows.
“You can come out, my sweet Priya,” he called, and Eviana paused as the child emerged from the trees down the path. She wore the same clothing as earlier today, her hair now braided in a plait over her shoulder. Her smile was wide and terrifying as those turquoise eyes landed on Eviana.
Valter stalked past her, and when he reached the child’s side, he held out his hand. Priya slipped her little fingers into his palm without question, still holding her stare.
“You did well, my sweet Priya,” Valter praised, squeezing her fingers in his own. “Thank you for helping me find her.”
“What?” Eviana asked, breathing suddenly far too difficult.
Not real, she told herself. It’s not real. Find the fucking Nymph.
She spun in a circle, frantically scanning the trees and bushes, all the dark and shadowed places. This was going too far. She should call for Lange and Corbin. She should—
She spun back, both of them watching her with matching amusement.
“Priya,” she gasped, the name a breathy cry she nearly choked on. “Priya, you don’t understand. He— He will hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” Priya repeated, those innocent eyes going hard. “The Arius Lord would never hurt me. He’s the only one who comes to see me. He brings me pretty dresses and food. He gave me these woods and the friends I have in them.”
“He can’t give you the woods,” she snapped, dread and fear sinking into her bones.
“But he did,” she insisted. “He lets me come here whenever I like, and now, because I helped him, I get to go with him too.”
“No,” she rasped, shaking her head. Then louder, she cried, “No!”
Spinning in a circle again, she searched for the Nymph. This death would not be quick like the last. She would drag this one out for making her live this nightmare. Its screams would wake the others and be a warning of what would happen if they came near her again.
“Why don’t you go back to the Estate and finish packing your things, sweet Priya,” Valter was saying, and Eviana glanced over her shoulder. He was crouched before the child, holding her slim shoulders. “We are leaving at sunrise, remember?”
She nodded, bouncing on her toes in excitement.
Valter pushed back to his full height, patting her head as he added, “Don’t forget the extra sweets I brought for you.”
The child giggled before she turned and ran, racing in the direction of the Estate. Eviana could swear the trees and flowers reached for her as she went.
Then she was left alone with Valter in the Dreamlock Woods.
“This isn’t real,” she gritted out. “But when I see you again, I will end you.”
He sighed. “You cannot kill me, Eviana. The bond does not allow it, even if you have managed to block other facets of it.” He slinked forward like the snake he was, and when he stood in front of her once more, he gripped her jaw.
“And while I want nothing more than to wring your neck and watch the light fade from your eyes for your betrayal, I find that will be far too merciful, and I am not a merciful lord.”
Gods, did she know the truth of that statement.
“Where are your companions?” he demanded in a low command.
But he was right. That bond was blocked, even in this nightmare.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied.
“It amazes me that such a short time apart can undo all the training I have instilled in you over the decades,” he spat, his fingers squeezing her jaw tighter. “I know there were two with you. Where are they?”
“I left them long ago,” she retorted, unsure why she would lie in a vision. “They were slowing me down and becoming a hindrance to my plans. Hopefully they died in the woods.”
Those words made his lips turn up in a small, sordid smile. “Glad to see the viciousness is still there, my flower,” he said, leaning in to run his nose along her cheek. “You’ll need it to survive the rest of your immortal years.”
Then his lips were on hers as shadows wrapped around her wrist, squeezing and bending. She cried out, Valter swallowing the sound as the dagger dropped to the ground.
The dagger she had been keeping to kill the Dread-Nymph.
The dagger that would have killed Valter.
But she couldn’t kill him, just like he said. The Source bond was there, even if blocked.
And this wasn’t a vision.
There was no Dread-Nymph.
This was a nightmare and not one she was going to wake up from.
Valter pulled back, her hands now wrenched behind her back and restrained by his shadows.
He pulled something dark from his pocket.
Metal that swallowed up the darkness around them before he lifted it and brought it to her throat.
A thin chain that was freezing against her skin.
He clasped it at her neck, and her power thrashed and howled in her soul before it was nothing.
Before she was nothing.
Helpless once more.
“Did you honestly think I would not find you?” Valter snarled, his finger slipping beneath the chain and yanking her forward.
“Did you honestly think I didn’t know exactly where you would go?
That I have not been giving you crumbs of information about the child to ensure you cared just enough?
You are predictable, Eviana. So godsdamn predictable.
She was the one weakness I allowed you to have and all for this very purpose. ”
A tendril of his shadows coiled around the chain at her throat, and then he was yanking her forward by that too. By a godsdamn leash.
“You got what you wanted though, didn’t you?
” he said with a sneer as she was forced to follow him.
Always a step behind her Master. “Now you will get to watch her grow up in my home, never able to tell her the truth. But you’ll watch her adore me and love me the way you were always supposed to. You’ll watch it all, my flower.”
A tear had escaped, and she wished she could reach up to wipe it away.
She’d be damned if Valter saw her cry. She tipped her head, trying to wipe it away on her shoulder when her eyes caught on feline ones in the trees.
High up in the branches, a giant mountain cat was watching them. Soft glowing eyes were on her.
Stupid fools.
If they knew what was good for them, they’d leave her to her fate.
But she desperately hoped they wouldn’t leave Priya behind.