Chapter 43 Eviana
EVIANA
There was a burning sensation beneath her skin that she couldn’t shake.
A constant ache that pulsed with each beat of her heart and with every drop of magic that drained away with the bands.
More than that, she was exhausted. Between Valter’s demands of her and sneaking off to Caris’s prison room every chance she could, she knew she was making it worse.
Knew she was only helping Valter’s cause of weakening her to the point of restoring their bond.
If it got to that point, she was fucked.
“Sit, Eve,” he said, pointing to the chair at his right.
She sank into it with as much grace as she could muster. “Thank you,” she murmured, knowing if she didn’t, she would be reprimanded and possibly made to stand once more.
Valter reached for a small plate in front of him laden with mixed fruit, scrambled eggs, and a chocolate chip muffin. Sliding it across the table, he placed it in front of her before returning to the reports he was looking over.
Eviana froze, unsure of what was happening here. He’d given her things like this in the past, but that was before the betrayal and the running and the blocking of the bond. Since they’d been reunited, it had only been bland foods. Oatmeal. Plain rice. Unseasoned vegetables.
“Eat, Eviana,” he ordered, his shadows snaking out and nudging her silverware closer to her.
Tentatively, she picked up the fork, scooping up a bite of scrambled eggs.
This was a trap. Food restored her reserves, kept them from depleting.
It was a trap, but by the gods, she was hungry.
Forcing herself to go slow, she took measured bites, despite wanting to shovel everything into her mouth.
She hadn’t had a proper meal since before they’d left Raven Harbor for the Serafina Estate.
She saved the muffin for last though. A treat she rarely got, even when Valter had thought she was under his thumb.
She nearly moaned at the first bite, the sweetness of the chocolate dancing across her tongue.
Try as she might, there was nothing slow and measured about the way she ate that muffin.
Valter didn’t say a word. Didn’t even look up at her.
One would think it a blessing to have his attention diverted elsewhere, but one would have to be favored by the gods to receive blessings.
She was most certainly not favored by the gods or the Fates, or anything else for that matter.
The doors to the dining room opened, and Priya came skipping in. She was in a lavender dress with flowers along the hem, and her hair was braided in two plaits that hung over her shoulders.
“Good morning, Valter,” she sang, climbing onto the chair to his left.
Valter immediately put the reports aside, giving the child his full attention. “Good morning, my sweet Priya,” he greeted with a smile. “How has your morning been so far?”
“Great,” she answered, shifting to the side so the nursemaid could place a breakfast plate before her. The girl frowned as she studied her plate of toast, eggs, fruit, and sausage.
“Is something wrong, my sweet?” Valter asked, a plate being placed before him as well.
Eviana hid her confusion. Had she been served before him? He had waited to eat with Priya?
“I just thought…” She looked up at him, her turquoise eyes somewhere between disappointed and upset.
“You thought what?” Valter pushed with faux concern.
“You said I could have those muffins in the kitchen for breakfast.”
Eviana glanced at her plate where nothing but crumbs remained.
“Ah,” Valter said, sounding as disappointed as she did. “I know I promised you that, but unfortunately, the muffins are gone.”
“Gone?”
He nodded gravely. “I told her not to eat it, that I had promised it to you, but she ate it anyway.”
Eviana’s stomach sank as she realized exactly what the trap was.
“Who?” Priya asked, and she wasn’t on the verge of tears like one would expect. She sounded…angry.
Valter didn’t answer, but he did glance at Eviana pointedly. Then he reached over, patting Priya’s hand. “I’m sorry she made me break my promise. I will think of a way to make it up to you.”
Priya glared across the table at Eviana, her eyes hard chips of ice. That hatred Valter had promised was already building, and he was adding layer upon layer to it.
“Why is she at the table?” Priya asked, her tiny hands in fists on either side of her plate.
Valter clicked his tongue. “You know she is my Source, Priya.”
“But she hasn’t been eating with us this whole time.”
“I know, my sweet,” he said with more fake sympathy. “But she is still mine to care for.”
Her gaze snapped to his, and now there were thin pools of tears there. “But I’m yours too, right?”
“Of course you are,” he answered, reaching over and cupping her chin. “But in a different way.”
Eviana watched as she shoved down her tears, her mouth pressing into a thin line of determination.
Everything that goes wrong in her life, every hurt and treachery, I will make sure she can trace it back to you.
“Let’s eat our breakfast, hmm?” Valter said, sitting back and picking up his fork once more. “Then later you can show me how your plants are doing. I’m sure Eviana could help some too.”
“I don’t want her help,” Priya bit out, stabbing at a strawberry a little too harshly.
Valter sighed. “I know, but you must learn to get along with her. She will always be with me.”
For the rest of the meal, Eviana sat as her daughter cast glares at her across the table in between her conversation with Valter.
When she spoke to him, those glares morphed into smiles, and she held on to every word he said.
Soaking them in. And when breakfast was done, he sent her on her way with the nursemaid for her studies, promising to meet her when she was done to look at her plants.
The dining room doors shut with an ominous thud, and Eviana sat frozen, her hands in her lap and eyes on the plate of muffin crumbs.
She heard his chair scrape. Heard him get to his feet and stop beside her chair.
Then he cupped her face, tilting it up to his.
Hazel eyes studied her, full of triumph and cruelty.
“We have visitors coming and new alliances to build. Your services will be required,” he said sharply, still holding her face.
“Yes, my Lord,” she whispered, his hold tightening at the soft answer.
“Who did this, my flower?” he asked, leaning in so his words fanned across her lips. “Whose fault is this?”
“Mine,” she answered.
“And who must pay for their betrayal?”
“Me.”
He stepped back, reaching for his belt, and she already knew what was next as she slid to her knees.
She had to pay for her betrayal, but not Priya. Not that little girl. This would never be her life, on her knees for a male who had groomed her to adore him. Being passed around to secure deals and punished for not being grateful for the life she’d been forced into.
His grip tightened in her hair as he thrust down her throat, and she winced, knowing he liked it when she hurt.
This would not be the life for Priya. She could hate her for it, but she would make sure she was never Valter’s.
This is stupid.
That was all she could think as she stood outside the wall in a sheer nightgown with a photograph she’d managed to find.
It was Theon’s commencement photo with Luka and Axel.
His formal commencement portrait was too harsh.
His features and expression were a mirror of Valter, but this one was different.
A spark of defiance lingered, and his smile was genuine.
A few years before he went through his Staying, he looked a little younger.
She’d brought Caris extra food and clothing. A new book to read. Little things she could steal and hide until she could bring them here. Nothing like the weapons Tessa had smuggled in to her, but the effort had to count for something, right?
With a surge of determination, she drew blood, smearing it across the secret panel. Desperate and all that, she supposed.
Caris was seated at the small table, eating her dinner and reading the book Eviana had brought her last time.
Progress.
“Caris,” Eviana greeted flatly, the same way she greeted her every time she came here.
The female slowly closed her book, leaning back in her chair. “This was an interesting choice,” she said, setting the book aside.
“Did you find anything of interest in it?” Eviana asked, staying by the entrance.
Caris’s smile was sharp and sarcastic. “I know my own history,” she replied. “I didn’t need a book to remind me what my life was supposed to look like.”
“It was the only one I could find.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” Caris said. “I always knew you were clever, Eviana. Many times while we watched the children play, I told Pen that there was more to you than met the eye.”
“There is nothing more to me than what I am.”
“And what are you?”
Nothing.
It was the answer that came to her immediately, but she didn’t speak it, instead curling her fingers around the photograph.
Caris studied her, and Eviana did the same in return. It was hard not to see the resemblance. The emerald eyes and high cheekbones. The stubbornness and intelligence. And if those cuffs on her biceps were removed, she’d have the same darkness at her beck and call.
“You were there when Pen died?” Caris asked.
“What?” Eviana asked at the sudden question.
“You heard me.”
This was the most Caris had deigned to speak to her over her few visits. But it had taken her a while to warm up to Tessa too, so this had to mean she was getting somewhere.
Eviana lifted her chin. “He made me do it.”
“He never does his own dirty work,” she scoffed.
She wasn’t wrong about that.
“And they saw it? Like they did with me?” Caris pushed.
Eviana nodded. “Valter left the body for them.”
“Of course he did. She was truly dead. If he’d left mine, they would have known,” she said simply.
“It…changed them more,” Eviana tried. “Made them more determined to overthrow him.”