31. Evanee #2
“I didn’t know who he was at first. Only that my mother looked at him with longing.
” His jaw tightened, brow creasing. “I never liked it. Never understood why he didn’t just stay, for my mother’s sake, but then he spoke of his other son, making me hate him more.
He even brought Aiden once. He was only three when I met him.
I was seven. The King had been… excited.
” Something dark flickered across his face.
“Told Aiden I was his big brother. I may not have liked my father, but I looked at Aiden as an innocent.” He pushed off the wall, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Until he tried to kill me that night.”
He huffed a laugh—the sound made something tighten in my chest.
“How could no one see what he would become?” I shook my head. “How did he try to kill you at age three?”
“Poison. Watka knocked the food from my hand. Somehow, he knew. Aiden had a rash on his hands from handling the poisonous leaves. The King never brought Aiden back. Soon after that day, my new fucking coloring set in.”
He ran a hand over his face.
“What happened?” I peeled my fingers off my arms, resting my hands in my lap. Some of the tension easing.
“I was alone. I’d been on the beach when I suddenly shifted and instead of the blue like my father that I’d grown accustomed to, I was the colors I am now.”
He turned his back to me, grabbing the poker and stoking the fire again, the embers hissing.
“Even in our secluded village, I knew it wasn’t normal. I was panicked—I couldn’t change my forms back and got stuck in fucking stone until the following night.” He threw the poker back into the holder, the clang making me flinch.
“My mother had been so scared when I walked in the door, naked, after missing an entire day.” He took a deep breath as he faced me.
“I told her what had happened, and she started crying as she admitted who my father really was. Said we had to keep my coloring hidden so that he wouldn’t demand we return to the castle.
That’s when she told me of the Queen—educated me on court and continent politics across the realms.”
Silver cracked through the blue in his eyes.
“I hated it. All of it. Living in fucking fear—unable to fly. I’d take my wooden sword out with me or hunt the dangerous beasts in the forests with my bare hands just to let out the building rage.
I couldn’t let my mother see the torment I was in.
Watka found me out there one day and, without a word, began training me.
As a warrior, to help channel my aggression. ”
I wanted to comfort him. To reach for him—but curled my fists in my lap instead.
“I still hadn’t flown by seventeen.”
He hung his head, white hair sweeping across his forehead.
“I was hunting in the forest when my vision went black. When it came back, I was in the air, outside the tree line, in plain sight of the village. The weight of my wings was foreign. And the muscles hadn’t developed properly.
It was fucking excruciating. Pain sliced through my back from disuse—but the relief washed out the pain.
I flew the rest of the night, my eyes watering and burning from the biting wind, but I didn’t care—it was the first time I felt…
peace. To do something so natural.” A ghost of a smile lifted the corner of his mouth.
“When I finally went home, my mother had taken one look at my disheveled appearance and windswept hair, and she looked sad. I didn’t understand it, assuring her that no one had seen me, but it brought her no comfort.” His face fell.
“Someone saw you.”
He nodded.
“Word got to my father, and he said it was a sign of something powerful in my blood. That the last Gargoyles recorded having the colors I do, bore… powers.”
My gaze snapped wide as I pulled my knees underneath me.
The storm clouds had vanished, the sun shining through the windows once more. Realization hit me.
“Your eyes, the silver—that’s magic, isn’t it?”
Silver flashed across the blue in confirmation, thunder clapping overhead despite the sun.
“And the storms. You… make them?” My brows furrowed. A sharp dip of his head in confirmation.
“Took Aniah a lot longer to figure it out.”
I pressed my hands to my face.
“That’s what Aiden meant about my bloodline,” my voice hollowed. “But I don’t have powers, do I?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s a possibility.” He filled a glass with amber liquid, offering it to me. I curled my fingers around the crystal.
“What happened next?”
“Several weeks after that night of freedom, he came for us.”
Ryker poured another drink, throwing the contents back.
“A convoy showed up led by my father in full regalia. I’d never seen him in his finery. Before that, he’d always looked like one of us. Now he looked even more like a stranger. I resented him for taking us from our village.”
Another pour. Another swig.
“From our family. Where my village had been warm, the castle was cold. The Queen didn’t bother hiding her hatred toward us.
The King put us in a wing opposite the Queen.
We stayed out of her way. But my mother started to wither, or so it felt.
She grew pale and thin. She wasn’t singing or laughing.
She just followed me to the different lessons my King Ezren demanded I take and sat there silently with an empty smile. ”
He swallowed, gaze darkening.
“I begged her to leave with me. But she always said no,” he scowled.
“Aiden avoided me, having been told at that point who I was. My father tried to get to know me as much as possible, but I refused to speak to him. When my mother died, I wanted to leave. But my father had other plans. He tried to publicly accept me as his son. To announce me as Prince Ryker Nightbane and put me in line as his heir. I refused. I kept my mother’s last name, Kallik.
He still wouldn’t allow me to leave. Instead, he permitted me to be in the royal guard and assigned Malachai to watch over me.
To protect me. Brushed off my strange colors as a defect. ”
He stared into the fire, the orange glow drawing out the silver threaded in the blue.
“Once I refused his offer to accept me, the Queen declared that no one outside of the royal family, and Malachai, would know my true identity.”
A growl built in his chest.
“I didn’t want any of it. My grip on my rage began slipping, sending me spiraling into that darkness I’d worked so hard to get away from with Watka, that even Malachai took notice.
He soon became more than my guard—a friend—and even introduced me to Aniah.
But it wasn’t enough. Being in that place was like ingesting the same poison my mother had. It was killing me.”
He moved before me.
“Eventually, Malachai told me he knew of a way to get me away from there. We had it all planned out. Aniah was even going to retrieve my mother’s body so I could bury her away from that fucking place.”
“What happened?”
“You.”