5. Everett #2
He sighed, suddenly appearing far older than his twenty years. “Look, Everett, I know you miss her. But you’ve been doing this for a year, and…” His cheeks reddened as if he was embarrassed for me. I knew what he wasn’t saying. You’ve been doing this for a year, and she’s never replied.
Not once, to a single message. I hadn’t seen Vera since she left on a ship in the middle of the night last spring without so much as a goodbye.
My hand strayed to my pocket, fingers rubbing against the familiar, worn piece of parchment.
Swift,
Please forgive me.
Your songbird
Six words. That was all I had to remember her by after the years we spent in neighboring cells. After the nights we cried ourselves to sleep and the days we kept each other alive.
We had been together—truly together and free from those cells—for two months before she walked out of my life without looking back.
“I just need to try again, Milo,” I said, voice gruff.
I clenched my jaw and swallowed, unable to meet his eyes.
None of them understood. They placated me for several months after she left, letting me write my messages and magically send them into the abyss, helping me track down cargo ships and sift through ledgers to see where she might have gone.
I knew exactly what she was doing. I’d seen it in her eyes every second from the time we finally rescued her last year: fury, flames, and vengeance. I just didn’t know where she was.
“Fine,” Milo said, putting his hands on top of the table. “But I still don’t think it’s going to work. I told you, my fire messages can only get to the recipient as long as they’re within range of magic. If she’s not in the Veridian Empire anymore, they’ll never reach her.”
I nodded, barely listening as I tore out the next blank page of my notebook.
I hadn’t even put the pencil to paper before the air shimmered at my side and a new figure appeared out of nowhere.
My arm seized as I tried not to jump straight out of the chair.
“Fates, Arowyn, do you have to do that right in my face?”
“There’s our grumpy Illusionist.” Arowyn grinned and tossed her pale, near-white hair over her shoulder. “Gotta keep you on your toes. What’re you up to so late?”
The Strider had a habit of popping in unexpectedly throughout the Keep, scaring us half to death.
People with her ability to transport themselves from one place to another were from Celestria, the northwestern province in the Veridian Empire.
It was another one of the six magics here.
Arowyn moved from Celestria a couple years ago to help us with the rebellion.
“Nothing,” I mumbled, moving my arm to block the piece of paper. “Just—”
“Are you writing another love letter?”
I scowled. “They’re not love letters.”
Arowyn crossed her arms over her full chest. “Dear Vera,” she started in a dramatic voice. “I love you so much. I wish you would tell me where you are. All I think about is holding you in my arms again. My dreams are—”
I swatted her with the parchment. “I’ve never written anything like that in my life.”
“You’re right. You like the spicier ones. Dear Vera, your breasts remind me of—”
“Milo, do you have a potion that will shut her up?” I snapped at the Alchemist.
“There aren’t enough herbs in the world,” he replied.
The door to the workshop opened. Tessa Briar and Kieran Blackwell, two more Shifters and members of the Ashen Order, waltzed in. “Nobody told me we were having a party,” Tessa said.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Why are all of you people still awake?”
“Who are you calling ‘you people?’” Tessa shot back, crossing over to Arowyn and me. Her footsteps were reminiscent of her jaguar Shifter form—silent and stealthy, even in her big, black combat boots. Tessa and Arowyn in the same room always led to trouble, usually at my expense.
“Oh, Fates, Ev, are you writing letters again?” the Shifter asked, peering over my shoulder. Her thin black braids fell against the side of my neck at the motion. Her tone, unlike Arowyn’s, bordered on sympathetic instead of ridiculing. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
“Not anymore, it seems,” I muttered.
“Give the man some peace,” Kieran said in his smooth, low baritone. “It’s obvious that he is in distress.”
I let out a disgruntled sigh. “I’m not in—oh, just forget it.”
“No, no—I think it’s good,” Tessa rushed out, grabbing a chair from Milo’s table and swinging it up beside me.
Her bronze arm creaked slightly when it bent at the elbow, a common quirk since a team of Alchemists at the capital had forged it for her.
She lost her arm in the battle against Scarven last year, but they had crafted one with their magic that bonded well to her Shifter half, too.
I raised an eyebrow. “You do?”
“You do?” Kieran echoed.
Tessa nodded. “Yes. It’s cathartic. It’s good for you to let those emotions out, Ev.” She tapped the top of my head, and I yanked away. “What have you got so far? Maybe we can help.”
“Oh, yes. We’re gonna be great at this,” Arowyn jumped in, a mischievous gleam in her light blue gaze.
I closed my eyes. “I can’t believe this is happening right now.”
“Dear Vera,” Tessa started, ignoring me. “We fell in love in those dungeon cells,”
“And when I think of you, my heart swells,” Arowyn added.
Tessa grabbed the pencil from me. “I wish you’d write back so I know you’re safe…”
Milo chimed in. “But you’re probably off sending Mortep to his grave.”
Arowyn snorted. “You’re a natural, Milo.”
Against my better judgment, a smile slipped onto my face, and I quickly wiped it away. “You’re all ridiculous.”
With a nudge to my shoulder, Tessa said, “At least we got you to smile.” Her voice softened. “I know you miss her, Ev. I wish we could help.”
I patted her arm that rested on the back of my chair, then cleared my throat. As obnoxious as this group could be, they always knew what I needed to hear.
When Vera left a year ago, I wanted to follow her.
I was ready to charter a ship right then and there.
Her older brother and now the governor of Drakorum, Nox Duma, had been in agreement, but the others convinced us to stay.
They said after what she’d been through, this was something she needed to do.
Vera had been left behind when the Ashen Order rescued me all those years ago.
I tried to get to her, but there was no way back.
I couldn’t even imagine what Scarven and Mortep had done to her in those three years we were separated.
The torment they had caused…it was unthinkable.
I knew it would take time for her to find some semblance of normalcy again.
I thought maybe I could be someone she confided in, someone who could help carry her burdens.
But in the end, it was too much for her.
Either that, or I wasn’t enough.
“Send her a message if you want,” Arowyn said in an unusually compassionate tone. “We’re just messing with you. We want you to be happy, that’s all. And sometimes that means…well, maybe it’s time to move on.”
“I’ll write it later,” I said, my voice hoarse. I knew they meant well, they just didn’t understand. “We should all—”
For a second time, the door to the workshop banged open. Nox sauntered in, with his fiancé Devora Sephorne close behind.
Did anyone in this place ever sleep?
“I have news,” Nox said, his voice deep and rich. “And I think you’ll want to hear this.”