Chapter Six
Evelyn
Evelyn’s voice echoed and carried high throughout the glass atrium, louder and prouder than the anxious chatter of the witches who’d gathered on the side pews. They whispered. They gawked. They glared.
Let them.
Years ago—Goddess, dare she say months ago—Evelyn would’ve cowered and shrank away from the appraising crowd.
But she was no longer that witch.
She didn’t give a fucking flame what they thought. She cared for the truth swelling within her, the threat they all needed to understand.
Riven. The Blood Goddess. The Blood Curse.
Through the floor-to-ceiling window ahead, the darkening sky above Nūa carried an omen with it, settling shadows across the buildings of a place Evelyn had once called home.
The clouds ballooned like ink blooming in water.
Dozens of flags depicting the various covens across the city bowed against the coastal winds.
But Evelyn would not bend, not even as the Council listened with hardened expressions. Her hearing was well underway, and yet not a single one had unmasked their indifference.
While Elders lead their covens, and dozens resided in the city, only a select few governed Nūa, one for each of the five districts—Stag, Knot, Harp, Cross, and Ailm.
Residents elected their council members for the first four, while the Elder of the same coven as the Daughter of the Goddess oversaw the Ailm, the central and governing district of Nūa.
Mirella sat at the center, while Stag and Knot sat to her left and the Harp and Cross sat to her right.
With shoulders back and voice steady, Evelyn admitted she had run and why.
She confirmed Kade had left his own post to find her, and that they’d met an ocean away in Callum on the continent of Torren.
To the east, the Sapphire Sea was a gray sheet of glass for miles, no signs of the magic she and Kade had experienced together on the horizon.
To the west, the lingering storm clouds reminded Evelyn too much of the Drystan sky.
Evelyn ignored the chill in her bones and detailed her time in the land of vampyr as Prince Riven’s prisoner. The more she unveiled, the quieter it became, and the wide eyes of the onlooking witches turned to horror.
“Oh, Goddess.”
“To the sun.”
Witches uttered prayers upward, holding their hands out to the atrium’s domed ceiling.
A stained-glass circular depiction of the sun stared down at them, it’s usual flaming color muted from the outside gray.
Her aunts, Ruth and Josepha, sat amongst the crowd, and the third born rolled her eyes while the scholar frowned, wary.
Evelyn’s stomach twisted. She hated inciting fear into her own people, it wasn’t her intention, but she needed them to understand the threat they faced.
She glanced behind her, meeting Kade’s kind, amber stare.
Leaned up against the back wall, he was a tall, brooding presence amongst the high-nosed witches.
Those seated in the pews closest to him had scooted away, giving him a wide berth.
A decorative vase clattered to the ground, severing the tension.
Evelyn stumbled over her words, and everyone’s attention swiveled to Blair.
She froze, wild curls amiss and eyes downcast. Murmurs peppered the air, and Evelyn’s instinct buzzed with unease.
Her sister, a punctual and studios scholar, had arrived late.
Elder Circe, a witch and scholar Evelyn despised, rose out of her seat. “Blair Carson, you aren’t permitted to attend this hearing.”
Evelyn straightened. “My sister is a leading scholar in the Nūa Library.”
Circe snorted. “Blair was dismissed from her position six months ago and hasn’t stepped foot there since.”
“What?” Evelyn breathed, searching for her sister.
Onyx collided with Evelyn’s gray, and Evelyn was certain it was the first time the sisters had truly looked at one another since they’d reunited.
Blair sat amongst the rest of her coven, Emmet, Rodrick, and Artie, their expressions grave at Circe’s news.
Is that why her sister had acted so cold since her return?
But why lie about her dismissal from the library?
Mirella stood. “Blair is a member of the Carson coven, who are permitted to attend in support of Evelyn, Elder Circe. Now, let’s proceed with the hearing.”
Betrayal seared through Evelyn, but she turned away from Blair, refocusing on the Council. Fucking flames, what had she been saying?
Right. The prophecy. The curse. She cleared her throat and said, “I discovered Matilda Moore’s journal—”
Someone snickered. Elder Brookes, seated the farthest left, masked his disruption with a cough. His onyx velvet cloak shimmered under the atrium’s hanging orbs.
Beside him, Elder Rose leaned over and muttered, “Here I thought this tale couldn’t get any more far-fetched—”
“Do you have a question, Elder Rose?” Evelyn raised an expectant brow.
Tension cut through the atrium. Elder Rose squirmed in her seat, a flush rising up her neck. “Do you really expect us to believe that you found Matilda Moore’s journal in the vampyr castle? Miss Carson, you must know how ridiculous this all sounds.”
The muscles in Evelyn’s resilient being tightened. “Are you implying I’m lying?”
There. Call it for what is was—doubt. Evelyn refused to enter the political dance the Elders waltzed. They didn’t have time for it. Riven hadn’t attacked since the Blood Moon, but sooner or later he would, and Sorin needed to be ready. Evelyn needed to be ready.
With her magic.
“I think Elder Rose is merely shocked, like us all,” Mirella said, seated at the center of the five Council members. She offered Evelyn a soft smile. “Go on.”
Evelyn nodded and continued. The rest of her tale flowed out of her like the words had been engrained on her heart—Kade saving her, the attack on Eldrick, meeting Prince Sven and Opal, the battle of the Blood Moon, and when she’d placed her magic into the bloodstone.
“That is an atrocity!” Elder Burns shot up, wagging his meaty figure at Evelyn.
Every bit of him was square-shaped. His head, shoulders, build.
Even the edges of his mustache framed his lips in ninety-degree angles.
Evelyn had found his demeanor just as rigid.
“You willingly cut your soul. It’s dark magic—”
“What other choice did I have?” Evelyn challenged. “If Prince Riven had secured my magic, there would be an army of vampyrs waiting outside the Wall, walking in the sunlight.”
Elder Burns shook his head, face growing redder. “Nūa would rather face that threat than this disgrace. You were gifted by the Sun Goddess with a power unlike any other. Yet, you so easily sacrificed it.”
“Let me make myself very clear, Elder Burns,” Evelyn hissed. “I’d live the last two years again to ensure our homeland is safe. Every bit of it.”
Shock rippled through crowd. Evelyn spun, locking eyes with whom she could. Ruth nodded for her to go on, Artie, too.
“You haven’t seen the devastation the curse has left on Drystan, or the wicked mind games the Blood Goddess has played with Prince Riven.
Neither are a threat easily dismissed. I did what I had to do, and I will not stand here and be accused of dark magic or made to regret my decision.
What I can offer though, is a beacon of hope.
” She held up Opal’s note. “This is the entire prophecy. All of it.”
Evelyn recited it:
As frost bites trees and ferns, whispers
of Gods and Goddesses travel on the wind.
The banished One reaches from Below,
grasping the hope of a heartbroken mortal.
A bleeding bargain struck, weaved with
trickery, and the tendrils of immortality.
But when true love dies,
it’ll be the land’s demise.
Not until the land is cast in
red, a new dawn will rise.
The age of curse, a crack in the land, the
seep and sorrow of death, darkness, and rot.
Her children cast in night, whilst a
hunger for blood will be their blight.
After a storm between mistaken enemies,
the wolf and dove, the clash of the light and night,
those of these lands will unite.
A sowing of seeds, a journey to the beneath where
Life and death meet. A King and Queen will emerge,
With the seeds sown from elsewhere, life
to rid the shade and make way
for the Prince to walk with Light.
With bones an old friend now set free,
And the blade of the ancients
The truest of unions between the third-borns of
the Sun and Moon will defeat the darkness.
Evelyn clutched the parchment like a shred of evidence, and stressed the different stanzas, making sure it was heard that this was so much more than they’d believed for centuries, that it was more than her and Kade.
Stunned silence rippled through the atrium, and Elder Quinn, a spritely witch with azure hair was the first to speak. “What is it that you’re asking, Evelyn? Why agree to this hearing at all?”
“Because I know what Sorin faces,” she said.
“Yet, I can’t defend our homeland or fulfill this prophecy without my magic.
I ask that you drop the charges against Kade and I.
Work with us, not against us. We are not traitors, but protectors who need to focus on getting my magic back.
Then, we can learn how to break the curse. ”
“You mean defeat the darkness?” Elder Quinn leaned forward.
“The darkness and the curse are one in the same,” Evelyn said.
“How are you so sure?” Elder Burns asked.
Evelyn shook her head. “From what I’ve read, learned.”
Elder Burns laughed. “That is not your concern. You are a third born, a protector, not a scholar. Leave the prophecy to the others to decipher and focus on fighting, protecting our borders, defending our lands.”
Elder Rose humphed her agreement. “Yes, why don’t you focus on the very duties you’ve both been neglecting.”
“Well, I can’t do that with my magic, now can I?” Evelyn asked.
Elder Rose shot out of her seat, seething. “How dare you speak to me that way—”
Mirella’s eyes widened. “You’ve let spite and fear guide you. Goddess forbid your almighty beliefs are challenged. For once, can you try and not be a pious pricks?”
Evelyn stilled, her heart lodging in her throat.
Mirella had never stepped in to defend her before—not when she’d begged her to postpone her wedding to Kade, not when she cried for more time, or when the Elders had berated about what happened to her parents—and by her sister’s watery gaze, it’d been festering inside her to do so for some time.
A comment rang from the crowd, and Evelyn swore Emmet said, “That’s my girl. ”
Elder Rose sank back into her seat while Elder Burns turned redder than the glass depicting the sun above.
“We cannot accept the ramblings of a seer turned vampyr! Anything found in our enemy’s lands is subject to suspicion,” he said.
“Not all vampyrs are our enemies,” Evelyn said.
Elder Quinn tapped her fingers against the table. “Like Queen Tovi? Why is it that you trust her after she lied to you for years?”
“Like myself, Tovi Verena made difficult choices to protect her people.”
Elder Quinn’s painted-blue lips spread into a smile, an understanding sheen flashing across her yellow stare. “Valiance isn’t always pretty, is it?”
The tension in Evelyn’s knotted belly eased. It felt like the first time someone, despite her sister Mirella, had agreed with her about something.
“Protect?” Elder Burns laughed and Elder Rose joined.
“Is that what you think you’ve done? You ran away like a frightened bride, and in doing so, lost the very thing that made you worth anything at all.
The greatest gift, the Sun Goddess’s power, ran through your veins, and where is it?
Where is the hope of defeating the darkness in the wake of your selfishness?
Can we still call you the Daughter of the Goddess now that’s it gone? ”
Gone. The word wedged into the gaping hole in Evelyn’s chest, but she balled her fists, refusing to back down or feel the aching loss festering inside her.
She may have ripped her flame out of her, but defiance scorched through her blood.
She refused to admit the full truth that she was dying.
It would be a wasted effort, like this damn hearing.
The Council didn’t care for her—no, they cared only for her magic, like it was some weapon for all witches.
How was she supposed to convince them she needed it back when they didn’t even believe it belonged to her?
That it was of her. When they only saw her for a title, not the efforts she’d endured or the truths she discovered, how did she convince them to see reason?
She wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Why bother wasting her time on stubborn, set-in-their-ways witches? Evelyn wished to break the Blood Curse and save Sorin, and they couldn’t stop her.
“I’m not asking permission to get my magic back,” Evelyn said, tone unbending. Goddess, she was dying, but she still had resolve. “I don’t answer to any of you, not anymore.”
Elder Burns laughed. Throaty and deep, it echoed off the atrium’s glass walls.
“What a brave and rebellious little speech you’ve prepared.
Let me make something very clear. The moment you took your first breath, you answered to Nūa, Evelyn Carson.
You are nothing but a weapon, albeit broken at the moment, but when we say jump, you ask how fucking high.
Do you understand? The Council decides how to proceed after—”
A growl vibrated through the atrium. A beastly energy prickled in the air, and Kade’s boots clattering against the marble were like the deafening beat of a gavel. He joined Evelyn’s side, and for the first time since she’d stepped into the hearing, he spoke.
“Evelyn is far more than her flame, and you, Elder Burns, have insulted her bravery one last time.”