Chapter Thirty
Evelyn
Sorin’s valley reminded Evelyn more of the hills of Callum than the towering rocky beasts in werewolf territory.
Snow hadn’t breached this far past the continent’s river, leaving the rolling landscape a muted green.
Loblolly pines ringed the edge of the distant lake.
It shimmered silver under the rising sun, Evelyn and her party’s destination a few hours out.
Thanks to Blair’s danu, they’d shaved three days off their journey. Her sister hadn’t visited this territory before—it was notorious for nasty nathracha demons—so she’d deposited them by the river near a post she’d ventured through to reach Kade at the Void years ago.
The notorious wall of mists and darkness stood fifty miles north, and it loomed more than ever. Gray plumes broke away from the fog and dotted the sky in rumbling storms. The wind blew fiercer from that direction, too, and with no forest, there was no reprieve from the biting cold.
Evelyn slowed her horse beside Tovi’s as her best friend’s gaze fixated on the Void, jade eyes churning with vengeance.
That was her home, ravaged by a curse Tovi had never asked for, yet she sat atop her horse with shoulders proud.
Evelyn didn’t know what it meant to be centuries old, fighting for her people, but she understood sacrifice.
“It’ll fall one day,” Evelyn said. “I promise.”
Tovi exhaled, offering her a small smile. “There’s not an ounce in me that doubts you, Evelyn.”
They nudged their horses back into a steady walk.
Ahead, Kade, Todd, and Yen led the party in their shifted forms, three wolfish beasts prowling on all fours.
Belle rode alongside Linx, and Evelyn noted the orangish tips the mage had added to her pink braids, a much-needed splash of brightness in a land riddled with gray.
“Did you have time to talk to Blair before we left?” Tovi asked.
Evelyn shook her head. “No.”
She convinced herself there wasn’t any time.
Mere hours stretched between their planning meeting and then leaving the Drengr Village, but truly, Evelyn didn’t have the right words to say to her sister.
Besides, Blair hadn’t seemed inclined to talk either.
She’d crafted the idea and spell to get Evelyn’s magic back, and Evelyn hoped it was a makeshift peace offering.
For now.
Eventually, Evelyn would have to talk with her sister, but at present, it felt like there were more important matters. The thought left Evelyn squirming in her saddle.
“You?” She turned to Tovi, changing the subject.
Tovi scoffed. “Goddess no. She barely looked at me.”
“I didn’t expect her to be so angry,” Evelyn whispered.
“Something tells me she has been for some time.” Tovi sighed. “You and your sister share the same dark hair and . . .”
Evelyn raised a taunting brow. “And?”
“An unrelenting streak of stubbornness.”
Again, Evelyn shifted in her seat as Tovi studied her with a level of intensity that lifted the veil from her friend’s true age.
“The last conversation I had with Lou wasn’t my proudest,” Tovi said. “It makes losing her that much worse, knowing the way we left things. There’s too much uncertainty not to mend things with your sister. The next time you see her, talk to her.”
Evelyn’s mouth turned dry, and she didn’t respond as they reached Uzoma’s cottage.
The sun shone high above the mountaintop, and the night’s frost trickled down the brass gutters of the cottage.
Speckled sheep and fuzzy chickens scurried through the puddles, signaling their arrival.
Flower boxes filled with rosemary scented the air with an herby sharpness.
A circular door sat at the center, painted teal and adorned with a wreath of evergreen branches, chestnut mushrooms, and dried blood oranges. As Evelyn dismounted Bleu, and the cracking bones and snapping muscles echoed from the shifting werewolves, the door clicked and swung open.
Shirtless and sweaty, Todd approached on cautious feet. “Just as I was about to admit this place was charming, the cottage had to do something creepy.”
Evelyn laughed, and Kade’s fingers brushed against hers. His evergreen-and-rain scent overshadowed everything else in the garden as he stayed close to her side.
“That’s only Uzoma’s flair, Todd.” She turned to Kade. “Shall we?”
“Wait.” Linx appeared at Kade’s elbow—it was as if Evelyn blinked and then the mage was just . . . there. “You want to go in there alone?”
“We’re not alone,” Kade said. “Evelyn and I are together.”
Linx rolled her catlike eyes. “Yes, I’m aware of that, but shouldn’t we all go?”
Evelyn shook her head. “Scribing doesn’t take long, and once we’ve got the location of my muince, we’ll leave straight for Morrow.”
Linx, standing with arms folded, didn’t appear convinced.
Kade addressed them all, grasping Evelyn’s hand and heading towards the cottage. “Rest, hydrate, keep watch. We’ll continue onward soon enough.”
They entered the cottage, and after some wandering, Evelyn found Uzoma exactly where she imagined, nestled deep into the cushions of an oversize armchair, using her layered shawls as blankets, with an old, weathered book in her hands.
At her age, Uzoma was the oldest witch in Sorin—older than Circe. Texts claimed that nurturing one’s magic properly ensured a long lifespan, yet Evelyn believed a constant, reeling mind had a hand in her tutor’s impressive age. Adapting it, morphing it. Uzoma had never tired.
Her hair was whiter these days, a few strands of silver throughout.
The smile lines around her eyes had deepened, and her fingers had thinned, teetering on frail.
The same wisdom rippled through her irises, and the knowing that seers possessed weaved into their state snapped from her texts and landed on Evelyn and Kade. She slammed her book shut and stood.
“You’re late,” Uzoma said, one brow raised.
“Always is,” Kade said.
Evelyn shot him a look, but couldn’t fight the smile curving on her lips. “I wasn’t aware I had a scheduled appointment today.”
Uzoma hummed, approaching on steady feet.
She braced her hands on Evelyn’s shoulders.
“You’ve always tested fate with your punctuality, Evelyn, though I’ve known you’d seek me out.
It’s why I moved out of the city and into the valley.
Something told me it was best that way.” Uzoma winked like they shared a little secret.
Evelyn laughed, but unease swam in her gut. “I don’t understand.”
“You need a scribe, right?”
“How . . .” Evelyn shook her head. She’d known Uzoma was a seer, but she’d never revealed her visions were about her.
Not once, not even when they’d met daily for Evelyn’s lessons as a child or visits over the years while she attended university.
Uzoma had regarded her Sight as “less than insightful”, so often in fact, most of Nūa forgot she was a seer at all.
Uzoma’s fingers brushed against the bloodstone, brows pinching, and ignored Evelyn’s question. “There it is.”
Kade tensed. “Have you seen it before?”
Uzoma backed away, nodding to herself. “Yes, and no.”
“That seems like a very seer-like thing to say,” Kade muttered.
The older witch’s expression turned sympathetic. “I see flashes of things, but I don’t know things for certain. Things. People. Colors. All are attached to emotions. Yes, I’ve seen the bloodstone, but I saw a shattered version.”
Evelyn’s heart skipped, mind running wild. Kade grasped her hand, giving it an assuring squeeze. Always there, always thinking of her.
Fucking flames, what if—no, no, no. Evelyn wouldn’t accept anything less than getting her magic back.
She’d travel to the ends of the world, fight any sort of demon or darkness.
Not because she needed it; she was strong on her own, but because the power locked away in the bloodstone more than belonged to her, it was hers.
“I’m uncertain. Yet, the prophecy details the two of you defeating the darkness, does it not?”
Evelyn crossed her arms, chilled by the stretch of the unknown on the horizon. “The prophecy is more than we originally thought.”
Uzoma raised a finger. “But it’s being deciphered, no?”
Kade nodded. “Blair, Evelyn’s sister, and Lorkan, my brother, are headed to Vísdómr to study it.”
Uzoma hummed a content tune, as if Kade’s news hadn’t been news at all but a confirmation.
Evelyn grew hot, hands turning clammy. “What else have you seen?”
Uzoma smiled, studying her fated. “I’ve seen you, Kade Drengr, and that honey stare so full of kindness. I’ve felt you by Evelyn’s side in a land with sprawling green hills, a forest cursed with never ending winter, and a battle that I fear approaches sooner and sooner with each passing day—”
“Wait.” Evelyn reared straight. “Do you mean Callum? Did you know I’d run away?”
Uzoma laughed. “Well, of course. I knew long before the idea crossed your mind—”
“Why didn’t you stop me?” she hissed. Heat surged through her body, but it was nothing like the power of her flame. It was harsher, worse, like she might burn from the inside out with anger.
Uzoma sighed. “That is not my place. Your fate is your fate, Evelyn. Even if I stepped in and stopped you, you’d only deviate off the path and find your way back to it.”
The tear in Evelyn’s soul ached, and she hated the choice she had made, ripping her magic out, but that brash, foolish decision belonged to her.
Or so she thought.
Everything she’d done felt like water slipping through her fingers. Nothing was in her grasp. Not her name that was now tarnished in the papers, not her title, chosen by her homeland, or her magic, locked away in the bloodstone.
“I thought myself broken, and you let me believe it.”
“You were broken, Evelyn, and there is no shame in that. It is not my place to get in the way of your journey, and I can already see you’re better for it.
Fiercer, stronger. Far braver than you ever were.
To think you’re pushing back against me?
” Uzoma snorted. “You’d never once questioned me before, and it’s a refreshing change. ”
“Don’t mock her,” Kade growled.
“I’m not,” Uzoma snapped. “At my age, you know that no words can heal wounds. That power exists only within us. But know this: When I saw the bloodstone, I didn’t know what it meant or what it would cost you, my dear. Just because I’ve seen what may be, doesn’t mean I want it for you.”
“What about what I want?” Evelyn whispered. “Does that count for something?”
“Oh, my dear.” Uzoma grasped her hands and held them with a tenderness she’d offered all those years ago, a gentle comfort with so much on her small shoulders. “Listen to me—”
“Did you know Circe would hurt me?” Evelyn asked, impressed with unwavering tone.
Uzoma stiffened. Her silence ballooned in the cottage, and Evelyn snatched her hands away.
“Goddess, you did . . .”
“Evelyn, please. You must understand—”
“What? That having my tutor tell me I was nothing made me better for it.”
Uzoma winced. “I see things, not write them. You are the Daughter of the Goddess—”
“I’m Evelyn Carson. That is my name.” Betrayal seared through her; she’d never been her title to her tutor. On the streets of the city, amongst covens, but not with Uzoma.
Her old tutor’s shoulders slackened, and pain flashed behind her spectacles.
“Forgive me, I know exactly who you are and always have. I swear to you, the first visions I saw of Circe are what led me to find you in that cupboard, and once I had you away from her, I never tutored you as the Daughter of the Goddess, but as Evelyn. You must remember that.”
Kade laid a hand on the small of her back, and Evelyn released a breath, finding the courage to agree with Uzoma. She did, and that was why she trusted her enough to come here today.
Circe’s words. Her people’s opinions. Evelyn kept telling herself it didn’t matter how they labeled her, what her title was. Yet Uzoma’s knowing made it worse, deepened the cut almost. Like she was some pawn that others moved as they saw fit.
Fuck that—she refused to accept that was the way of things, and Uzoma’s next words encouraged her more in that conviction.
Uzoma laid a soft hand on her cheeks. “Things are written, yes indeed. The prophecy. The Nūa papers.” The witch snorted with disgust. “But don’t think for a second your fate is not in your hands, and yours only, you hear me?”
Evelyn nodded. “Yes.”
“Now”—Uzoma backed up, gathering her many shawls—“I think it’s time I scribed for your muince.”