Chapter 56 #2
“How is the beastly huntsman?” Aster bumped her shoulder into Evelyn’s, wiggling her brows.
Evelyn laughed. “You tell me, eavesdropper.”
Aster clutched her chest. “Goddess, a hug and a tease? Who are you, Evelyn Carson?”
“A lighter version of me, I suppose.”
“Well, you’ve come a long way, and I can’t help but think Kade played a bit of part.”
“He certainly did,” Evelyn sighed.
Aster smirked. “Oh, I know it. Unfortunately, any time I’ve checked in with your mate in the room, things go in a direction I’d rather not see. Kade’s rather . . . voracious.”
A blush crept over Evelyn’s neck, but there was no point in arguing with Aster—she’d always been so direct, so honest. “He is indeed.”
Her friend hummed to herself. “To think, we were once on a walk, much like this, and you denied your attraction to him because you ‘worked together’”—Aster mocked Evelyn’s once-haughty tone—“and now you’re mated.”
“Was,” Evelyn said. “I mean, in our hearts we feel as though we are because of our love, but as my soul frayed, the thread that tied us unraveled.”
“That’ll mend when you reunite with your magic,” Aster said.
“I believe it,” Evelyn sighed. “I’m glad I was wrong in the beginning, though.
I don’t think I was ready for us. Falling for Kade as Cyrus .
. .” She shrugged. “Even though we were both pretending to be someone else, I think we were unabashedly our truest selves. We had our secrets, sure, but we didn’t have the weight of our titles and duties, and therefore there weren’t any expectations.
We were able to fall for one another as we were. ”
Evelyn wasn’t entirely sure they weren’t the huntsman and barmaid anymore, either.
They’d met as Cyrus and Saige, and a small part of her believed that beginning had laid the foundation of what they were now.
Partners. Had that ever changed? No. Even now, as they both journeyed through the Otherworld, separated, Evelyn knew they’d find one another.
“You in love is a wonderful sight, friend,” Aster said.
The two smiled softly and fell into a gentle silence. Birds continued to sing unseen in the trees, and a breeze had the gold leaves rustling together.
“So, how does it work?” Evelyn asked. “Visiting our world but having your soul here?”
“It is similar I think to how you’re here, actually,” Aster said. “My soul is tethered to the Otherworld in death, while your physical being in the land of the living. Think of our world as layers, our essences rooted in the one of which we belong.”
A faint breeze snaked around Evelyn’s ankles, and she turned back in the direction from which the chill came from.
Across the creek, mist swallowed lone trees on the other bank.
Beasts screeched and moaned, their sounds of protest contrastingly dark to the songbirds and bees.
Farther inland, crooked branches reached downward like outstretched claws, with leaves so dark it appeared they’d been dipped in ink.
It reminded Evelyn how the curse touched vampyrs.
“Is that Hel?” Evelyn whispered.
Aster paused. “Remnants of it. Like the living realm, the Blood Goddess’s darkness seeps through the cracks.”
“Wouldn’t that harm souls that are here?” Evelyn asked. “What does the Sun Goddess do about it?”
Aster molded her lips together, nostrils flaring as she exhaled. “The Moon God and Sun Goddess planted this forest. His lights and her life outshine the dark.”
“Why not destroy it though?” Heat flushed through Evelyn—why did she get the sense the gods weren’t doing enough?
“Why cut back a weed that grows fiercer when trimmed?” Aster shrugged. “There’s a harmony between the two, darkness and light. Think of the moon. When does it shine the brightest?”
At night.
Evelyn didn’t voice her answer out loud as Aster led them onward.
She stewed instead as confusion rippled through her.
She hadn’t failed to miss how Aster was apprehensive whenever Evelyn mentioned the Sun Goddess—why did her friend hold back?
She turned back again, catching a glimpse of the darkness below.
Was the Blood Goddess’s power that fierce that even the gods couldn’t fight it?
The more she thought about it, the more her head ached.
It left her increasingly unsettled that Aster said her flame wasn’t a Goddess-given gift.
Even worse, if her power wasn’t a gift from the Sun Goddess, how exactly was the Goddess aiding those who followed her?
Voices filtered from ahead, and Evelyn slowed, trying to discern who or what they’d come across. A god? Another soul like Aster? Or perhaps a creature of this world? Except, the voices became distinct, so familiar, Evelyn halted.
“For what it’s worth, Evelyn,” Blair said, “Mother would’ve loved it.”
Evelyn’s lungs ballooned and contracted, an emptiness forming in the pit of her belly. Since arriving in the Otherworld, her body turned cold and sweaty. She ran. Sprinted towards the sound of her sister’s voice. Why was Blair in the Otherworld? Had something happened?
Goddess, no.
Breathless, Evelyn ignored Aster’s pleas to slow down. She had to see, had to prove she was wrong and hadn’t heard Blair’s voice—
She pushed between two trees and burst into a clearing, yet again stopping in her tracks. As a child, Evelyn and her sisters attended musicals in the arts district of Nūa, and the scene before her was like that of a play, a staged setting with props and a backdrop.
A shop—the shop she’d purchased her wedding dress from—had sprouted from the roots of the surrounding birch trees. Wooden floorboards weaved through the grass, branches held up the walls; gold leaves snug between the dresses hanging on racks and displays.
Yet, this wasn’t a scene; it was a memory.
At the center, standing atop a velvet-coated dais, Evelyn stood as seamstresses poked and prodded the white gown, molding it to her lithe frame.
Moonstones had been sewn into the crepe material, their reflective light scattering across the fitting room.
Even past the tulle of the dramatic veil, the misery etched deep into Evelyn’s expression seeped past the grandiose.
Dark circles rimmed her distant, vacant eyes.
She hardly recognized herself, and yet the grief and heaviness of that day rose through Evelyn as if it were yesterday.
That had been the day she’d run.
Her sisters had been none the wiser. How could she blame them? Mirella’s face was hard as stone, not cold nor ambivalent like she remembered, but lost. Vacant even. Blair had darker circles than Evelyn, curls wild and untamed.
In their own ways, all the sisters had been battered by their parents’ death.
Tears welled in Evelyn’s eyes. Why had she navigated fate this way? How had she missed the grief etched into her sisters? Had she missed the same signs in Blair more recently?
Yet, that version of her was so young and lost, and though blind, she’d tried to protect them all. She’d known the anger and hurt she’d leave in her wake.
Aster appeared at her side, lips downturned.
“Why is a memory of mine here?” Evelyn asked in a hushed whisper.
Her friend tilted her head, russet eyes studying the other Evelyn hugging her sisters—she’d held them a little too long, the goodbye so evident on the outside looking in.
“Memories are part of your soul, Evelyn. Its who we are. You may come across them as we walk this forest. Everyone does when they first enter the Otherworld.”
Evelyn and her sisters faded. The roots and branches groaned, the scene before them shaking.
The grass grew longer and grasped hold of the floorboards, pulling them deeper into the soft, plush ground.
The bark of the trees opened, engulfing the walls and dresses until the memory was gone, any evidence lost to the wonders of the bright forest.
She was the one who said titles didn’t matter but actions did; what did this memory say about her?
More voices resounded ahead. Shouting. Glass breaking against wood. A certain word, a certain name, carried on the wind along with the silence that followed, and Evelyn winced. Unlike the previous memory, she recognized the latest one immediately.
Aster, this time, didn’t protest as Evelyn headed towards the voices. She found her old apartment above Pages and Leaves, wedged between two trees. Sheppard’s pie and red wine seeped into the pine floorboards dotted with creeping phlox.
She and Kade stared at each other, chests heaving, moments after he’d revealed his true identity.
Kade Drengr, Son of the God.
The omission seemed to boom through the forest. Pain contorted both their faces.
Weakness clung to Evelyn, and fucking flames, the fear set into Kade’s golden eyes had Evelyn clutching her stomach.
Each and every word from him cracked with heartache as he tried to reassure her, tried to reason with her.
Goddess, she was so bloody stubborn, refusing to see that he loved her long before he said those words, weeks before they’d been reunited and completed their fated mate bond.
His actions had been loud and clear, declaring his intent and feelings for her, and yet what had she done?
She’d sent him away, pushed back the notion that anyone could ever care for someone broken like her when that someone was standing right in front of her the entire time.
Shame washed over Evelyn like the mists of darkness had slithered into the forest. Was she too consumed by what she thought was right? Was she too steadfast in her decisions? The possibility had her insides twisting and turning on themselves like a dried, curled leaf.
As they continued onward, they passed more and more memories.
They bled into each other like a street lined with circus acts.
To the left, city bells chimed on the morning of her parents’ funeral, and high atop the Wall, the three Carson sisters argued.
Mirella threw out Evelyn’s wedding arrangements as a weapon, the news causing her to flinch.
The night of her parents’ death echoed in the next clearing, her father’s pleas to believe raising the hairs on the back of Evelyn’s neck.
The next—and last, Evelyn hoped—memory was the night of the Blood Moon.
Red tinted Evelyn’s pale skin, the darkened blood smearing her face and clothes.
Patches of snow buried the forest’s bright-green grass, and unlike the others, Evelyn paused at the determination set into her brow all those weeks ago.
She stared and stared and stared at the bloodstone in her hand while the clanging of swords and axes chimed unseen around them.
The decision had been quick, but she’d debated.
“What are you doing?” Ingrid’s voice boomed through the forest.
Evelyn didn’t hesitate as she fisted the bloodstone. Magic whirled and—
Her magic ripped from her soul, planting into the bloodstone.
Aster held her hand, and Evelyn appreciated the stability. But it wasn’t pain Evelyn felt, but certainty rocking through her.
She’d made the right decision that day, no matter what the cost.
A faint tug pulled from the north, as if her magic agreed, too.
This had been the right decision. Rash, foolish, or otherwise, it was still her.
Her path of decisions, no matter the twists and turns, Uzoma had said she’d grown, and Evelyn believed that truth, but also understood that sort of change wasn’t pretty, comfortable, or glamorous.
It hurt.
But the chaos of grasping fate with one’s own hands was also a beautiful power.
All these memories, all these choices Evelyn had made were hers—not based on the prophecy or the expectations of others. Not even the sting of her mistakes, the scars of past heartache, or the mind tricks of the Otherworld could take choice away from her.
A breeze gusted through the forest, the birch tree branches swaying in one mighty, golden wave.
The memories ahead of them shifted—her laughing into Kade’s chest, enjoying a glass of wine with Tovi, snuggled into Blair as they read together by a roaring fire, even older memories with Aster at the Runaway Radish.
Evelyn’s heart swelled with why she made the choices she’d made and who she fought for.
“Let’s keep moving,” Evelyn said.
Aster didn’t say a word, a slight smile playing on her lips, and Evelyn’s memories evaporated and became mists of the Otherworld.