Chapter 64
Chapter Sixty-Four
Evelyn
Evelyn gasped upright, lungs burning. Death still ached through her body as new life and magic thrummed through it, jolting her stiff limbs. She coughed, her throat brittle as she blinked her eyes back into focus.
A sense of wrongness gripped Evelyn’s bones, like the ancient power she’d placed into her soul was stitched too tightly, bursting at the seams.
“Kade! Evelyn!” Linx’s said, tone echoing in the cave. “Can you hear me?”
Small, gentle hands lay on Evelyn’s shoulders, and Belle’s beautiful face sharpened in the dim light of the Sun Goddess’s temple. Sweat, dust, and the remnants of spell work hung in the air.
“You did it,” Belle said. “I can sense your magic!”
Tiredness ringed Belle’s eyes, her hair a bit dimmer than the last time Evelyn remembered her—why did she care?
She didn’t. Ambivalence shot through Evelyn so violently, it was like a harsh lashing. She fell into the sting, not bothered by it but almost . . . liking it.
Besides, Evelyn had done it. She’d made it back to the Living Lands.
Ev.
She whirled, heart thudding inside her chest. Righting himself, Kade rose to his looming height. Her heart burst at the sight of him—she stilled, rooting to the sandy floor.
It was more evident back in their realm that Kade Drengr was no longer the son of a god but remade into one himself. Power brimmed off him in the light of the moon, etched into his sharper-honed muscles and keener, brighter eyes.
A transcendental energy clung to him. Blue embers flew around Kade’s frame, barely visible at all. Yet, his soul remained the same, bursting with kindness, loyalty, and love for Evelyn that spanned between worlds and realms.
Evelyn stood on steady legs, pushing Belle off to the side.
She, too, rose taller, sharper than before.
It wasn’t only her ailing soul that was now restored.
A newfound strength rippled through her as she grew used to her new body and magic.
It was fiercer, not singing through her blood but chanting with the power of a thousand.
It practically roared for her to draw it forth to her fingertips and wield it.
Evelyn fisted her hand, drawing back its eagerness. She sucked in a breath, equally shocked at how well it answered her and unnerved by its mightiness.
She snapped her gaze up—there’d be plenty of time to explore the magic she’d created in the Otherworld. Right now, all Evelyn cared for was to breathe the air of Sorin and reunite with her fated.
Kade, she whispered his name through their mating link.
In two long strides, they met each other halfway and grasped hands. Kade leaned his forehead against hers, and Evelyn clamped her eyes shut, relishing in the fact they made it home.
Together. Partners. Always.
“I’m so proud of you, love,” Kade whispered.
Evelyn squeezed his hand, running her thumb over it. His power didn’t greet her magic, nor his inner wolf, but the thread of their mating bond connected their souls again, begging for them to complete the bond and draw it tauter with their weaved powers.
A ravenous hunger lit in the pit of Evelyn’s belly. She inhaled Kade’s scent, and fucking flames, he smelled divine—
“Who are you?” Linx asked.
“Oh my word, Evelyn,” Belle whispered. “Did you bring a soul back to life?”
A small, tentative sniffle quipped from behind, and naked as a newborn babe, Aster sat on bent knees, brushing tears away from her russet eyes. “Where am I? Who am I?”
“Moons,” Kade hissed.
He pulled his hands out of Evelyn’s grasp and grabbed his abandoned cloak. He wrapped Aster’s small trembling frame in it, and Evelyn pressed her nails into her fleshy palms, using the pain to stall the scorching heat of jealousy flushing through her.
That . . . was uncalled. Irrational. This was Aster and Kade, and above all else, they’d made it back home.
Evelyn exhaled, sauntering over to Aster and falling to her haunches. Her wide eyes wildly roamed the cave, seemingly unsure which of them to rest her sights on. As Evelyn reached out a hand to comfort her, Aster recoiled.
“It’s me, Evelyn,” she whispered. “I brought you back.”
Tears ran down her friend’s face, and Evelyn reached her magic out, trying to greet Aster’s gently, but she met nothing. A hollowness spread through her, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. Aster had no magic, no earth bronntanas.
“I don’t know who you are,” Aster whispered. “I don’t know any of you. Why am I here? Where did I come from?”
Evelyn clutched her stomach, trying to fight the bile working its way up her throat.
“Does someone want to explain who this is?” Todd asked, standing back from them all while keeping an eye on the temple’s entrance.
“Aster Arkwood.” Kade busied himself with retrieving a decanter of water from their supplies, handing it to the frightened witch. Wait—could Evelyn call her that if Aster no longer had magic?
“As . . . ter . . . Ark . . . wood?” she annunciated her name.
Evelyn nodded. “Yes. You’re from Callum, remember? You own Pages and Leaves, a plant and bookstore, because they’re good company for one another.”
Aster’s ginger brows pinched, and she frowned. “Did I ask for this? I don’t remember wanting this. Why am I here?”
“I brought you back to life,” Evelyn whispered, heart cracking. “I gave you a second chance.”
Linx cursed under her breath, reaching for clothes inside her travel sack. “Did you not think this through, Evelyn? Did you not consider reviving a soul would have ramifications?”
Evelyn gritted her teeth. “She didn’t deserve to die in the first place. I was righting a wrong.”
Linx tsked, pink buns bleeding into red as anger etched her expressions. “That isn’t your call to make. There is a balance to things, Evelyn.”
What a fool, Evelyn thought. Silly, na?ve mage. “Fate is in our hands,” she said, leaving her stare on the Gray Fenris healer. “The gods are liars.”
A laugh boomed inside the temple. The stone bones trembled, and dust puffed from the cracks. Kade gathered Evelyn in his arms, and their team braced against the quaking earth.
“Did you truly think, Evelyn, that you could steal from a god and not pay a consequence?” The Sun Goddess’s voice traveled here, everywhere and nowhere.
Evelyn couldn’t differentiate if it filtered through her mind or directly in the temple. The shrillness. The way the goddess’s voice boomed. Familiar.
“You have forgotten your place in this world, Miss Carson,” the Goddess said. “Allow me to remind you. You stole a soul from me, and it is only fair I take from you.”
“What—no!” Evelyn screamed.
But it was too late.
Like the Sun Goddess had snapped her fingers, a clap echoed in the temple.
A growl vibrated behind her, and Evelyn expected to find Kade buckling to his knees, but it was Todd, rushing towards Belle.
The water witch’s eyes rolled backward, and she collapsed. Limp, almost lifeless. Todd caught her in his arms, calling out her name.
“Belle, wake up. Come on now, listen to my voice. Wake up,” he said.
Evelyn tuned into her enhanced hearing. Her friend’s heart still thumped, slower, but . . . there. She was still alive. Barely.
“What have you done?” Linx whispered, stare jumping between Evelyn and Belle.
A friend for a friend.
It wasn’t the Sun Goddess’s voice hissing in the back of Evelyn’s mind but her own.
She’d traded kindness for kindness. Two witches who’d aided her during times of darkness.
Two beautiful souls, and she’d brought one back only to lose another.
The blatant show of balance rocked through Evelyn.
She reached for remorse but found . . . nothing.
The Sun Goddess’s echoing chuckle reached Evelyn’s mind this time. The others didn’t notice, didn’t flinch as she whispered, “You’ll soon experience the rest of your mistake. You’re more my daughter than you’ve ever been.”
An audible crack shot across the temple’s ceiling. Rock came lose and crashed to the temple’s floor.
“We need to get out of here. Now,” Kade said, his tone rattling with authority.
Evelyn took hold of Aster’s hand, tugging her along as rocks showered from above. She jumped back as one landed a few feet ahead. Another rattled above. Evelyn braced, drawing Aster under her, but nothing came. She blinked, finding blue embers showering above her, the rock gone.
Kade gathered Aster in his arms, carrying her like she weighed nothing. “Run, Ev.”
She didn’t protest and used Linx’s brightly colored hair to find her way through the fray of falling rock and shifting ground. She kept hold of the mating bond, certain Kade continued to follow close behind her.
Outside, the ground still shook, the entire canyon echoing with the temple’s destruction. Yet, none of them slowed. They ran across the dried-out river, not daring to stop for a breathe as the Sun Goddess’s anger rippled beyond Cirrillo.
As they grew farther and farther away, a deafening screech pierced their ears, and Evelyn stumbled, staring back at the temple. A dozen nathracha demons burst from its entrance.
Kade roared. A power that outmatched the Sun Goddess prickled in the dry air. He slammed a fist into the sands, still clutching Aster’s form in his other arm.
A thousand fractures in the rocks echoed in the canyon. A whoosh of wind traveled down it, whipping Evelyn’s hair back and knocking Linx and Todd off balance. Evelyn stood her ground, relishing in the power Kade wielded.
He pulsed with acceptance, but perhaps not yet control.
A tidal wave of his power, like the magnetic yank of the moon above the sea, pushed forward. Blue collided into the adjacent canyon, and the rock burst on impact.
The ancient structure lost integrity and crumbled under Kade’s sheer strength. Blue swelled far beyond the cliffs, eroding the terra-cotta for miles and miles.
After a beat, blue surged back into him. Kade’s efforts left behind a wasteland, the temple buried under sand.
Evelyn released a pent-up breath, and Kade’s wide, surprised gaze snapped to hers. His mouth lay in a thin line, his amber stare ripe with something close to apprehension. Was it towards her or the power he’d finally accepted?
Evelyn pondered his expression for the rest of the climb up the cliff’s stairs. There was no flighty sense flushing in her pit. No anxiety. No doubt. In fact, nothing but hollowness spread inside her.
You’re more my daughter than you’ve ever been.
The Sun Goddess’s parting words nipped at Evelyn’s heels. She climbed two stairs at a time as they reached the canyon’s edge, leading up the rolling sands and dunes. Evelyn crested the last step and the horizon bled with dusk, magenta lining the dunes in a pinky glow.
Kade made it over the edge last, and he placed Aster beside her.
He turned his attention solely to Evelyn, laying a hand on her cheek. “We made it. That is all that matters right now.”
Evelyn tried to find comfort in Kade’s words, hope, resolve, something that felt remotely like herself. Flame ignited in her soul, the piece she’d plucked from the Sun Goddess.
Stole, she corrected.
The reminder tugged her gaze to Belle, but she couldn’t stomach her kind, sweet friend’s unconscious form and Todd’s ravaged stare as he combed her hair back tenderly.
Despite the emptiness inside, Evelyn’s being buzzed with one question:
What had she been reborn into?