Chapter Seventy-Five
Evelyn
The next morning, Evelyn, Kade, and Blair braced the rainy Callum morning as they traveled south past Dinberry and over the green hills leading to the Gray Wood. They rode in silence, the unsaid words between them pounding as loudly as Bleu’s muddy hooves.
She and her sister hadn’t spoken yet. Not once since loosing Mirella. But Evelyn still didn’t trust this unnatural callousness gripping her and faced the forest’s entrance.
She’d face what happened with Blair after they completed this task.
The Gray Wood had changed. The once curved trunks had straightened, creating a prouder army of trees and taller canopy.
Healthy pine needles covered the smoother branches top to bottom, and delicate berries with a silver sheen sat at the tips, dripping with rain.
The bark still peeled and unfurled from the trunks, but without the Far Darrig’s dark hold over it, no foxy-colored flesh remained, but instead verdant green.
“It feels like a lifetime ago we were here,” Kade whispered, droplets collecting in his beard.
“But at the same, like it was just yesterday,” she said.
She’d been Saige. He’d been Cyrus. A barmaid and a huntsman, solving murders that led to far more than they anticipated. To think, this is where it all started, and they found themselves back at the same place.
Evelyn brushed her fingers against Kade’s.
His gaze snapped towards her fingers intertwining with his, and Kade released a shuddering breath and grasped Evelyn’s hand. “I love you,” he said. “Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the far distant future, when my soul is but essence floating in the wind. Remember that.”
Evelyn swallowed, the words reaching a part of her soul that was smothered with other. Not the mating bond, not the thread connecting the souls, but the simplistic fact her heart belonged to Kade, no matter what else she’d weaved into it.
“Kade, I—“
“Are you two ready?” Blair snapped.
Evelyn blinked, finding her sister at the precipice of the Gray Wood’s entrance, map in hand. She sighed, her sister’s ire not in nasty words but a piercing gaze that might as well have been a blade slicing across the back of her knees.
“Let’s go,” Evelyn said.
Rain showered through openings in the canopy, drenching clusters of wildflowers. Songbirds chirped unseen, and small mammals scurried across the path, their noses twitching as they sniffed the wet air and inspected the forest’s visitors.
Evelyn paused halfway down the path and dropped her hood back. Memories flushed through her. Here, she’d heard the drums of the Far Darrig and communicated with the Gray Wood the first time. Her fingers itched to speak with the forest again, to confirm they were in the right place.
Tentatively, she placed her palm atop the closest tree, molding her hand over the peeling bark. It was softer than it appeared, plush like moss.
At first, nothing happened.
Birds hopped from branch to branch, animals scurried through foliage, and rain ran down Evelyn’s neck, hot and steaming, like the Sun Goddess watched her efforts from the Otherworld. Heat built underneath Evelyn’s palm, the branch growing hotter and hotter until—
Evelyn hissed, snatching her hand away. A red, angry burn bloomed across her palm, but it healed as quickly as it came.
Confusion rippled through Evelyn, and she inspected the tree she’d touched. The green flesh bloomed a foxy red, and no ancientness caressed her magic, no indication it recognized her.
Evelyn released a breath and continued to follow Kade and Blair. As they trekked ten yards down the path in stewing silence, the canopy above shook. Evelyn braced, and Kade unsheathed his new sword.
Branches snapped. Thunder rumbled. The commotion echoed from behind, and the three of them whirled towards the entrance.
“Fuck,” Kade muttered.
Roots slithered through the mud and puddles, connecting with the others across from it. The trees bent, curving towards one another so the branches intertwined, too. Leaves sprouted in bulbous puffs, blocking out the misty hills of Callum.
The entrance to the Gray Wood closed, locking them inside.
Blair eyed the entrance and then Evelyn. “Any idea why that happened?”
“How should I know?” Evelyn asked.
Blair shrugged. “Perhaps because the prophecy claims this place is an old friend.”
Yet, the Gray Wood didn’t answer Evelyn, and Blair’s tone hurt like she’d pinched Evelyn’s skin. In retaliation, the flame in her rose in one mighty wave.
Scorching. Fervent. Angry.
Demonstrate your power. Show her your wrath.
She fisted her hands at her sides, snuffing down the unwarranted reaction. The sense of unbalance rocked through her. What if she leaned too far the wrong way? What if this wrongness took her? What if she liked it?
“Come back to me,” Kade’s voice whispered.
Evelyn hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes. Hadn’t felt the silver and crimson flames dancing at her fingertips. Hadn’t known she’d fallen into numbness, unaware of the forest sprawling around her.
She blinked and met Kade’s kind amber stare. “I . . .” Evelyn’s voice cracked. “I don’t understand who I am anymore.”
“I know, love.” Pain pinched Kade’s brow.
“Look out!” Blair cried.
Evelyn peered down as panic crept down her spine. Branches snaked towards Kade’s boots and wrapped around his ankles. He flinched and sprang away from Evelyn, but that only caused the branches to tighten their hold.
They yanked him back, and Kade slammed into the forest floor.
“Kade!” Evelyn shouted.
She twirled her fingers, conjured her flame, and thrust a sphere of magic at the branch. It reared back, releasing one of Kade’s legs, but the other dragged him away.
Evelyn dashed after him as Blair rushed to her side. Winds howled, her sister’s brotannas mixing with rain and whirling through the forest. Kade twisted, swiping his sword through the brush. Yet, it was no use. Their efforts only awakened more trees.
They converged ahead of Evelyn and Blair, drawing together like the Gray Wood’s closed entrance.
Trees crawled on creeping roots, moving from one place to another.
Branches overlapped and tightened, like a weaved tapestry of wood and leaves.
With a loud thunk, the Gray Wood stilled, separating Evelyn from Kade.
“No!” she roared, slamming her fists against the trees.
A branch reached out and hit Evelyn square in the gut, knocking her back. A scream unleashed from her, and she thrust out her hands. Silver and red flames awakened, raging up her forearms.
“Wait!” Blair shouted, stepping in front of Evelyn. Her midnight eyes bore into her sister’s, desperation shimmering across them. “Can’t you see that isn’t working? Fighting the forest only makes it worse!”
“How dare you?” Evelyn hissed. “Are you seriously going to give me a lecture on how to use my magic when yours killed Mirella?”
Blair reared back like she’d slapped her. “It was an accident.”
“Is that what you’re telling yourself?” Evelyn scoffed, a wet, hollow laugh falling from her. “Take some fucking accountability.”
Her sister cried out in anger and cast her winds in mighty wave, thrusting Evelyn across the clearing. She landed, pride and bones rattled.
Fucking flames, she hadn’t meant to say those words. To allow her grief and anger to take over.
Blair strode towards her, magic leaking from her fingertips. “Fine. I’ll admit it. It was my magic that hit our sister’s heart. Now, where’s your accountability?”
“Mine?“ A red haze fell over Evelyn’s sights. She hurried to her feet, drawing her own magic back up. Flames ignited at her fingertips. They hissed as rain pelted from above. Gods, she was so angry.
The forest’s energy fluttered through the air, greeting Evelyn for the first time but with an angry, definitive Stop. Evelyn didn’t understand the meaning of the word.
She hurled a ball of flame towards her sister. “What, in the hel, did I do?”
Blair blocked her attack by drawing it into her winds. The tendrils of their magic weaved together until Evelyn’s was snuffed out.
“We had a plan! To get in and out of the city, to meet at the harbor and hurry to Callum, but you waltzed down the docks like there’d be no consequence.
If you weren’t so arrogant, so blasted books blinded by what you always think is best, Circe never would’ve attacked, and Mirella would still be alive! ”
Evelyn’s chest heaved, and the red haze dimmed for a moment. “I’m sad she’s gone, too, Blair.”
“I’m not sad. I’m fucking angry!” Her sister pressed her palms forward, hurtling winds towards Evelyn.
She threw up her arm, drawing a wall of flame ahead of her, using it to block Blair’s blow. Evelyn dug her heels into the ground, sliding through the dirt. Blair called back her winds, and both their magic burst outward from the lack of tension, scattering across the sodden forest.
Blair’s curls twisted wildly, her winds like a cyclone around her. Evelyn couldn’t differentiate between the rain and tears dripping down her sister’s beautiful face.
“None of this would’ve happened if you’d just stayed the Daughter of the Goddess. If you had told me about your lost magic—“
“You can’t patronize my secrets when you’ve had plenty of your own,” Evelyn said through gritted. “You possess shadows!”
Blair flinched. “That sort of power gets a witch thrown into Tùir. At least I stuck to my path. I remained a scholar and worked hard at it. I understood my place. I’m not so hel-bent on rebelling against fate!”
“What about Lorkan?” Evelyn said. “I see the way you look at each other. Noticed it during our first meeting in Lār. You’ve met the Drengr scholar before, haven’t you?”
Venom, not magic, coursed through Evelyn’s veins, and she wished to dig deeper into Blair’s pain. Craved it. The hunger festering in her belly had a mind of its own—she dared to call it darkness. A curse of her own making.
“Lorkan isn’t any of your damn business,” Blair seethed.