He was a fucking Ever, and I should’ve known from the beginning. He wanted my power, not me. Just like he wanted my aunt’s and every threadmender’s before us. We were expendable pawns.
I nearly balled up the paper, but as the crinkling pulled my focus, I glimpsed a few more lines beneath Rowena’s note written in a different hand.
I’m sorry I didn’t trust Rowena sooner. I didn’t know until it was too late.
My daughter gave her life for this, but none of us can speak it.
Zeverin Ignatus Embergrave.
We all want to be free.
The moment I read the name a weight pounded into my bones, and the metallic tang of magic singed the air. It was only a name, but the letters seemed to burn into the backs of my eyelids, so that even when I squeezed my eyes shut to chase away the lingeringmagic, I could still see it perfectly. What the fuck was going on in this gods-forsaken manor?
I couldn’t trust anyone outside of myself.
That truth settled me, and the swirling emotions subsided. I couldn’t break. Not now, not when I was so close to curing my brothers.
I had to go through with the heartbond. I had to keep my shit together long enough to help Noam and Nohr. Even now, with my mind so absolutely shattered with the knowledge my aunt left behind, my heart ached at the notion that Orin was anything other than good. What if he and Rowena just didn’t get along? What if that was an act of desperation on his part, but now he’d become something more? Something better?
A brittle laugh escaped my lips at my fragile logic. I wanted it to be true, but I doubted it was. I forced myself to stand and then headed for the bathroom.
When I stood before the copper bathtub, I closed my eyes and centered myself with a long breath.
Zeverin Ignatus Embergrave.
The name rasped through my mind like dying leaves scraping against cobblestone. It felt important. Powerful. I found a match in my apothecary case and dropped it on top of Rowena’s final words. And possibly Mavis’s.
Only when it had been reduced to ash did I move. I willed the basin to fill with water, and I watched as the remains dissolved and drained away.
Twenty-Five
I had only a few hours before Orin would return and the ceremony would begin. He’d told me he needed to complete a ritual of his own before we could become heartbonds, but he hadn’t elaborated on what that entailed. Whatever it was, I was glad I had some time to school my emotions into place. And to find answers. Of course not a single book I’d read included anything about everjewels other than brief mentions of their existence; it seemed their magic was safeguarded above all else. I doubted I could trust anyone in this manor, but perhaps I could trick them with innocent conversation into revealing hidden truths.
As I left my room and headed for the stairs, I weighed my options.
Mavis was off the table. She’d already expended what little energy she had left to deliver the letter, and I doubted Lydia would leave Mavis alone after finding me in her room.
Which of course meant Lydia was out of the question—unsurprisingly, I wouldn’t have started with that raging Ever,anyway—and by proxy Clesian. Amalyss and Tasia, maybe. But if they were within their parents’ reach, then definitely not.
I could ask Vora, but she was devoted to her lord. I couldn’t risk her letting Orin know anything before I was ready to confront him. Seville or Rorik, then. My feet hit the foyer and I paused, glancing through the windows at the dawn light cresting over the quiet forest. Seville had spoken so fondly about Rowena during our trip to Willowfell. But what if Seville had tricked Rowena in the way Orin had tricked me? I’d never seen Seville so much as raise her voice at Orin.
I don’t love either of my brothers, but I know which one not to piss off.
The burn behind her words, even through the fog of my memory, couldn’t be denied. Not Seville, then.
My gaze crossed the hall to Orin’s study. The door was open, the lights doused. The empty room was like the maw of a cave with a whispering, rattling inhalation that sent a chill up my spine.
His evervow was meant to protect us, and yet you still find ways to put us at risk just to spite him.
Awareness crested in me at the ghost of Orin’s words. The familial evervow. He’d been discussing it with Rorik. That’s where I had to start. It was no secret Rorik detested his brother, but I had no idea if that disgust had any impact on loyalty.
We all want to be free.
I hoped Mavis was fucking right.
The brisk air greeted me as I pushed through the double doors to the courtyard. The morning was quiet, the sleepy lawns just barely awakening with the faint streams of daylight peeking over the surrounding forest.
My boots thudded against the grass as I abandoned the polished pathways for the manicured lawns. I’d heard once from the gossiping attendants that Rorik rose with the sun to train alone beneath the ancestor tree. While I wanted to storm downthe hill and pin him against the writhing bark and demand he speak plainly for once, I doubted that was the best way forward. Knowing him, he’d probably like it.
