Chapter Twenty-Five

Alec snapped the cover of his journal closed and slid it away. He’d kept journals since before arriving in Otherworld with Mora and continued once out of her thrall. Though he used them to ensure he never crossed his own path twice on the mortal side of the veil, the writing was therapeutic, and scouring the most recent notebook allowed him to relive the days since he first found Evie at the bookstore in Aggieville.

It was Delyth who directed him to Evelyn. She was unwilling to reveal her source, her pride hurt over a failed mission. The location would help him well enough if he planned accordingly and kept his eyes and ears open. He should have thanked her for her help when he saw her.

“Iain and his ilk are on the move. They have a great many leagues to cover, but you will do best to bide your time on the one where wildcats play on fields of royal purple.” She’d then snapped a slip of paper into his palm, a year written in her straight, stick-like hand.

Evie’s accusation still haunted him. He understood her fear. She wanted to be seen as herself, not the wife he had lost lifetimes ago. But her hurt and desperation to leave him was as good as a knife poised to rip through his chest. He’d tried with every fiber of his being to see her as no one but Evie. But there was no denying who she was. The moment he saw her, standing in the back doorway of her parents’ house, hair sticking out and stained shirt drooping over her shoulder, he knew he finally found his missing half.

He’d tried to separate Evie Blair from Elizabeth Meyner Carlisle. He’d thought he had even succeeded. In so many ways they were the same. And in so many they were different. Evie had a vulnerability to her that Elizabeth never possessed. Elizabeth allowed him to play at protecting her, but he’d always sensed it was an act; she didn’t need it. Elizabeth was a wild thing, a contained chaos, her edges sharp and her mind always turning. He’d loved her for her wildness, her brilliance. But she never curled into him, her innocence shining on her face as she slept. She never looked at him with tears in her eyes and begged him not to tell her he loved her. Elizabeth had been a storm, fearless. A force. Evie was so much more.

Seeing her again in Manhattan only confirmed everything he already knew. The connection, the invisible tug pulled them together, again and again. She was the mate of his soul. Finding Iain with her outside the coffee shop only confirmed it. For him, there was no turning back. He was hers for eternity, just as he’d always been.

At first, he thought Iain followed her only to find him. Laid her out as bait to track him down and drag him back to Mora’s stronghold in the heart of the Otherworld. He’d kept his eyes on the skies, his senses trained on the crows. But they didn’t trail him. Didn’t watch him as he passed. Didn’t care when he sent them scattering.

Because they were not after him. They wanted her.

And yet the look on her face, of fear and betrayal and, dare he say, the vestiges of disgust, made him question every moment they spent together.

Anxiety and fear left him in the little cottage in the wilds of the Otherworld, reading over his own clumsy writings about love and fate and destiny, contemplating whether he should wait in the shadows, ready to protect her at all costs, or whether he should leave her alone as she asked.

Both options threatened to shred him apart from the inside.

****

Evie loosed the arrow. It pierced the center of the target. She grinned, grabbed another, and took aim. The second took up the space a fraction of an inch from its twin. A third impaled the target between them, the fletching flicking in the breeze.

Her gaze shifted to Iain’s target. She’d done just as well as he had. “Tell me again how I will need years of practice.”

“What makes you think you haven’t done just that?”

He handed the bow to one of the soldiers standing behind him. She ignored him and did the same. The woman who accepted it was a handful of years her senior, with mousy brown hair and a wicked scar across her left cheek. Evie bounced as she joined Iain, her leg hurting not a bit.

“This feels exhilarating,” she said cheerfully, her face still bright with her accomplishment.

She didn’t know how long they had been there. She supposed it didn’t really matter, though occasionally she wished she’d had the foresight to do as Alec did and write it all down. Perhaps seeing it on paper would help her make sense of time. What she did know was that for every morning since she had been there—whatever morning meant, it always seemed different—she met Iain down in the courtyard and they had sparred, practiced knife throwing, fought with swords, and pushed each other through target practice. He’d been patient with her at first, becoming more stern and demanding the more familiar the weapons felt in her hands.

She’d been a disaster at first, and Iain wouldn’t let her train near any of the others. Her days were spent in the mud and dirt until she found she was more than adept, and only then did he bring the others around. She could now best every one of them so long as she kept her mind clear and muscle memory to good use.

The bow and arrow was her greatest talent, though she quite liked the throwing knives, as well. They were like darts, and the quicker her fingers, the more accurate they were, planting themselves just where she wished them to go.

The sword’s weight gave her the most trouble, though she held her own against Iain, even when he wielded two. Knowing she had infinite amounts of time slowed her pursuit of truth, and for the time being, she enjoyed being honed into a weapon.

None of the others ever spoke to her, and though loneliness often crept in, she was often too exhausted to care. She took her meals alone most days, but Iain occasionally joined her. He was her sole companion.

She stared up at him. He had shaved that morning. Usually, his jaw was shadowed with stubble but he left a bit of a mustache and a sinister-looking triangle of hair on his chin. It was almost dashing. Almost.

“Flora told me we were companions. Once.”

His eyebrows rose. “You saw Flora?”

“You didn’t know?”

He shook his head as they entered the main hall.

“Hmm” she murmured. “You were the one who tipped me off. I was starting to wonder if you had done it intentionally.”

They turned up the stairs and she waited for his response. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Tell me about us being companions.”

“You mean in the solstice kingdoms?”

She nodded. “Where else?”

Something in his eyes flashed, but it was quickly gone and he leaned against the wall outside her door. “Yes, we spent some time with King Hafgan before traveling with Flora to Annwn.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Tell me about it.” She sauntered into her room, leaving the door open in invitation.

Evie pulled the laces loose on her uniform as she approached the wash basin. It was mysteriously filled with warm water every morning after their training sessions, and sometimes a silver tub would be waiting for her next to the hearth, but it was noticeably absent.

Iain entered behind her, quietly shutting the door behind him. She turned away to splash water on her face before scrubbing away the grime with a small hand towel.

“You were there for Flora. I was there for you.”

“For me?” She patted her chin dry and turned to him.

“Mmm.”

“You can’t just talk in grunts and sighs,” she complained as she dropped the towel and sat down on the edge of the bed to unlace the boots.

“Can’t I?”

“No. You promised you would tell me what you know.”

“And I will. After I bring you to her.”

She rolled her eyes and kicked off the boots, then stood to pull the black tunic over her head, revealing her breast band. It would have been amusing to drop it on the floor with the rest and watch him try to avoid looking at her, but she took pity on him and left it in place.

“Flora said you were in love with me,” she said as she returned to the wash bowl to sponge away the sweat collected under her arms and across her lower back.

Iain stared at the ceiling, but his cheeks warmed to a pretty shade of rose.

“Is that why it didn’t take much to get you to sleep with me in Kansas?”

“I don’t remember any sleeping,” he grumbled.

She laughed. “Well, were you?”

He turned his gaze to the tips of his boots before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “Perhaps I thought myself so for awhile.”

“Really?” She was thoroughly shocked he answered her.

“Why is that so surprising?”

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the heavy wood of the door.

She paused mid-scrub, the hand towel poised over one elbow. The water ran in rivulets down her flesh, dripping onto the floor, slipping between her skin and the leather pants she had loosened.

“I don’t know… I suppose I see you as a silent automaton.”

“A what?”

“You know, a machine that just does as it’s been programmed…” She flushed and twisted her mouth to the side.

“I suppose you would see that.”

“Iain, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” he murmured. “I’ve been… serving her for so long, I suppose I have perhaps lost a bit of my…” He stopped, as if thinking of the word he would like to use. He lifted up a finger and ran the back of it along her cheek. “Humanity.”

Her lips parted, but words stuck in her throat. His eyes grew soft, his gaze dropping to her mouth.

Did he still desire her?

She swallowed. He was certainly beautiful, and despite her brief fear of him, she supposed they had become friends. She’d certainly come to enjoy her time with him, their competition, jokes, the way he had made her forget… everything.

Her brows slowly drew together as she met his gaze. But did she want him like that?

The resounding answer in both her heart and mind was no. She didn’t feel a draw to him, she never really had. She had pulled him into the backseat of her father’s car because she was finally feeling again and needed the release. Perhaps he was looking for that, too, and they found the sex mutually beneficial.

But Alec had ruined her. She didn’t want Iain. Not again. Not ever. The hands she wanted on her naked form were Alec’s hands. The mouth she wanted on her own was Alec’s. The arms she wanted wrapped around her when the world didn’t make sense were Alec’s arms.

Evie jumped across the veil looking for answers and Alec was her answer. Did the rest really make a difference?

No, it didn’t.

Because she no longer cared. She didn’t care if Elizabeth or Ailsa or whatever her name was shared her soul. She didn’t care why she was important or why Mora wanted her so badly.

But the hurt she had seen on Alec’s face mattered. Wanting to make up for it mattered.

“Iain.”

He leaned forward, his lips brushing her cheek where his finger had just been.

“I know,” he whispered softly.

A lone tear trailed down her cheek, skimming around the curve of her jaw.

“I’m sorry.” Her whisper was barely audible.

He gave her a gentle smile. “For what?”

Cold wrapped around her as he moved away, taking his warmth with him. She shivered.

“We’ll leave at first light,” he murmured then left her to the grand, empty room.

****

First light didn’t mean what she thought it meant.

She thought there would be time for a nap, perhaps a meal, but she’d barely had time to redress before Iain came knocking on her door, again.

“You just left.” Evie squinted at a fully changed and clean Iain.

He nodded toward her window. “Yes, and light is already straining across the horizon.”

She tossed a look over her shoulder to the window and seeing he was right, stuck her tongue out at him. “How do you get used to it?”

He pushed into the room. “Used to what?”

“Time not making sense.”

Iain shrugged. “It makes perfect sense. It’s your side of the realm that’s off.”

“How long have you been here?” she said more to herself to him as she pulled on a leather cuirass.

He only looked at her blandly. She should have known better than to ask.

“You do know you have a whole wardrobe full of those things, right? You don’t have to keep wearing the old dirty ones.” He nodded to the large wardrobe she hadn’t opened since arriving.

“I didn’t want to mess them up for whomever they belong to.” That, and despite her new penchant for throwing sharp objects, the multitude of daggers and knives still made her uneasy.

Iain canted his head but didn’t say anything. Instead, he sighed with exasperation, went to the wardrobe, and pulled out a pack. Each of the clothing items hanging inside were unceremoniously yanked down and dumped inside the leather bag.

“Put it on.”

He dumped it into her arms, and she shrugged the straps over her shoulders as he returned to the wardrobe. Extracting several of the knives from their rests, he then tucked them in her belt and slid one inside the shaft of her boot.

"You'll need this, too."

She took the sword and baldric he held out. “Really?”

He merely raised an eyebrow and hoisted up her archery equipment.

“Is all of this really necessary?” She struggled to get the leather strap under the pack already on her back.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You never know what—or who—you will meet out there. And it’s better to be prepared than sorry. Besides, she will expect to see you like this, so it’s better to just… do it.”

Evie rolled her shoulders, testing the weight of it all. “I think I might fall over,” she complained.

“You’ll get used to it.” He handed her the bow and quiver of arrows.

“But what about my leg?”

He stopped to consider, as if he had forgotten about her injury altogether. “We’ll be on horseback.”

She recalled how stiff she became when sitting in one position for too long. And the strain riding put on her body before the accident. “I don’t really think that is going to make much of a difference,” she grumbled.

“Well, it’s going to happen one way or the other. Just let me know if you need to stop or slow down or walk.”

Didn’t he just have an answer for everything? She nodded, though, and looked around the room once more. It was as good a home as any. She might even miss it. Then she followed Iain out, down the stairs, and into the courtyard.

Two black stallions waited for them, blanketed and saddled, their reins held by a young man—no, a boy—as they approached. The entire garrison was out in the courtyard, their colors spotless, weapons to their sides, their stances in what she could only describe as standing at attention.

She looked at Iain and wondered who exactly he was to get this sort of send off, but he didn’t meet her gaze or any of those around them. Instead, he stood next to one of the horses, his hands cupped to help her into the saddle. She felt incredibly awkward putting her foot in his hands and then having him hoist her up. She was so nervous about it, she nearly fell off the other side of the poor beast. Her face heated, and she gazed down at her hands, fingers lacing through the reins.

Iain mounted the other horse and nodded to the commander standing before her troops. The woman said something guttural in a language Evie didn’t understand, and her soldiers changed stance as one, their fists going to their chests as they bowed to Iain. He gave a curt nod, clicked his tongue, and kneed his horse into a walk. She did the same, and they exited under the portcullis side by side. But once the wide-open road spread before them, he nudged the beast into a gallop and sped off.

Not one to be left, she did the same, shooting out behind him, and into the sea grass fields edging the Myrkvior.