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TWENTY-TWO

EVRYN

T he sky above Crimson Hollow bled rust.

It wasn't the color of dusk or even the haze from the alchemical mines threading the cliffs around the rebel stronghold. No, this red sky was ritual . Painted by intent. Summoned by power.

Evryn stood beneath it, cloaked in deep charcoal robes lined with silver thread. The high collar scratched against her throat, but she didn’t flinch. The wind tugged at her curls, the hem of her robe. Her hands were steady at her sides.

A symbolic heir. A daughter of the forgotten bloodline.

She was becoming what Thalia had said she would be. What Lucien once feared she could be.

The courtyard before her was ringed with the devout—witches and Veilborn from every forgotten clan. Old warriors in rusted armor. Hollow-eyed assassins marked with ritual scars. Some knelt. Some watched.

All of them waiting.

Thalia stood to her right. Regal, serene, deadly.

“This is what survival looks like,” she whispered, voice just loud enough for Evryn alone. “When the world writes you off, you rewrite the language they used to erase you.”

Evryn nodded once, cold. Inside her chest, her power curled. It wasn’t a flicker anymore. It was steady . Coiled. Listening.

She stepped forward into the circle. The blood rite began.

The blade was obsidian-veined bone, passed from Thalia’s hand to hers.

“Do you claim your blood?” the gathered voices asked in unison.

Evryn’s voice didn’t shake. “I do.”

“Do you claim your shadows?”

“I do.”

“And do you carry the right of flame and void, of panther and Veil?”

Evryn pressed the blade to her palm, sliced deep and clean. The blood that hit the earth sizzled against the rune-carved stone.

“I do,” she whispered.

The sky howled. The wind rose.

Power surged into her chest like a floodgate torn open.

She staggered. But she didn’t fall. And when she looked up again, the entire circle was bowing.

Later, in her chambers, stone walls laced with shadowglass, the scent of nightthorn incense thick in the air—Evryn stood in silence, watching the silver wound on her palm knit closed.

She didn’t feel stronger , not exactly.

She felt emptier . Lighter in all the wrong ways.

The kind of cold that settled under your ribs and made a home there.

Thalia entered without knocking.

She didn’t speak right away, just walked to the window and looked out at the Hollow. The trees beyond were still aflame with light from the rite. Even the shadows seemed quieter, holding their breath.

“You did well.”

Evryn didn’t answer.

Thalia looked over her shoulder. “You feel it, don’t you? The change.”

“I feel... like I lost something.”

Thalia stepped closer. “You gave something. There’s a difference.”

Evryn studied her. “Eamon.”

Thalia’s expression didn’t shift, but something in her eyes flickered. “He’s alive.”

Evryn clenched her fists. “Where?”

“I’ve told you—safe. And you’ll see him when you’re ready.”

Her voice was even, but Evryn could hear the thread beneath it.

“You mean when I’m trained enough.”

Thalia didn’t deny it. “Where he is… it’s not a place one walks into unprepared. Or uninvited.”

Evryn’s heart thudded. “He’s with her, isn’t he?”

The pause was telling.

“I’ve ensured he’s untouched. But yes. He’s in the Queen’s custody.”

Evryn’s stomach twisted.

“He raised me.”

Thalia nodded. “And he’s why you’ll survive this. Why you must. ”

Evryn turned to the window, jaw tight. Her power stirred again. Her shadows coiled at the edge of her thoughts.

The silence between them grew heavy.

And then Evryn spoke.

Low. Sharp. “Why me?”

Thalia tilted her head.

Evryn didn’t look at her. “Don’t feed me the bloodline answer again. I know I’ve got power. I know I’ve got the mark. But so what? That’s not enough to make people bow. Not enough to make you risk open war with the Queen.”

She turned to face Thalia fully. “Why do you want me? What do I give your rebellion that no one else can?”

Thalia’s lips parted in a small, unreadable smile.

“Because you’re the fracture point.”

Evryn’s brows knit. “What?”

“You’re not just a symbol, Evryn. You’re a wound. A truth that never got buried deep enough. The Houses built peace on the lie that your bloodline was gone—that the oldest power in the Veil had been extinguished. But you’re proof it wasn’t. Your existence cracks the foundation.”

She began to circle slowly, her voice like silk unraveling in the dark.

“Do you know how many factions in the Veil have been waiting for something? Anything? A spark, a thread, a reason to believe that change isn’t just some dead poet’s dream?

You’re that reason. You bear the Old Flame.

The Mark. You move shadows without command.

You see through Veil-warp and glamour like it’s air.

You’re what the Queen fears—not because you can kill her, but because you could replace her. ”

Evryn’s throat tightened.

Thalia stopped in front of her. “We don’t want a soldier. We want a storm. A reckoning that no court or House can contain.”

“But I’m not ready,” Evryn said. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I still feel like I’m faking every step.”

“That’s what makes you dangerous,” Thalia said, softer now. “You haven’t been molded by them. Not completely. Your instincts are your own. Untamed. And once they’re honed, once that old magic in your veins stops flickering and starts burning—you won’t need anyone’s permission to take your place.”

Evryn looked down at her hands. The faint shimmer of power pulsed beneath her skin.

She wasn’t just a girl caught in a war anymore. She was the war.

And Thalia? She didn’t want to save her. She wanted to unleash her.

Evryn swallowed hard, the window’s reflection catching her eyes—eyes that no longer looked like a stranger’s, but something ancient clawing its way to the surface.

She didn’t say it, but she felt it.

The longer she stayed here, the more that coldness took root.

She wasn’t the girl from the Borderlands anymore.

Not the frightened runaway. Not even the girl who had loved Lucien Umbraclaw like a fool.

She was something else now.

And whatever that was… it wanted blood.