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TWENTY-FOUR

EVRYN

S he didn’t cry.

Not when they escaped Crimson Hollow.

Not when the veil closed behind them like a dying breath.

Not even when Lucien helped her down the last moss-slick stone stair into the crypt where her nightmares had been waiting.

She didn’t cry when she saw Eamon. She didn’t scream. She just knelt, one hand over her mouth, the other reaching out—not to touch him, but to feel .

To make sure the shadow of his presence wasn’t just buried beneath the stasis spell.

But he was gone. Truly gone.

She had felt it the moment Lucien said it, deep in her bones. Her Sight had known what her heart refused to accept.

Now, on the winding forest path past the Hollow, with the scent of wet bark and smoke thick in the air, Evryn still didn’t cry.

But gods, she wanted to.

Lucien walked ahead, close enough to reach her if danger stirred but far enough to give her silence. His coat was pulled high, shadows flickering at his shoulders like restless hounds.

Evryn stared at the trail underfoot. Everything blurred together. Leaves. Dust. The sharp rhythm of her own too-steady breath.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” she said finally, voice rough.

Lucien slowed. Turned. “You did. He just wasn’t breathing when he heard it.”

Her throat tightened. “Don’t.”

He didn’t push.

They walked a few more paces in silence before she spoke again.

“I should’ve known. I did know. Part of me did. I just… didn’t want it to be true.”

“That’s what grief is,” Lucien murmured. “Wanting things to make sense when the world’s already moved on.”

She laughed—bitter, hollow. “You’re full of inspirational speeches now?”

Lucien gave her a look. “Hard to dodge emotional landmines with sarcasm when you’ve already set them off.”

She almost smiled. Almost.

Then the cold crept back in.

Later, by the bank of a stream hidden under old vinefalls, they made camp. It wasn’t safe, not really, but it was quiet. The kind of place you could pretend the world was just dirt and sky and the sound of water.

Evryn sat beside the fire, arms wrapped tight around her knees.

“I’m changing,” she said, barely louder than the stream.

Lucien was across from her, sharpening one of his daggers on a piece of onyx stone. He looked up.

“I feel it,” she continued. “There’s this… coldness. Not just from grief. From power. Every time I use it, it wraps tighter. Like it’s waiting .”

Lucien nodded slowly. “It is.”

Evryn blinked. “You’re not gonna lie and say I’m imagining it?”

“I wouldn’t insult you like that.”

She studied him for a long beat. “You’re not afraid of what I’m becoming?”

He slid the dagger away and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “No. I’m afraid of what people will do because of it.”

She bit her lip. “Thalia wanted to use me to start a war. What does your mother want?”

Lucien’s jaw clenched. “I’m not sure yet. But I know it has to be more than your death.”

The world had gone quiet again.

Too quiet.

The kind of silence that came after something irrevocable broke inside you, but your body was too tired to make a sound.

Evryn sat with her knees pulled tight to her chest beneath the arching roots of a moss-covered tree. They’d made camp just off a ghost road in the hills north of Crimson Hollow, far from any scouts or thorns the Queen might send.

But distance meant nothing to grief.

It lived in her.

Her fingers brushed the charm at her throat—bone-carved, worn smooth by years of nervous fidgeting. Eamon had given it to her the day they fled the Borderlands.

It was cold.

Just like the look on his face when she found him.

Still. Peaceful. Empty.

The image burned behind her eyes like frostbite.

“I should’ve come sooner,” she whispered into the wind. “I should’ve found you. I should’ve?—”

A branch cracked nearby.

She didn’t flinch.

Lucien emerged from the trees, breathless, his shadows twitching around him like they were stirred by something worse than mere adrenaline.

Evryn stood before he could speak.

“Where were you?”

“I went back to the outskirts of Hollow,” he said, voice low and ragged. “I needed… confirmation.”

Evryn frowned. “Of what?”

Lucien met her eyes.

And this time, he didn’t blink.

“I was wrong,” he said. “It’s not just that she wants you dead. It’s how she wants it done.”

Evryn’s gut twisted. “Lucien?—”

“She doesn’t want to destroy your bloodline,” he said. “She wants to absorb it.”

The words dropped like iron.

“What?”

Lucien stepped closer, voice tight with urgency.

“There’s a law buried in the Old Veil records, pre-Ascension.

If a dominant Veil-marked heir is killed in ritual combat—by another heir of opposing blood—their power doesn’t fade.

It transfers . Especially if the bloodlines trace back to the first dominions. ”

Evryn stared at him. “And she thinks… killing me would give her that?”

“No.” His voice dropped lower. “She thinks if one of her sons does it, the power binds to her bloodline. Permanently. She doesn't just erase you. She inherits you. ”

Evryn’s stomach turned.

“That’s why she sent you,” she whispered.

Lucien flinched. “Yes. It’s why Cassian’s been circling this war like a vulture. He thinks this is his chance. To prove he can do what I wouldn’t.”

Evryn stepped back, throat tight. “He’s going to try to kill me.”

Lucien’s voice was like flint. “He’s going to want you to trust him first. Make it look clean. Righteous. This was always my mother’s endgame.”

Evryn’s hands curled into fists.

“I’m not a legacy to be passed around like a cursed crown,” she spat.

“You’re not,” Lucien said softly.

She looked at him, shadows flickering around her like they wanted blood.

“They want me as a weapon. Or a grave.”

Lucien stepped into her space, firm and steady. “They don’t get either.”

She searched his face—torn between fury and heartbreak, grief and the ghost of trust trying to be reborn.

“I’m tired, Lucien.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

“You’re the one person in this realm who scares the hell out of every ruling bloodline. That’s who you are.”

She stared at him. Then leaned her forehead into his chest, and this time, when the tears came, she didn’t fight them.

Lucien held her as if she were only truth left.

Because maybe she was.