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Evelina

Twenty Years Later

It had been three weeks since the last slaughter. The death that came along with the war was inevitable. But Evelina still mourned when lives were lost.

A soldier screamed in pain, his cries as mangled as his leg. Evelina quickly pressed crushed linndula root to the open wound.

“Please pass out,” she whispered—more a prayer to Eurydice than anything else. She pressed harder, quickly wrapping his calf in bandages with her other hand. The scream abruptly stopped. She glanced at his face, finding his eyes closed and his breathing shallow.

Relief and adrenaline swept through her body, one after the other. Relief that the soldier had passed out and was no longer in agony; adrenaline as she pressed her two fingers just below his jaw to ensure he still had a pulse.

Her shoulders relaxed when she found the faint tapping rhythm of his heartbeat—slow, but there.

Taking advantage of his unconscious state, she used a salve imbued with the lead healer’s Essence to keep him unconscious. She rubbed it into each temple, careful to avoid the thick gash oozing blood from his cheek. Then she rifled through her satchel until she found another salve, this one thicker, a pale blue color, and layered it over the soldier’s open wounds. The remedies might all be temporary—needing reapplication often—but it would heal their bodies ten times faster than a fae struck with a ferrum blade could usually heal.

As she looked around the room, it struck her that these were the lucky ones. The ones who had survived. They were all lined up in this small wooden cabin, cot after cot. A Mother Tree was painted on the door, the symbol of a healer’s ward that housed the wounded.

Unfortunately, this was only one cabin of many, full to the brim with wounded fae. This refugee camp had nearly been full before the latest arrivals had shown up. Soon, she didn’t think it would be able to house any more wounded.

Once she was satisfied the soldier wasn’t going to slip away to a blissful afterlife in Caelum, she moved on to the next victim. She paused, taken aback at how similar he looked to a boy she once knew. The pointed ears poking out from shaggy, dark brown hair, the midnight eyes, and the way he looked at her as if she held all the answers in the realm.

“Will they follow us here?” the boy asked. His eyes were wide and filled with worry. He was so young. The clothes he wore told the story of a boy who lived in a farming village—Woodland, most likely.

She cleared her throat, shaking off the memories. “Doubtful. Word came about an hour ago that Viridian forces stopped the rebels from advancing. They pushed as far south of the palace as they could, but we held strong.”

The boy opened his mouth to reply but was instead accosted by a wet, bone-rattling cough.

Evelina had seen her fair share in her time as a healer, and this one was simple. She quickly got to work, mixing rennew powder into a cup for him to drink, and to his credit, he downed it in a few gulps—even without it being warmed. She had him lie down and sat with him for a few moments to make sure the effects of the rennew started to work. It was fast-acting, his cheeks already filling with color and his cough calming.

It was often humans who needed the magic of a healer, their bodies unable to mend themselves in the way fae could. But fae weren’t exempt from pain. Immortality didn’t protect them from a ferrum blade, or curses from another, especially if their Essence was drained.

The need for healers only seemed to grow as the war dragged on. Evelina’s time was split between tending to the wounded in the refugee camps and mixing and replenishing tonics in the infirmary at the palace. She wanted nothing more than for this war to end, but for as long as there were those needing healing, she hoped she could always be here to help them.

The walk back to the palace felt longer than the walk to camp. A few other healers trailed silently alongside her. When she thought of the incoming people seeking healers and shelter, her adrenaline carried her all the way to the camp. But now, with the sun starting to set and the forest quiet, her thoughts were too loud, her eyes too heavy.

Attacks close to the border were pushing more and more fae toward the palace, forcing them to relocate with their villages burned or destroyed. Moros and his endless human army were not the only threat anymore. A fringe group of dark god worshippers had morphed into something far more dangerous within the borders themselves. Unlike the human soldiers mindlessly pillaging towns and heckling villagers, these fae rebels knew the land.

They were lethal. Calculated.

At some point, they had started leaving the symbols of the dark gods in the wake of their destruction: orange flame enveloping a tree for Vidaris, white flame over a star for Nyx, and blue flames atop cresting waves for Xenos.

Before the wyverns arrived, Evelina had so much faith in life, so much pride in bearing the Manor name. But now it felt like the whole world was turned against them. And even though she knew the empire had to fight back to protect the realm…death was death. A life was still lost. Perhaps it was her years in training as a healer that made her understand how precious life was.

Her steps faltered as she arrived at the lunaria garden by the palace, the other healers going ahead to return to the infirmary. Evelina paused in the garden. It rested alone on a small patch of soil, nestled between pine trees and lined with wooden stumps along the perimeter.

The boy from earlier had looked just like the boy from her dreams. Flashes of her and Daimon sitting between the lunaria flowers as younglings, of midnight eyes that watched her so closely, filtered into her mind. It was always the place she felt safest with him. Though the flowers looked the same, somehow it felt empty now.

“Why these flowers?” Evelina asked, her voice unsure.

Daimon grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him. “Because no one comes out here. We can dream for hours without being found.”

She didn’t have to be convinced after that. She walked alongside him, her dress swishing against the leaves on the ground.

He stopped abruptly in the middle of the garden and sat down.

“What are you doing?” she laughed.

He tugged on her hand, motioning for her to sit down beside him.

“And get my gown dirty?”

It was his turn to laugh. “Since when have you ever cared about that? You spend more time in the herb garden than anywhere in this realm.”

She smiled. He knew. Of course he did .

“Fine, but only for a little bit today.” She lowered herself to the ground, seeing now that the tall lunaria bushes covered them from the outside world.

“See?” he whispered. “No one can see us here.”

Evelina’s heart beat wildly in her chest. She shook her head to push the memory away, quickly making her way through the rest of the garden, through flowers and tall pine trees. It took the rest of the walk to the palace to calm her racing heart.

Finally, she made it to the healer’s garden. She paused by her favorite section and took in her handiwork. If anything could clear her head after visiting camp, it was this, being here. The ground was damp from last night’s rainfall, water collected in some of the tiny, cuplike petals that were scattered throughout.

It only took a few breaths before her hands were caked with dirt, her golden-brown hair spilling over her shoulders as she checked on the growth of her plants. An attack on the other side of the Zenovia Mountains had her planting clover this time. A raid on Syreni’s coast for the sea-holly beside them, and snowdew flowers beside those. Sweat had worked its way onto her brow, causing her to rub the back of her hand across her forehead.

The three-week-old seeds were growing well, now formed into small sprouts poking up from the damp soil. The grass around her was vibrantly colored, bringing out the green in her hazel eyes. She squinted, trying to soak in a few fleeting moments of quiet. She knew she had little time to linger before Gloriana found her.

This was the only way Evelina knew how to honor the dead. With every loss of life she heard about, she would plant something while praying to Eurydice that they found peace in Caelum. The tradition started after her mother planted an oak tree to honor her father.

Evelina was twelve when her father died, and she would never forget sitting beside the growing seed, watching it turn into a sapling, hoping her father would magically return. But he never did. She and her siblings would visit the tree often, but Evelina sat in commune there the most. It was the only way she knew to mourn. While Ren honored him in battle, and Carwyn by being the perfect Manor heir, Evelina offered anything she could of the woodland itself back to him.

Planting a variety of jade vines, middlemists, and tea flowers—anything she could get her hands on at the time—made her feel closer to her father while she honored those who had been killed. He’d always called her his flower child, since the lilies outside the palace had bloomed the day she was born. He shaped so much of her love for the natural world; renovating the gardens for her first birthday, gifting her herbal pouches and tea blends at every festival, and stealing what moments he could away from the palace to hear her gush about everything she’d learned from Gloriana out in the healer’s herb garden.

Seeing his remains turn into the great oak tree that shaded her now reminded her that everything always grew back in its own way. It was the same reason she hoped each of these seeds could make these deaths, one day, mean something.

The sun had nearly sunk beneath the horizon, its golden light illuminating the sky.

“Evelina!” a familiar voice shouted from the palace entrance. “I could use your help before you head off to sleep.”

“You got it, Gloriana!” Evelina yelled back.

Gloriana was a brilliant healer and self-appointed mentor. When they first met all those years ago, Evelina had been struggling to figure out the difference between the hundreds of herbs they used. Gloriana marched right over and started rattling off rhymes to help her remember the names and their uses. She didn’t bat an eye at Evelina being a Manor princess—and she had no qualms about correcting her when she was wrong. It’s the only reason Evelina became so specialized in herbs.

Gloriana stepped into the garden with Evelina, her soft blue eyes fiercely determined. Her ashen hair was pulled into a low knot, just as it had been every day since they first met all those years ago. A few strands always seem to escape, falling around her face in odd directions.

“We’ll debrief your camp visit if you have the time,” said Gloriana. “May want to tally up what supplies we have with the influx of new refugees coming in these days.”

Evelina frowned and set down the flower she was holding. She had been officially training as a healer since the war started two decades ago, but she had been learning herbs and mixtures long before that.

But now, it wasn’t learning how to grow and nurture herbs for fun; it was a life hanging in the balance between her hands—her skills.

She loved being a healer, finding strength in knowledge when her Essence was found… lacking to others. Her affinity was that of light, her gift so different from those of her siblings. Some lightwielders could mend bones and seal flesh back together—like Gloriana—but hers was just delicate strands, not quite strong enough to heal. Some saw it as a weakness not to have a defensive affinity, but she didn’t mind it. She saw how power burdened the Manor household firsthand. And she was content to stay out of all the dangerous games they were forced to play because of it.

“I won’t be long,” she told Gloriana.

Gloriana nodded, her eyes lingering on the ground where Evelina had knelt. She gave her a small smile and left her in the garden.

Evelina stood and tried to get the dirt off her gown, but it was no use. By now, everyone was used to her being perpetually covered in soil.

of the gardeners—a human—waved and smiled at her as she passed by. Ian had always been one of her favorites. They met when she was merely a child and he treated her like family.

But now, Ian’s eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled. His arm that was lifted in the air shook slightly, and the other hand supported his back. Still, he always had bright eyes and a wide smile, determined to live his short life to the fullest.

She’d watched him age over the years, while she stayed frozen in time like the rest of the fae. By fae standards, she was still a child—even though it’d been just over thirty years since she’d been born.

“Anything I can get you?” Ian asked with a smile. “You’ve been spending more and more time at the camps lately.” She didn’t miss the lilt of loneliness in his voice.

“The refugees have been pouring in every other week, it seems,” she said quietly. “We’ll manage.”

He nodded, his eyes tired and worn. “Good luck out there. You’ll need it.”

She smiled sadly at him. Ian was the hardest-working man she knew, kind to everyone he met, even those who didn’t always deserve it.

She hurried through the garden and stepped into the palace. Warm light glowed from the ceiling of the corridor, illuminating the path with its flameless glow. No lamps or fires were used; the palace didn’t need them. She had once loved how magical her home had felt, how safe and free it was. But even the warmth that seeped from the walls didn’t reach her chilled skin.

The walk through the palace was bustling, and, as always, people were running around frantically. The corridors used to brim with all sorts of people. It would always feel strange to see so few humans in the palace; so many of them had migrated to the other side of the Zenovia Mountains to stay with the rebel stronghold.

Her exhaustion caught up on her walk to the infirmary. She felt the heaviness of the day, having been healing and aiding the refugees since before sunrise. Once she finally made it back, she felt the chill on her skin start to warm.

The infirmary wasn’t anything grand. A room within the palace that used to be for storing fabric had been cleared out. They mixed herbs, made medicinal salves, and had several workstations for the soldiers brought here to be healed—if they weren’t too wounded to make it this far.

There were rows of shelves partially filled with herbs and tinctures, their stock running much lower than it used to. A few cots were crammed into the center of the room, long enough for a fully grown Aegis to lie down on. Other times, they used it to spread their herbs out when mixing tonics.

The room was empty now, save for Gloriana.

“We’re running low on stinging nettle,” Gloriana said from behind a shelf, her body hidden. Jars clinked together from where she stood, and she whispered softly to herself as she listed off her items. “Lorene said several in the eastward camp haven’t been healing as quickly as he would like, so he took most of the stock with him this morning.”

Lorene had been a healer nearly as long as Gloriana. He was a soft-spoken Woodland who tended to fade into the background, but he came to life under pressure, shouting orders at the younger healers on where to go and what to do when the situation grew dire.

“The batch growing in the garden will be ready within the next few days,” Evelina said. She walked over to one of the wooden tables and set her satchel on it. Disappointment bit at her as she counted how much supply was left after her visit. “Looks like we’ll need more linndula root soon too.” She glanced over at the far-right shelf, finding the top two shelves nearly empty. She frowned. “And blood-replenishing brews.”

Gloriana poked her head from around the back shelf. Her hair had come more unraveled, large pieces now falling out of the knot. She looked over Evelina’s shoulder to where the empty jars were piling up, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

“How much longer until the roots in the garden are ready?” she asked slowly.

Evelina sighed and turned to put her half-empty jars back on the shelf. The top row for linndula root—only a few jars remaining now—the middle row for stinging nettle—even less of those left—and the bottom two for an assortment of mixed tonics. “Longer than what we need,” she answered.

As she worked her way through the first shelf, taking stock, she tried to shove away her frustrations. The list of needed items grew longer each week—the demand much greater than the supply, which was alarming considering how vast the healer’s garden was. It took up a large portion on the west side of the palace, filled with every herb imaginable. But if it weren’t for the Woodlands using their Essence to speed up the growth process of the herbs, they would’ve run out years ago.

She started to wonder how much longer the empire could sustain things the way they were. The rebels were pushing more and more refugees toward the palace as they burned, looted, and destroyed villages. Camps were reaching capacity, and the soldiers were stretched thin even with the aerial units helping to cover more ground with patrols.

Those who traveled to and from where the Riders trained brought back word of how the wyverns were growing restless. Of how their lead commander was fighting so hard to keep spirits high.

Daimon was good at that when they were young, too.

Evelina cursed as she lost track of her place, rereading the list. The days were long enough without adding worry over how he was or if he survived yet another battle. There were so many lives lost and everyone was exhausted. Her empire needed her to do her part—to heal and soothe those she was able to help.

So, she pushed her fatigue aside and moved on to the next shelf.