I inhale slowly and hold out my hand, stopping him before he can say anything else. “Start at the beginning, the very beginning. Tell me even the parts you think I know—that I was there for. I want to hear it all. From you.”
Evander takes a deep breath and confesses everything.
CHAPTER 35
“I did not lieto you that I was born into a now extinct pack, nor about how I am its last surviving member.” He turns his head back toward the forest. “We were a pack of vampir hunters, tasked with keeping them in their borders as they turned into monsters from some unknown blight. This was well before my time, of course…but my pack settled in those woods at the edge of the lykin territory. Just out of the Lykin Plains, and somewhat separate from the other packs, who were more under the eyes of the wolf kings. We were beyond the towers of the plains and that afforded us some autonomy.”
I can imagine it in vivid detail, as though I were actually there. I can see a pack of lykin sent into the woods thousands of years ago during the combative time with the vampir. Their ghosts fill the streets of that long-abandoned little town that we came across, right at the very edge of two territories.
“I think, after a time, the pack was forgotten by most of the lykin—or they believed we had succumbed to the vampir. And the alphas—my forefathers—liked it that way.”
“It kept your ancestors safe.”
He nods. “No one came looking. No wolf kings wanted to impose their rule or draw my ancestors into whatever squabblesthey were currently enduring. So my kin could live in peace and harmony. The pack used their skill of hunting vampir to track game in the familiar woods. They traded with the few, rare travelers who weren’t afraid of coming so close to the vampir mountains and closed-off lykin. It was an opportunity to learn about how to commune with the spirits, as the spirits realized my ancestors weren’t like their kin on the plains and had little interest in their subjugation. There were humans who had gone to meet the vampir and they learned alongside us.”
“It must have been peaceful,” I say softly. The description of his pack reminds me of the stories of the early witches Grandma told me. Of men and women working together in collectives, pooling their power and resources. Back before the Fade was erected and magic was plentiful among the people.
“I never knew that time, but, in my imaginings, it was.” He stares down at his hands in his lap, folding and unfolding them, looking more like an insecure boy than a confident man. “My father always told me those were some of the best days. But I never even saw the homes of my kin before I was brought back to Midscape as a man.”
“Let’s get to your story.” As fascinating as the history of the lykin is, the sky is already lightening and we’ll need to be off soon.
“When the wolf king before Conri came to power, he uncovered evidence of our pack—a group that had been thriving outside the reach of the wolf king for centuries. He demanded we come to the plains, abandon our homes, and submit to him completely.”
“And they didn’t want to.” I saw the remnants of their homes in the woods. What overgrown husks that remain.
“He tried to eradicate our people and, in the process, was mortally wounded. During the chaos, my father escaped and brought me with him.” His pack’s knowledge of the spiritsmust’ve been the key to their escape. “My mother was not so lucky. She stayed behind to give us a path, draw their attention.”
“I’m sorry.” The pain of losing one’s mother is all too real.
He shakes his head. “I was just a babe. I didn’t know her. Not like you and your mother…”
“I was so young, too. As you know,” I hastily add. There’s still a part of my mind that is reckoning with the notion that Evander and Liam are the same person. All the things I told him about my life as if he didn’t already know them… “You really let me talk to you as if you had no idea about my story.”
“I’m sorry.” He cringes slightly. “I didn’t know what else to do. Was it better to tell you who I was and risk your standing with Conri—the only thing that was keeping you safe?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Carry on with your story, and I’ll tell you how I feel about it all when you’ve had your chance to fully explain yourself.” Hopefully, by the time he’s finished and I know everything, my own emotions will be clearer.
“Right… Well, my father made it across the Fade with me, obviously. As I told you, lykin aren’t born with the power to change our shapes. We are gifted it when we reach maturation by swearing an oath to the great wolf spirit and connecting with the power in our bloodlines. I grew up with no idea who I was—what I was.” Evander leans forward slightly. “When I met you, I truly was nothing more than a hunter’s son. In my mind and heart, I knew nothing else.”
I study his face and find his words to be true. Dipping my chin, I say, “I believe you.” Evander sighs with relief. “But, then, how did you come back here? When did you find out?”
“Most of my years, I had no idea.” He shakes his head. “Father mentioned nothing. The only time I had any idea something might be…off, was when your mother died.”
“Mother?” The word is dry on my tongue.
“We were in the woods. Father told me he heard a fight even though nothing reached my ears. Now I know that, if he heard it, he heard it with the keen ears of lykin. But, even more likely, he sensed Conri’s presence.”
“Conri was there?” I go perfectly still. These words, truths, are probing into wounds I thought long healed and scarred over. “My mother…”Died in the woods. The one place she was at her most powerful. Where she was most at home. I had always believed it to be a simple explanation because that’s what Grandma had told me—what the hunter who found Mother’s remains had told her. There wasn’t the slightest bit of concern that Grandma let show.
“Father tried to save her.” Evander reaches slowly for me. I don’t move away and he rests his hand on mine, squeezing gently. “I’m so sorry we couldn’t.”
I shake my head, trying to suppress the emotions that are fighting their way up from the deepest pit of my heart I long ago threw them into. “It’s not your fault—but how?”
“She had gone deep into the woods.”
“Looking for more spirits.” It was something Mother did often. She was determined to find a spirit on her own. Grandma had two. She wanted one. Perhaps to pass down to me… The notion floods me with guilt.
“She went as deep as the edge of the Fade. I suspect she did something that somehow alerted Conri—piqued his curiosity, at the very least. He sent a knight through the Fade for information.”
