Chapter 3
Kael
Maybe it was the doe eyes, the way her full lips kept pursing without her knowing, or the soft scent of roses that clung to her like sin. When I entered the council chamber, Evangelina Corvo caught me for a heartbeat, so brief it might have been a faraway lightning strike, and something in me stirred.
She wore a long blue robe that hugged her where it ought to, generous in the right places, the fabric following the line of her body with careless grace. Her dark brown curls were bound at the nape, leaving the sun-kissed flesh of her neck bare. Flesh that, for a less sensible moment, I imagined ornamented by my mark.
Stop. Control.
Cage the wolf. Keep the storm within.
I repeated the mantra until the words were iron in my brain, the council’s arguments blurring into background noise. Thalen and Selena tangled over if and where to send troops. Isolde and Jorren still reeled from the day she had caught him with another woman, a scandal that reminded everyone why the Court deemed relationshipsamong its own… ill-advised. They jabbered, I waited. The gavel of finality fell to me because it always did.
Despite never having spoken until now, I knew many things about Evie. She always kept her hair bound, even when her curls were perfectly untamed. She bit her lip when she was nervous. Confidence was not her forte, yet she had her moments, sparks of defiance when she dared to stand her ground. She was a pacifist, never drawn to battle spells, choosing instead to read the quiet magic of nature. These were among the many things I’d learned from watching her at a safe distance.
Distance, however, was no longer a word that fit. Nor was safe.
I had met Evangelina long before this assembly. Once in the courtyards of the academy. Several times during her lectures, when I lingered in the shadows, watching her from the dark corners of the amphitheater. So many times our paths had crossed, and still, she had never noticed me.
I had seen her the day she’d arrived at the Court, wrapped in a warm wool-lined cloak, looking as if she might curl against the cold like a marmot about to hibernate.
I couldn’t really describe what I’d felt then, but catching a glimpse of her this time had given me the animalistic urge to squeeze her, to dig my talons into flesh and wrench whatever lived inside her out.
This had been a first.
The thought was ugly and annoying.
I didn’t know my impulses could get so visceral.
A few weeks later, I had gone on business to the farming village with a Bretannian noble who wished to buy land. The tensions with Bretannia were mending, and Lionel—the king himself—wanted to leave a good impression, deciding that the Court Wizard’s presence would seal the deal in stone.
Because the wizards had saved the kingdom from the plague. We had vanquished the Breath of Death. At least, that was the storyLionel clung to, that the people still looked to us as anchors. Perhaps they did. Perhaps not.
I had spotted Evangelina then, speaking to goats, just as the guards and pages who loved their gossip had claimed she would. She hadn’t noticed me; she never did. But I had heard her laugh—bright, ringing, crystalline. It had made me want to hear what other sounds she could make. Soft breaths, sudden gasps, the broken scream of fear… or pleasure. I had not heard that laugh, nor any sound from her, since.
I forced myself back to the assembly of magisters, to our endless debates on how to mend Vanhaui. Hauvia and Bretannia, friends for centuries, now fractured by tragedy. The Lutessians, less troublesome, bound still by blood to the royal family, as the king’s grandfather had been a proud Lutessian. But Bretannia’s unrest was our priority, and I was willing to let Selena lead for now before harsher measures were considered.
Apologies, Thalen. If you disagree, I will meet you in the storm’s eye.
Despite my aversion to politics, I played the game well enough. Nothing we faced now compared to the three years spent waging war against the plague.
The worst was behind us. Recovery was never easy, but it was recovery.
Evangelina said nothing. Her dark brown eyes moved between each magister as they spoke, but when I spoke, they lingered too long. I felt the weight of them.
That little doe liked what she saw.
Interesting, almost amusing, how incapable she was of hiding it.
But it was dangerous, for I had managed not to look at her for the entire council, until the end. Then I caught her, held her, kept her trapped in my gaze. She looked at me as if she wanted both to run to and away from me. Those lips parted, eyes wide…
She was definitely going to be a distraction. I had no space for distraction.
Why did she have to come this close?
Stop. Control.
Cage the wolf. Keep the storm within.
