“I will have the heart for the both of us,” I promise, shifting in the dirt to lean toward her.
Her eyes fill with tears at my words. “Then my heart will wind up broken all the same.”
“What is it?” I ask, raising my hand to cup her cheek. She blinks and a tear spills over her lid, coursing down her cheek.
“It’s your family, Ivan. I have heard the Fyodorov name before. My father was paying special attention to them because they had just secured a marriage alliance with the crown prince. He wanted to know more about the woman who would one day be queen.”
I pull back in surprise. Alya is to be wed? To the crown prince? Indeed, I have missed much during my journeys as a lowly priest if that happened. I’m surprised my sister would ever allow such a thing, but I’m not sure why Natasya seems so upset over this news. It is startling, yes, but hardly the tragedy she is making it out to be.
“They were killed,” she gasps out. “Assassinated.”
I’m on my feet, stumbling back, but it’s as if my head has become disconnected from my body as I listen to her words. Natasya crawls forward, clasping my leg which she rests her head against as if she isn’t strong enough to hold it up. “It wasn’t my father, I swear. It was an assassin group that operates outside of his jurisdiction, one specifically utilized by the Circle of Notability. The honor killers of the Order of the Bloody hand.”
Her words are falling on deaf ears.
My family is dead.
Here I was, wandering over hills and across mountains, hunting ghosts and serving the goddess of monsters under a fake name, and all the while I was unreachable to my family. They were killed and I wasn’t there for them.
I wasn’t there to share their fate.
I didn’t even know.
Oh, gods, my family is gone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Natasya
I’m not sure if this was a good idea, but it’s too late to turn back now.
I turn in a small circle as I take in the empty hall. So, this was the place where Evengi grew up? It’s a beautiful manor with vast expanses and intricate stone carvings and woodwork. His family was obviously very powerful and wealthy.
And all dead now.
I may not be able to see ghosts the same way Evengi can, but I can sense something haunting him.
He strides down the center of the hallway, his head tilted at an odd angle as if he is looking into another world. Although I have no idea if this world is the spirit realm or the past.
“My sister’s name was Alya,” he says his voice heavy. “She was four years younger than me. I was her older brother. I should have protected her. My mother… my father,” his voice chokes off.
“My father has long suspected the crown prince of being behind the assassination,” I say stepping toward a suite of armor standing on display in an alcove. I wipe my finger across the dark wood stand and study the white dust staining my fingertip. I look over to him. “The crown prince may seem unreachable, but my father can make him pay. Hewillmake him pay if that is what you want.”
He stares ahead of him, but his eyes are distant. I doubt he is seeing anything. I wonder if he even heard me. “Their ghosts never came to find me. Do you think that they are at peace?”
“If they weren’t, you would have seen them and then helped them,” I assure him. “But since you have not seen their ghosts that means they are in Skyhold.”
He doesn’t reply. Just stands there clenching and unclenching his fist, a muscle in his jaw twitches slightly.
“Ivan?” I whisper.
“Ivan Fyodorov died with his family,” he says at last. “Only Evengi remains.”
“For what it’s worth, I like Evengi Ichabod just fine.”
He presses his eyes shut, but a tear slips down past his cheek.
“Oh Evengi…” I say. I step toward him, wrapping my arms around him from behind, pressing my cheek against his shoulder. I hold him tight as if with my arms alone I can keep him from shattering to a million pieces.
