Evelyn stood before the mirror, fingers pressed lightly to her temple.
The tether had changed.
It had twisted—not broken, not severed, but pulled taut and sharp like a thread drawn too far between bodies. And it was Aria’s fault.
Again.
She could feel Kael’s energy at night now—not soft, not intimate, but focused. Directed somewhere else. Away from her.
Toward the child.
Toward Aria.
And Evelyn Draven—formerly Evelyn Hart, first love, long-lost fiancée, once-ghost, now returned—was not a woman who allowed herself to become second to anyone.
Not even the Luna Kael had thrown away.
She began with the messenger.
The one who’d delivered Aria’s refusal to join StoneRidge. The young male had left the outpost quietly, ridden alone, and returned with a report he hadn’t expected Evelyn to ever see.
But she had seen it.
Because Evelyn always saw more than people realized.
She caught him just before dawn, as he staggered into the lower barracks, cloak still wet with dew.
“You delivered the message?” she asked, voice soft.
He blinked. “Yes, my lady.”
“Did you see her?”
The hesitation was barely a blink.
But Evelyn saw it.
“I asked you a question.”
“She was… calm,” the boy said. “Clear. She gave her letter and sent me off.”
Evelyn tilted her head. “And Kael?”
“Didn’t speak much. Just… burned something in the fire.”
Evelyn’s nails dug into her palm.
“Did she say anything else?”
“No, my lady. Just handed the letter.”
Evelyn stepped closer.
The boy stiffened.
She didn’t touch him.
But she could have.
And he knew it.
“Next time you see her,” Evelyn whispered, “pay closer attention. The calm ones are usually hiding something.”
Then she turned and walked away, boots echoing against the stone.
Back in her quarters, Evelyn poured herself a glass of herbal tonic—an old recipe from the forest packs who believed memory was stored not in the brain but in the blood.
She drank deeply.
Then she opened her journal.
Not the one Kael had seen. The real one. The one bound in leather so old it cracked like bone when she touched it.
She flipped past pages of names.
Her father’s betrayals.
Her fake death.
Her time in exile.
Then, finally—Aria Vale.
There wasn’t much.
A sketch. A few notes. Bloodline markings. Faint rumors of her mother’s disappearance and her father’s exile.
But what caught Evelyn’s attention was a side note she hadn’t written herself.
One of her spies had jotted it months ago:
“Lunar tether did not snap clean. Subject retains trace psychic imprint. Possible lineage anomaly?”
She underlined it with fresh ink.
Anomaly.
That word always meant power.
She visited Kael at dusk.
He was brooding in his war tent, maps spread before him, jaw clenched like he was grinding every name he read into dust.
“You’re angry,” she observed.
He didn’t look up. “You’re observant.”
She moved closer, skirts swaying.
“She refused you.”
His shoulders stiffened.
“She refused StoneRidge,” he corrected.
“Is that what you’re telling yourself to sleep better?”
He turned then.
His eyes were tired, and something darker lived in them now. A shadow Evelyn hadn’t put there—and couldn’t erase.
“Say what you came to say,” he muttered.
She smiled sweetly. “You’re slipping.”
He arched a brow.
“She’s not just avoiding you,” Evelyn said. “She’s moving on. Choosing her own ground. Refusing power. That’s not like a woman scorned.”
Kael said nothing.
“So I wonder,” Evelyn continued, circling the table, “what else she’s hiding.”
“You don’t need to wonder,” he said coldly. “You need to stop meddling.”
“Oh, Kael,” she purred. “You brought me back to help. Let me help.”
He looked at her then, really looked.
And for a flicker of a second, she saw fear.
Not of her.
Of what she might uncover.
Evelyn doubled her efforts the next day.
She sent messages to her old network—quiet threads stretching across the northern territories, weaving between forest and court, between witches and wolves and things older than both.
She asked about the Vale line.
About Aria’s mother.
About what might have passed through her blood like a seed waiting to bloom.
One response came back by dusk.
Short. Cryptic. Scrawled on bark and wrapped in red thread.
“She bears a mark that is not Kael’s.”
Evelyn read it three times.
Then she laughed.
“Oh, Aria,” she whispered. “What are you?”
Later that night, she walked the wardline near SilverCrest’s ridge alone.
Not to cross.
To feel.
To listen.
The woods didn’t answer.
But something under the ground thrummed faintly.
Magic.
Not Kael’s.
Not the council’s.
Older.
Wilder.
It pulsed in time with a heartbeat she couldn’t trace—and yet, she knew it belonged to Aria Vale.
“She’s not just carrying your heir,” Evelyn whispered to the air. “She’s carrying something else.”
And if she could find out what—
She’d never need Kael’s affection again.
She’d own his legacy.
