The Fanged Crown: The Wilds by Jenna Helland Page B

Skyhart Waterfall. One night after dinner, she had begun talking about her impending death and how there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. It was the first time
    he’d ever seen Evonne cry, and it made him want to take her someplace far away—a place with thick walls and towers to the sky and locks no one could ever breach—and keep her safe forever.
    After the emotional tenor of the evening, Tresco had felt closer to Evonne than ever before; it may well have been the most intense moment of his life—outside of the violent brawls of his youth. He and Evonne had been lovers for almost a year, but it had been sporadic, and at her insistence, secret. Before those days at Lindenhall, an afternoon was the longest he’d ever spent with her. Whenever they were together, it was always brief and always at her convenience, leaving Tresco with the unfortunate impression that Evonne saw their companionship as a token of her generosity.
    But the night he’d held Evonne while she confessed her fear of death, everything had changed. Since his youth, Tresco had viewed women with little more than disdain. As soon as a woman fancied herself irreplaceable, he invariably grew weary of her company. He thought he was happily committed to an uncommitted life. But Evonne was unique. For the first time, he wanted a woman with a lasting, perhaps unceasing, desire.
    So his tasks for the evening were to round up Daviel, change into dress attire for dinner, and spend the evening with a crowd of influential nobles, none of whom were in on the delicious secret—that Tresco was the secret lover of one of the most beautiful and important women in all of Tethyr.
    Suddenly, a strong blast of frigid wind swept through the corridor extinguishing the lanterns and throwing Tresco into darkness. He stood quietly for a moment, his body trembling more from the chill than fear. He could hear rustling nearby. Whether it was vermin or something larger, he couldn’t determine. After a few moments, he mumbled
    under his breath and moved his hands sharply, and the lanterns along the corridor flared with orange flame.
    Tresco was no innocent. He had seen things, particularly in his adventurous youth, that were seared into his memory, as bloody and as horrible as the very day that he had first witnessed them. But in the instant after the light bloomed from his hands, he saw Evonne in the corridor in front of him, her long blonde hair loose on her shoulders, and her flowing white dress stained with blood.
    Tresco’s heart skipped. His vision cleared. It was not Evonne, but her daughter, Ysabel, in the bloodstained dress, her bare feet and heart-shaped face smeared with something thick and dark. How foolish to mistake the child for her mother. But Evonne had been in his thoughts at the moment the darkness fell.
    “Ysabel!” Tresco said, choking on her name. He knew all the cousins by name, and they all referred to him as Uncle, a familiarity he begrudgingly permitted. “What are you doing here!”
    “Looking for Cousin Daviel,” she said, peering up at him intently.
    “As am I,” Tresco said. “But this is no place for a child. Go back to the main corridor and wait there. I will continue to search for Daviel.”
    “It’s no matter, Uncle,” she said quietly, her blue eyes unnaturally wide. “I’ve found him already.”
    ŚŠŚŚŠŚ
    Evonne Linden was killed in Celleu the same night that the children were massacred in the Winter Palace. After a lengthy discussion in their private chambers in the palace at Darromar, the men of the Inquiry settled on “unbelievable irony” over “unprecedented coordination.” Their official position was that a bandit climbed up the trellis to Evonne’s
    second-story window, unlatched the shuttered window, and suffocated her as she slept. Then he stole an embroidered bag that servants had seen her carrying earlier in the day—it was the only thing missing from her quarters— and disappeared into the night without the