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2112 Words
Finally, somewhat unpacked, Evanna rushed to gather her toiletries to beat her sister to the bathroom. No way in hell could she let Rowen use all the hot water—not after that hellish car ride.
She needed the heat. She needed the quiet. She needed a moment to unravel without everyone watching her fray.
The fifteen-hour ride from Wichita to Sylvale had been unbearable. Predictably, her mother and Rowen had kept up a steady rhythm of passive-aggressive commentary, making sure she heard every sigh, every jab. Somehow, she managed to keep her mouth shut—something she was rather proud of. But the ache in her jaw from clenching it for hours told the real story.
Her father had tried. He’d stepped in when he could, shutting down their snide remarks more than once. But it wasn’t enough. Not really. There had still been too many moments where she’d been left to chew her nails and hold back the words that nearly crawled up her throat. Words she’d regret—or wouldn’t. She couldn’t tell anymore.
Now all she wanted was to steam away the filth of the day.
Throwing her things into a small bag, Evanna sprinted down the hall, slamming and locking the bathroom door behind her. She twisted the knob to start the water, stripping as it warmed. Her fingers brushed the spine of the book—the one she’d hidden from her sister and mother. The one she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.
She clutched it to her chest, the pulse of its heat seeping into her skin, grounding her. She daydreamed of Orren’s touch—the imagined press of his mouth, the glint in his honey-gold eyes—slithered through her, leaving warmth in its wake. It was ridiculous, really. Lusting after a fictional character from a childhood book, especially since she didn't buy into love at first sight and fate.
But she didn’t laugh this time.
The thumping on the bathroom door snapped her out of her daze.
“I swear to God if you use all the hot water, I. Will. End. You!” Rowen’s voice was shrill.
Evanna ignored her, sliding beneath the water’s embrace. It was hot—soothing. She let it wash away the last of the day. Still, her mind wandered. Back to the book. Back to the Outlands.
Back to him.
*
Later on that night, Evanna barely remembered closing her eyes. One moment she was curled up on the air mattress, the book pressed to her chest beneath her pillow, the next—
She was floating.
Watching.
A scene unfolded around her—it didn't feel imagined, but more like remembered. Familiar. It tugged at her in a place beyond time and reason.
Evanna saw herself—but not quite herself—standing in a softly lit room that trembled faintly beneath the distant ring of steel clashing against steel. She wasn’t inside her body. She hovered just outside it, like a spirit catching the echo of a life once lived.
“I love you, Orren,” she heard her voice whisper.
“And I you, Amariel. Stop worrying so much… we will be fine. Our people will not fail,” he replied, his tone heavy with conviction.
Orren’s breath caressed the curve of her—of Amariel’s—neck. Her skin, her soul, reacted to him like heat to flame. His touch was familiar, grounding. Her hands gripped his arms—thick with muscle and marred with scars of honor. She turned slowly, afraid of stumbling in front of him. She always stumbled around him...
The chamber they stood in was a prison—but a gilded one. Confinement disguised as comfort. She—they—had been locked inside to keep them safe. Beyond those enchanted doors, war raged.
Metal against metal. Screams. Explosions. Magic.
And yet here, in this moment, time stood still. Evanna watched as she or Amariel—or whoever she had been then—could feel every soul out there fighting. She could feel their courage, their loyalty, and… their dying breath.
She trembled.
And then—her mother appeared. Not fully formed, but a spectral echo. A whisper of the woman she once was.
Battered. Bloody. Beautiful still, even cloaked in pain.
Evanna felt herself—her other self—reach out, yearning.
“Mamai?” Amariel called, her voice breaking.
Her mother’s sorrow hit like a wave, visceral and deep. Evanna felt her own lungs constrict, even as she watched from afar.
“Daidi?” she asked.
The slow shake of her mother’s head was answer enough.
Pain surged through Amariel's chest, through her own chest—real, raw. Not imagined.
“I’m sure he fought bravely then,” Amariel managed.
“That he did, my child,” her mother replied, her voice catching on the edge of a sob.
Then came the words that would haunt her across lifetimes:
“It is likely that you and Orren will not make it through the night... but I’ve prayed to the Goddesses and they have revealed you two will meet again… just not in this life.”
It wasn’t a goodbye.
It wasn't even a blessing.
It was a curse.
It was destiny.
Orren, once filled with confidence now choked on his grief. He clung to Amariel, holding her tightly, trying to memorize every breath, every detail. Evanna saw his need for Amariel, felt it—even though she wasn’t the same her Orren clung to she could feel his desperation as if she herself had truly felt it before. Evanna felt as though she was in a room alone with Orren, not interrupting a soul and yet, she was.
That wasn't her. It wasn’t her.
She watched the moment stretch into infinity. The final embrace. The promise of love that defied time. The heartbreaking resignation in her mother’s eyes. The tremble in Orren’s voice as he whispered:
“No more, Amariel.”
“What should we do?” he asked the fading essence of her mother.
“Love one another without fear or worry… because you will meet again.”
“How?” Amariel cried.
No answer came. Only silence.
Only the smell of smoke.
Only the glow of flames that licked the bottom of their gilded cage.
And then… darkness.
*
Evanna gasped awake, sitting up with a jolt, the air mattress groaning beneath her like something wounded. Her skin was drenched in sweat, clinging to her like a second, suffocating skin. Her breathing came in ragged gulps as if she’d surfaced from deep, dark water. The room was thick with night, and the corners of the ceiling pressed in with a heavy, unnatural silence.
She was here.
But she remembered there.
The dream clung to her like cobwebs. Smoke curling around burning roses. A voice, velvet and venom, whispering her name in a lover’s tone. The kiss of steel at her throat. And those eyes—Orrens eyes—glowing like embers in the dark.
The book...
She shoved her hand beneath the pillow, fingers brushing worn leather, warm and faintly thrumming like a heartbeat. Its pulse matched her own, or worse, led it. The sensation turned her stomach.
She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, anchoring herself to the present.
“Orren,” she breathed into the stale air, the name an ache on her tongue. It wasn’t clear if she was praying or remembering—or both.
And somewhere deep in her bones, something answered.
A low throb of yes—neither sound nor word, but a sensation that hummed through her ribs and made her teeth ache.
A second later, there was a soft rustling from the far trees just outside her window and then a loud c***k echoed throughout the night.
Evanna jumped startled.
Evanna blinked the dark away and slowly made her way to the window to see if she could see where the loud noise had come from. Her hair was tangled, plastered to her face, her eyes wide and wild in the dim light spilling from the hallway nightlight underneath her door.
"That wasn't my imagination," Evanna told herself.
Evanna didn’t speak as her head turned slowly toward the cracked-open window above her head. Her body was rigid—listening. A cold shiver ghosted down Evanna’s spine; she could feel something out there watching her.
Then it came.
A howl. But not the kind you’d hear in a nature documentary or echoing across open wilderness in some romantic notion of the wild.
No.
This sound was broken glass and bone, a distorted wail torn from a throat that had long forgotten mercy. It started as a howl but twisted into something else—something angry, ancient, and starving.
Evanna reached for the book without thinking and the next second she was hissing and tossing the book off to the side. “Don’t,” she said reprimanding herself. “It's not like the book can save you.”
Evanna stood on shaking legs and moved to the window, pulling the curtain aside just a hair. Her face turned pale. Mist crawled across the backyard like smoke, curling around the tree trunks in thick tendrils.
Something was out there.
Watching.
The book throbbed again in her hand.
It was calling things.
“I can’t,” she whispered to no one. “Not tonight.”
Evanna didn’t hesitate.
She dropped to her knees, yanked a duffel bag from under her mattress, and tore her hoodie off the chair. The book throbbed in her hands, its surface cold and damp like flesh pulled from a grave. She wrapped it quickly, shoving it deep into the bag and zipping it closed.
The room seemed to tense around her. The shadows in the corners deepened. The air stilled.
No crickets.
No humming fridge.
No wind.
Only the sound of her breath—and the faint, unmistakable creak of a floorboard in the hallway.
She froze.
The handle of her bedroom door twitched.
Evanna surged to her feet, grabbed the duffel, and shoved it beneath the loose panel in the attic hatch above her closet. Just until the footsteps passed. Just until she had time to think.
The door opened.
Rowen stood in the doorway, her hair a mess, her eyes narrowed with sleep and suspicion. “What are you doing?”
Evanna turned slowly, brushing her damp hair back with forced ease. “I thought I heard something,” she said. “Checked the windows.”
Rowen glanced around the room. “It’s three in the morning.”
“I know.” She gave a breathless laugh. “Guess I’m just jumpy.”
She lingered. Her gaze swept across the walls, the corners, the bed. Something about her felt off. Tense. As if she wasn’t convinced. As if she knew something was wrong, even if he couldn’t name it.
Evanna stepped toward her, blocking her view of the closet. “You should go back to bed.”
She didn’t move for a moment. Then she nodded slowly. “You too.”
When he left, she counted ten full seconds before moving again. Her heart pounded in her throat, the thump of it loud in the silence.
She had heard something. She had felt something. And that meant she’d come back. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon.
The attic was too obvious now.
She climbed onto a chair, pulled the bag down, and moved quickly, stripping the hoodie off the book and pressing her hand to its cover. It pulsed faintly beneath her touch, like a second heartbeat.
“I need you to be quiet,” she whispered. “Just for a little while longer.”
She opened the closet.
There, at the back, behind hanging clothes and dusty boxes, was a rotted panel she hadn’t touched in years. She peeled it back to reveal a shallow hole in the wall—once used to store money or liquor during prohibition, according to family legend.
Now it would hold something far worse.
Evanna slid the book inside.
It barely fit, but the shadows inside the hole seemed to accept it. She pressed the panel back into place and stepped away, listening. Waiting.
No hum.
No howl.
Just silence.
For now.
She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the closet. The window rattled once—softly, like breath against glass—but nothing appeared.
Nothing yet.
She lay back, fully clothed, the taste of fear still sharp on her tongue.
Outside, the wind stirred the trees.
Inside, something ancient dreamed behind the closet wall.
And Evanna knew…
This wasn’t over.
Not even close.
- Writer
