Chapter 27

Evelyn

The air inside the healer’s tent was thick with the aftermath of so much blood and smoke. The metallic tang of wounded warriors, the low moans of pain, and the muted voices of my fellow medics filled the space like a haunting song. But all I could see—all I could think about—was the man lying on the cot before me.

Logan.

His skin was slick with sweat, and his chest rose and fell in uneven breaths, but his eyes were open, alert, tracking me as I hovered beside him. He hadn’t taken his gaze off me once since he’d woken up from his stupor.

As we looked at each other, I could tell something serious was passing between us.

He’d saved my life. And I had saved his.

That fact still clung to me like a second skin—warm, confusing, and impossible to ignore.

I pressed a clean cloth against the wound on his shoulder, watching as blood seeped through, vivid and red. My fingers trembled slightly despite my training. It was taking an awfully long time for the wound to stop bleeding.

“Does it still hurt?” I asked quietly. “I could get you some pain medication if—”

He gave a wry half-smile, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Everything hurts.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Then that means you’re still alive.”

“Unfortunately,” he muttered, then winced.

“Well, next time, try not throwing yourself in front of death to look heroic,” I said, more sharply than intended.

He chuckled under his breath. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

I looked away, focusing on stitching the wound. The silence between us wasn’t cold or strained like it had been in the days before. It was… heavy. Like something important waited just beyond the next word.

“You didn’t have to do it if you’re going to use it to prove your point about me being on the field,” I said at last.

His brow furrowed. “Do what?”

“Save me.”

He was quiet for a moment, then murmured, “Of course I did, Evelyn. It’s not a matter of proving my point either. I would’ve done it anyway. I always will.”

The way he said it—soft, sure, no hesitation—unlocked something in me. I looked up at him and met his green gaze, feeling something crash open in my chest.

A floodgate.

I blinked, but the tent around me was already fading. In its place came the chill of mountain air, the sharp scent of pine, and the bone-deep fear I hadn’t remembered in years.

I was ten again.

Small. Weak. Terrified.

I had been playing too far from the palace boundaries when the rogues took me. No one heard me scream. They dragged me north into the mountains, where their makeshift camp reeked of rot and cruelty. I hadn’t known the smell of blood then, but now I knew that this was the scent that lingered heaviest over my surroundings.

For days, I was kept tied to a post with my hands bruised and lips cracked from thirst. They told me that they would sell me off for a nice reward, nothing more and nothing less.

They didn’t care that I was a child. In the meantime, they mocked me, pushed me around, and laughed when I cried. Sometimes they fed me. Sometimes they didn’t.

I had never known torment like this, had never thought people could be so cruel. Until then, my life had been one of luxury. But now, it seemed like no one was coming to save me.

Why hadn’t my family paid the ransom yet? Where were the royal guards?

Later, I would discover that the bandits hadn’t even posed the ransom yet. They were so delighted by my suffering that they hadn’t had a sense of urgency. They took pleasure in the sight of someone so well off being brought so low. Meanwhile, my parents were worried sick in my absence.

I thought I was going to die out there. Alone. Forgotten.

Until he came.

It was late—moonlight filtering through the trees like silver breath. The camp was asleep, or drunk, or both. I remembered shivering against the post, my eyes swollen from crying, when suddenly, a shadow moved from the treeline.

A boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen, crept through the camp like a ghost. I didn’t know how he’d gotten in without being seen, but I saw his eyes first.

Green.

Deep. Wild. Familiar.

And yet I didn’t know him, couldn’t place him. Surely he did not work in our palace, or I would have remembered someone so handsome. So who was he? And how had he ended up here?

He crouched beside me and pressed a finger to his lips.

“Shhh,” he whispered. “I’m going to cut you loose.”

I nodded, heart thundering.

He used a knife to slice the ropes. The moment they fell away, my arms dropped limp and numb from being bound. He rubbed circulation back into my wrists with warm, gentle hands.

“You need to run,” he told me. “Go south until you find the river. Don’t stop. Don’t look back.”

I grabbed his sleeve. “Come with me.”

He shook his head. “I have to draw them off.”

And then he was gone, sprinting toward the firepit, knocking over crates and shouting. The rogues woke in a frenzy, chasing the noise.

I ran.

I ran like my life depended on it—because it did.

The next morning, the royal guards found me curled by the riverbank, filthy and bruised but alive. I told them everything, but no one knew who the boy was. Only that, based on what I described, he might’ve come from a distant pack known for their border patrols.

When the royal guard searched for the kidnappers and located their camp. They found all of the criminals with their hands bound, bloodied and beaten. The boy who had saved me, though, was nowhere to be found.

I never saw him again.

Never knew his name.

But I never forgot his eyes.

Green. Like moss under moonlight.

Like Logan’s.

“Evelyn?” Logan’s voice pulled me from the past.

I blinked back to the tent, the heat of the memory still burning in my chest. He was watching me closely, concern darkening his features.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I breathed. “Just… just a memory.”

He studied me a moment longer, then winced as he adjusted himself on the cot. I pressed a hand to his good shoulder to stop him from moving.

“What kind of memory?” he asked quietly.

I hesitated. Then, I gave him the only truth I could offer without unraveling entirely.

“You just reminded me of someone. Someone who saved me once.”

His eyes softened. “Someone I should be jealous of?”

I gave a faint smile. The fact that he was trying at humor was a good sign. “No. He was a boy. A stranger.”

But it couldn’t have been him. Logan would likely have remembered me, seeing as he was older than me and more likely to recall the experience with clarity. But Logan was only watching me now, searching for some additional information about what I was feeling in my features.

“It was a good memory,” I said. “But it is the past. You need more rest.”

“If I get any more rest, I’m going to go insane.”

“Just one more day,” I said. “And then you can get up and reopen your wounds with shortsighted decisions all over again.”

Logan grimaced. “Perfect.”

He lay back down in his cot but didn’t close his eyes. I took this for a dismissal and left him alone, suddenly seeking solitude myself. At my sides, my hands were trembling.

I can’t tell him that remembering he saved me only hurts. Because it’s over between us. He has... Emma.

I have to... I have to forget.

I should move on.

Then I saw Emma.