Page 15 of Oath-Maker

A paladin of light and dark will rid the world of evil and usher in a time of peace.

A paladin of light and dark.

My brow furrowed. I read what must be a prophecy aloud to Jessa, but any verbal response she had was drowned out by thoughts whirring in my mind. By my pulse pounding in my ears.

Basara had made me in order to complete this prophecy. I knew she’d created me as a weapon. But this…

End demonic rule.

Lucius.

CHAPTER7

“Ayla, wait!” Jessa called after me as I began storming back toward the stairs, then past the guards. I didn’t stop until I was at the surface again and Jessa had grabbed my arm. The guards had trailed behind us, lost behind our fast pace. “Ayla.”

“I refuse to believe my only purpose in life was to thwart Lucius,” I spat, not angry at her but unable to control the exasperated emotions boiling to the surface. I held up the now rolled-up scroll in my hands. “Because that’s whatthisimplies.”

Jessa raised her hands as though to calm me. There would be no calm. Not right now. “You don’t know that they mean Lucius specifically.”

“Or me, really, for that matter.” I opened the scroll with great exaggeration. “A paladin of light and dark will rid the world of evil and usher in a time of peace. Bring an end to demons. It really is all rather vague.”

Jessa bit her lip, cringing. “Ayla.”

“I’m just saying,” I said as I rolled the parchment up again, “if this had been found literally anywhere else, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. But we know Basara created me to infiltrate the Paladins Order, and maybe this waswhy. And because the Order’s home in Lightport happened to be right near Alastia, she’d intended me to end Lucius’s rule.”

“Which, to be fair,” Jessa continued slowly, “you were also onboard with not that long ago.”

I wanted to argue against that, but Jessa was right. Instead, I inhaled sharply. “Yes. I wonder if Basara knew we were mates.” Lucius surely hadn’t, not until I’d been on my knees before him ready to stand trial over breaking long-standing rules of engagement to bring Jessa back over the city line.

“Can you just manufacture a solution to a prophecy like that, though?” Jessa asked, and it was a fair question. “Like, it’s a little too on-the-nose, isn’t it?”

I shrugged, the scroll still in my palm. “I don’t know. All I can guess is that Basara was convinced she could.” Probably out of a desperate attempt to satisfy some other goal. I wouldn’t pretend to know her well. For most of my life, Basara had just been a figment in a nightmare, a woman with a head and hair full of eyes who’d looked down at me as a baby. She’d only shown herself again once I’d been here in Alastia, fighting on Lucius’s side against the Guardian-led Order.

Jessa’s face became a harsh mix of worry and pity that made me want to walk away. But it was Jessa, so I stayed to hear her out. It was uncomfortable, this. All of it. “If all that’s needed is someone who is as much celestial ‘good,’” she said with finger quotes, “and tainted dark by ‘evil,’ would not any of the Fallen also fit this description? Why not me, or Merek, or—?”

“I get the point.” I rubbed my temples and looked up at Alastia’s skyline until the palace came into view. “And you know, maybe Merek is the one, being the Guardian and all. I’m nottryingto put myself in the center of this.” Basara and Lucius had done that well enough for everyone involved. “I’m just saying that Merek isn’t mated by fate to a demon.”

Jessa’s eyebrows raised. “That you know of.”

I held her gaze and tried to discern if she was serious or not. “Jessa.”

A small smile cracked in the corner of her mouth. “Joking. Mostly.”

I’d surmised over the last few days that what I’d thought had been a mate bond between Merek and me had simply been powerful feelings of love and caring. It was possible thatmaybea smaller mate bond had been there, but I’d never heard of someone having two mates.

But what if it had been real, and Merek hadalsohad a second mate?

“Jessa.” I groaned as the circles around my temples grew rougher.

She giggled. “Sorry. I don’t think it’s true, for what it’s worth. Besides, he’d never find anyone better than you, anyway.”

I wasn’t sure that made me feel better, considering all I’d done after his death was attempt and fail to lead the Order and then fall in love with the “enemy.” “All I know, Jessa, is that Basara clearly thought she could impact this and use me to get to the Paladins Order. To sway them, maybe, to the Fallen’s side. But then I went and fell in love with a demon. I became his mate and their queen.”

I glanced down at my arms. My skin was covered by my clothes, but beneath them, red markings lined my flesh from head to toe in wrapping patterns like vines. Basara’s marks. TheFallen’smarks, not demonic like I’d believed for so long.

Basara had had something more in mind than me simply giving her an inside woman in the Order. I just wasn’t sure yet what that was. Or what other power might still have been lurking within me.

Lucius had sensed it right away. We’d written it off once we’d known it had been celestial in nature instead of demonic. Now, I wasn’t so satisfied with that answer.

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