Page 25 of Oath-Maker

And here I was, walking into another war and another world unprepared. Because Lightport couldn’t possibly have been the same anymore. Not now that I knew the Light was a Fallen.

Lightport, more than ever, had become enemy territory. And my ex-fiancé, the man I’d once loved and thought to be my mate, ruled it all.

Shit.

If anything, my chaperoned flight to Lightport only grew more dire. Cornelius’s magic held, so I had no issues with the flight itself. But what I saw from above drove away the numb, empty feeling until all that was left was a heavy weight of dread.

Lightport sat along the coast of what used to be the Atlantic Ocean, which I only knew from the few history books that had survived the initial tear in the Veil opening to Earth and the ensuing demonic-celestial war that had followed. But since then, that very same war had changed the literal face of the Earth—its geography, its geopolitics, its everything.

The city looked much the same as it had a few days ago at face value. Buildings and skyscrapers, some as old as the original human structures that had once existed here. Some newer and built from a shiny, radiant stone. I recognized the Order’s headquarters from a distance: the tallest tower in Lightport, filled with windows that reflected the sunlight. It created a sort of lighthouse effect. There had been many times where, after a long mission demon-hunting, Ian, Merek, and I had seen the top of the building in the distance and been relieved we’d been nearly home.

Now, it made me sick. Because flying around the tower’s exterior were various celestial beings and some paladins. The latter were easy to pick out despite some full celestials being humanoid because they didn’t shine with magic like the celestials did.

Then there was the most unsettling addition to Lightport: another tear in the Veil, this one as large as the one the Guardian had torn over Alastia. Big enough for an entire army to come through. Even now, celestials poured into Serenia with both red-tinged Fallen magic and radiant, glowing gold and white energy.

The sight of the tear made me pause, and the number of celestials pouring through that tear had me wondering how much control the Guardian—Merek—actually had over this situation. But Cornelius pulled me along before I could question it for long.

“The Guardian is expecting you,” Cornelius intoned coolly.

“I’m sure he is.” I wasn’t ready to face him, though. Not with this discovery, and especially not after Cornelius’s revelation about the Light.

“Come.” Cornelius ushered me along over the rooftops right to the Order’s headquarters.

We landed not at the ground-level front entrance, but at the top of the tower on an open rotunda I’d never been in before. Even when I’d led the Order, the top floors had been off limits due to the Light’s supposed presence.

I saw that presence now as we landed, a glowing, constantly churning sphere of light sitting on a golden basin in the middle of the space. Frescoes and engravings lined the marble stone walls and sweeping arches, some depicting battles that must have taken place on Soltar because nothing about them looked familiar.

Several celestial individuals dressed similarly to Cornelius lined the room in a circle. Their attentions were focused on the sphere of pure sunlight in the center. I was convinced in that moment that only a full-blooded celestial could look at the sphere for long, because already my eyes burned.

I turned away, only to find another unpleasant sight: the Guardian, hands crossed in front of him, standing not twenty feet away. My breath caught in my throat seeing Merek like this. In charge again, sure, but also dressed likethis. This Guardian figure. A Fallen, which he hadn’t been before. Merek had once been as human as Ian. And then he’d died and come back as a Fallen. An enemy. But that grew harder to remind myself the longer our gazes met.

Merek was tall and muscular, easily filling out the ornate armor he wore. The same celestial sword he’d had as a paladin was strapped in a sheath at his hip, but it was decorated with inlaid gold to show rank. His green eyes, bright and vivid, pinned me in place and kept my breath at bay. Wind shuffled through the open rotunda and blew just a few blond hairs out of place on his head. Otherwise, this was the most put together, most confident, I’d ever seen Merek.

“Ayla,” he said as his face relaxed. He sounded genuinely relieved, as if I’d been in an enemy lion’s den for months and was only now free. “Thank you, Cornelius, for delivering my love to me.”

“I’m not your love.” I bit out the words before thinking them through. “Not anymore.”

Merek inclined his head. “You’re home now, Ayla. You no longer have to pretend. We’ll take down the Angel of Death together.”

This change in Merek, this familiarity, where before, in Lucius’s bedroom, he’d come to us as the powerful, stoic Guardian, had my thoughts spinning.

“Lucius is mymate, Merek,” I retorted. “And I am a queen. Address me as such.”

A coldness swept Merek’s features. In a flash, his vivid, green eyes turned to an emotionless slate and he shook his head. “Then you will addressmeas the Guardian, as the Light has bestowed me this rank as a reward.”

“When it brought you back to life?” I ventured. “How exactly did that come about, anyway?”

“I served my oath,” Merek said—and I would keep calling him that. I wasn’t sure before how much ofthisperson before me was Merek and how much was the Guardian. I supposed a part of me was desperately hoping the Guardian was some other entity that’d simply taken Merek over. But now I wasn’t so sure.

I tapped my lips with my finger. “I don’t think trouncing into Alastia and killing a bunch ofinnocentcivilians constitutes following a paladin oath. Especially when the topmost tenet of said oath isprotectingthose innocents.”

“Those were demons,” he argued.

I raised an eyebrow. A few days ago, I’d thought the same. “We were raised and trained to believe the world is black and white. You know it’s not.”

“Hm, yes,” Merek said as he raised his left hand to the pommel of his celestial sword. “Having the Order think you were part demon was an interesting choice by the Light, I’ll admit. It certainly grayed the playing field a bit.”

“You’re literally a Fallen, just the same as me.” I stepped forward and Cornelius shadowed me. If I hadn’t known he was a full celestial, I’d consider taking him in a fight if one broke out. I wasn’t sure I could match a single full celestial in power, let alone every one in the room all at once. Luckily, that hadn’t been the plan. Yet, anyway.

---