Page 36 of Oath-Maker

When all others had taken the now vow, I knelt before Isabel and she swore me in, too. I recited the vow—which didn’t override my vow to Alastia and Lucius—with tears I found hard-pressed to blink back.

Happy tears.

Hopeful ones.

I was desperate to hold on to that hope.

CHAPTER15

“You seem rather at peace here now,” Merek commented as he walked me along a promenade near Lightport’s coast. A few guards were shadowing us, but none were close enough to hear our conversations. Not that I was talking very much. At this point, there was little for Merek and I to discuss. And yet he insisted upon these daily walks as if, by some chance, I’d change my mind andactuallywant to join him.

I would not. But I’d let him believe it.

I just have to make it one more day.Lucius would be here tomorrow morning, and then all of this would be over—one way or another.

But that was twenty-four hours from now, and I knew just how much could happen in twenty-four hours.The Fall of an Order leader. Disarray. Jessa, missing. Me finding my mate.

Merek being alive again.

“Lightport was home for a long time,” is what I finally settled on once the silence had stretched on for long enough that I realized hewantedan answer. Merek had always been like that, stubborn enough to keep an awkward or empty silence just because he expected a reply from someone. “Maybe Lightport can be home again one day.”

Once the Fallen had been stopped and returned to Soltar. Once these conflicts were over and Serenia and the rest of this world was at peace.

Merek stopped between a bench and a tree along the promenade. The maple leaves shielded the sunlight from view, casting long shadows over Merek’s body. For a moment, I saw him as he had been before all of this. A young man whom I’d known for nearly my entire life. A strong leader of the Order. The same man who’d helped me take Jessa in, who’d shown up with soup when I’d been sick. Who’d asked me to marry him and help keep the peace across Sereniatogether.

But as much as I wanted this person before me to be Merek, I wasn’t sure Merek existed anymore. This Fallen celestial-kin man was the Guardian. He was hard and uncaring. Sharp in a way that you’d see coming and still let cut you anyway because of the way those eyesusedto look at you.

I swallowed hard as Merek studied me, not saying a word. I wished I could refer to him only as “the Guardian.” But despite wanting to and, more importantly,needingto, I couldn’t wrap my mind around all these changes. Not really.

That was the paladin in me. Not wanting to give up hope. Without it, we had nothing.

“Are you planning to overthrow me?” Merek asked as his cool, hollow-green eyes seemed to burrow into my mind. He asked the question without any of the intensity that a query like that should have contained. Almost as if it didn’t really matter.

So I answered it honestly. “Yes. Did you expect anything different?”

Merek shook his head. “Not really. You’ve always been an idealist, and I know you don’t see the beauty of what we’re working toward here.”

My eyes narrowed—as if that would help me see anything about him or his agenda more clearly. “All I see is war, Merek. I see pain and suffering, and death for so many just so the celestials can, what? Destroy this world, too? What happens when they decide our world isn’t enough?”

“That won’t happen,” he argued. “And the only deaths will be demons’.”

Anger flashed hot around my heart. “And what about Cole? What about the other paladins who’ve died for this cause of yours? There were casualties on both sides during that fight in Alastia, Merek.” I jabbed a finger in his direction, not afraid of any ire I might provoke in him. “Youdied—or so we thought. Are more innocent lives, morepaladinlives, really worth it to you?”

His jaw clenched tightly, and in it I read hesitation. I knew Merek well enough—or had at one time. “Once the demonic evil is ridden from Serenia, there will be no more fighting.”

“Except in the rest of the world,” I shot back.

“There will be peace when the battles are won.” He started walking again, but not before grabbing my arm and forcing me along with him. “At this point, peace without war is impossible.”

I yanked back against his hold, managing to dislodge myself. I took a step back. “Yes,becauseof you. You and the Fallen came in and upendedeverything, Merek. Our friends died because of you. Because you attacked Alastia.”

Merek stormed the few steps toward me, closing the distance so fast and with such rage in his eyes that I stumbled backward. He followed the movement, using it to guide me backward until my lower back had pressed harshly against the metal railing separating us from a sheer drop into the ocean below.

“And what about those who died on the bridge the day before?” Merek snapped. “When they risked their lives to rescueyou, only for you to swear allegiance and your love to a demon king? You allowed that bastard to form amate bondwith you, Ayla. For fuck’s sake.”

His anger washed over me, as heady as any wave against shore, but inside of it, I saw emotion too genuine to not be his. Merek’s. TherealMerek. The one from before his supposed death. Before his celestial power had turned red with Fallen magic.

Merek was right, though, and I hated it. It hadn’t been my sword that’d killed our people that day on the bridge. But they’d been there because of me. Lorena had acted because ofmeputting Lucius in danger.

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