Page 76 of Oathborn
“Don’t say that! I think you’re wonderful.” Indeed, if other Rhydonians met Hazelle, surely, they would not fear the fae. No one would want to lead a war against one as kind as her.
“If you’d known them… they weremagnificent. Liyale was incredibly brave, and Celene was so elegant. She was trained as a mage, as well as to be my mother’s heir.”
“Were they close in age to you?”
Hazelle tilted her head, pondering. “Celene was older, a lot older than me, but Liyale was a peer to Tivre, so yes. We were not that far apart.”
“If fae age so slowly, how do you know when you’re not a child?” Knowing the Rhydonian cultural context would delight her, Zari added, “In Rhydonia, girls have their first season at seventeen and are said to be old maids by the time they’re twenty-five.”
“Is one paid to be an Old Maid? It sounds very important.”
Zari laughed, shaking her head at Hazelle’s sweet naivety. “It’s a term for an unmarried woman who’s too old for any prospects. Some would say a blue stocking.”
“Do they force you to wear stockings of certain colors? How marvelously strange. Dae!” Hazelle shouted, waving to her cousin ahead. “When we return again to Rhydonia, I wish to purchase blue stockings to wear! And to meet an Old Maid!”
“You’ve one standing next to you,” Tivre commented with a smirk.
“Why you…” Zari gritted her teeth. “I’m not even thirty!” She seized a pinecone from nearby and lobbed it at Tivre.
“Is it a bad thing to be old?” Hazelle asked. “I thought Rhydonians considered those who are aged to be of great wisdom.”
“Aged men, perhaps,” Zari muttered. For most women, there was the ceaseless pressure to marry before time ran out for their youthfulness.
“We don’t have any interesting words like that. We merely are adults once we partake in our first Ceremony of the Gated Moon, at either midsummer or midwinter, depending on the timing of one’s birth. Dae and I are both sunlight-born, so ours is midsummer. Tivre, were you a sunlight or a starlight child?”
“I was not given the luxury of knowing such a thing.” Tivre’s tone was so final, the lighthearted conversation withered away.
They walked on, the three fae’s footsteps near-silent and Zari’s loud and clumsy in comparison. Daeden led the way, his head held high, his strong arms pushing away any tangled vines or branches. How easily he moved in the thick forest, proving how the Oathborn had been able to sneak up on camps of sleeping Rhydonians and slaughter them.
With that uncomfortable thought in mind, Zari reflected on everything she’d been told about the fae so far. “Hazelle,” she began. “If both your sister and Daeden are Oathborn… does it run in families?”
“Oh, yes.” She brushed aside a particularly large pine bough blocking their way. “But not always, and there are many Oathborn, like yourself, who have no known blood ties to another.”
Had Hazelle’s gaze lingered on her when she’d said that second part? Did Hazelle suspect something? “Is one Oathborn for their whole life?”
“From their first breath ’til their last. Unless…” Hazelle bit her lip, looking ahead as if to see if Daeden was listening. “Unless one breaks their Oath, but such a thing is best not even spoken of.”
Further questions arose within Zari. “How does one break an Oath?”
“I think that’s quite enough story time,” Tivre said, appearing at their side. His emerald-green eyes watched her with suspicion, as if she’d disobeyed his instructions. To have done that, though, it would have required him actuallyinstructingher in how to behave during this con.
“I think I’ll check on Daeden,” Hazelle said, perhaps sensing the tension simmering.
“Do that,” Tivre said. “I’m going to find anotherpinecone.”
As the white-haired fae was about to veer off, back into the woods, Zari caught his arm. “I’d like a word, if you’d be so kind.”
“I’m never kind,” he retorted.
“How did you meet my father?”
“By saying hello.”
“Must you be so vague?”
“Must you be so nosy? If you must know, General Ankmetta crossed into our camp with a letter, asking if there might be a chance for peace.”
He’d never mentioned that part. “In his letters, he told me of the fae he worked with on the Accords. That was you, wasn’t it?”
