Page 77 of Oathborn
Tivre shook his head. “It was not. Don’t you see the more questions you ask, the more you endanger yourself?” Tivre’s eyes flashed with that crackle of magic that scared her, reminded her he was no mortal man. “You will meet the Queen, and she will question you. Any wavering, any hesitation, and she will pounce.”
For all that Tivre claimed he served the Queen, he was always quick to make his displeasure known. “Why do you go back to the Queen if you hate her?”
“I would rather serve her and undermine her where I can then be locked in a cell and forced to prophesy at her command.”
If Zari assumed Tivre was like a servant, then she could also picture subtle ways he’d rebel. Where a lady’s maid who despised her mistress might ruin a gown or prick her with a hatpin by so-called accident, Tivre’s transgressions would be larger. Perhaps even returning without the Oathborn he’d been expected to find. Was his reason for agreeing to her deal less altruistic than she’d first thought? Tivre had told her she could trust him, but Zari didn’t. Not even enough to mention Yansin to him. Tivre played fast and loose with the truth far too often.
After all, her own current fake identity, down to the mark on her wrist, was part of a con by him. Zari asked, “Why don’t you want me to learn about broken Oaths?”
“Because,” he whispered, “you, personally, are both immune to breaking Oaths, and free from the dangers involved in meeting an Oathbroken. Boththings would utterly destroy our little deception. If an Oathborn makes eye contact with one who broke an Oath, they immediately are overtaken by the relentless urge to kill the Oathbroken. They will not, and cannot, rest until either they or the broken one are dead.”
A terrible magic indeed, to be forced into a reckless, endless battle. Zari recalled the mark on Javen’s wrist and his hatred of the fae. “I think there’s an officer following us that might be Oathbroken.”
“Scowling gentleman with dark hair and the personality of a hungover wolverine?”
“He mentioned your name before I escaped. He said…” Perhaps Tivre did not need to know all that Zari had been warned of. Clearly, Tivre had his own secrets, so fair was fair if she held some of her own back. At least she could be glad Annette’s path never crossed with Javen’s.
“Do not mention to the others that you have spoken to Javen, or this ruse shall end swiftly.”
That answered so few of her questions and generated so many more. “Is Captain Javen a fae?”
“That depends,” he said, as he avoided her eyes, “if being fae is a question of blood or beliefs.”
Chapter thirty
Zari
Over the days they traveled, the scenery changed, the mix of trees slowly shifting into only evergreens: both tall, pointed, blue-tinted pines, and unfamiliar ones with low, drooping branches. The birdsong grew more musical, more enchanting, and more unfamiliar. Zari found herself wishing Yansin were here to teach her about these birds too. Or at least, to explain himself.
A smaller, more traitorous part of her thought of Yansin’s touch, his breath against her skin, his fingers tightening to pull her closer. The memory of his kisses, even now, made her skin prickle.
“Are you alright?” Hazelle asked.
“Oh, yes. Thank you.” Zari smiled at the tall fae, glad of Hazelle’s conversation and even the way she matched her gait to Zari’s shorter one. Aside from Annette, Zari had no friends, so she filled her spare time with more work and daydreams of when she’d become a doctor. Perhaps then, she’d be courted.Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. A constant refrain.
For three days they walked, making camp at night. Each night she slept in a glittering tent spun from magic. Tivre seemed able to conjure up anything they needed with a wave of his hand, summoning those shimmering shapes called sigils. Hazelle, too, often called magic, though her sigils were pink, and less vivid than Tivre’s. They ate what Daeden hunted or foraged, which was far more than she’d expected the woods to provide. It reminded her ofGarrick’s stories of his hunting trips. What would Garrick have thought of her traveling with fae? Why had she never dreamed of his embrace or even a kiss from him?
Did you love him?Yansin had asked. She had her answer, at least for how she felt about Garrick. The tenderness Yansin had shown, the warm feeling that spread through her when he smiled, the time they’d spent together… that all added up to make answering the same question about Yansin much more difficult.
Not love, no, not when she barely knew him. Still, something pulled at her heart, a small, aching yearning for one more conversation, one more kiss, from the auburn-haired man.
Again, Zari shivered. The temperature had gotten steadily colder, and recently, the landscape ahead had changed quite dramatically. Flecks of snow glistened on tree branches, and the underbrush was mostly dead, with the faintest hints of green buds.
Zari stared, horror and awe growing in mixed measure.
“We’ve passed into the Gloaming,” Hazelle explained. “Time moves slower here.”
The Gloaming marked the start of the disputed land between the fae and the humans, and was the whole reason for the start of the war, decades ago. Her father’s letters had described how in that region, the seasons didn’t behave like they should. Winter lasted far too long, only to be followed by a six-month spring and one bright, brilliant month of summer.
“How far to Lochna?” Zari asked, a bleak curiosity settling in the pit of her stomach.
“Not too far now.”
Breaking through the tree line, Zari spied a grass valley dotted with purple heather and yellow gorse. Further off, green vines claimed the crumbled stones of all that remained of Fort Lochna, hiding the unmarked graves of thousands. When did battlefields stop being rubble and start being ruins? It seemed strange that there was no plaque, no mention of the lives lost here. Ifanything, it looked more like a lovely place to picnic than the site of a terrible massacre.
Zari swallowed thickly. “I wasn’t expecting it to look like this.”
“Nature has a way of forgetting the battles,” Hazelle said, kneeling to smell a freshly bloomed tulip. Other flowers bloomed nearby. Pale yellow gorse, white daisies, and, in shady spots, the closed buds of the poisonous cadevesh plant awaited nightfall to bloom. The hospital had seen its fair share of soldiers addicted to the hallucinogenic nature of cadevesh, and Zari shuddered at how common it seemed to be now that they were in the Gloaming. It was said to be impossible to grow south of here, a small mercy given how toxic it was.
