Page 83 of Oathborn
“I know you are no Oathborn.”
“No—that’s not—” a dozen different rebuttals died on Zari’s lips.
“Daeden has been my only friend for most of my life. I know Oathborn well, and you are not one, though you are a good enough actress to fool Daeden. You are too quick to disagree with the Queen, and far too comfortable with your freedom. So I ask you, why?”
The question stunned Zari almost as much as the accusation had. “Why, what?”
Hazelle gestured at Zari as if to encompass every part of the lie she’d lived. “I assume Tivre has something to do with it all, but why?”
Voice shaking, Zari opted for the truth or, at least, part of it. “I wanted to save my friend. She’s an Oathborn, a real one, and Tivre said once she got to the isles, the Queen would never let her return, never let her see her family.”
“That is true,” Hazelle cut her off. “She would be given oaths of loyalty and stability, binding her to the isles, and to the Queen’s wishes.”
“My friend, she has a family. A husband, children… I could not let her abandon them.”
Hazelle’s expression softened. She reached out her hand to cup Zari’s cheek. “You are a noble friend. She is lucky to have you.”
Her thumb brushed soothing strokes over Zari’s skin, encouraging her to continue to speak. “So I made the deal with Tivre to keep my friend safe. I’ll sneak away from the isles after I meet the Queen.”
Still, Zari could not find it in herself to admit she also went in search of her father. For the fae, General Ankmetta was an enemy, a military leader in the long and bloody war. Just as the Rhydonians hated the Oathborn for their actions, surely, the fae would not feel any fondness toward a human general. Hazelle had lost most of her family to Rhydonians. Even her gentle forgiveness might have its limits.
As if reading her thoughts, Hazelle asked, “Is that all?”
Zari hesitated, a chill once more running down her spine. “What else is there?”
Hazelle’s eyes met hers, and they burned with an intensity unmatched by anything she’d seen before. “Peace. A permanent, lasting peace. One that the Queen will have no power to break.” To hear someone else, a fae no less, speak so passionately about peace… “Walk with me.” Hazelle gestured ahead. “I cannot let Dae hear me, for his own safety.”
As they picked a path through the ruins, Hazelle told Zari of her plans to stop the Queen. The intricate details of fae life, succession laws, and the role of Stellaris themselves, made Zari’s head spin, but she did her best to follow along. “Everything hinges,” Hazelle said, “on one ancient rule, written long before even my mother’s mother drew breath. As the Queen has no heirs, this law states the throne, upon her death, passes to the Stellaris of the South Star Isle.”
“Which is you?”
Hazelle grinned, her sharp fangs glinting in the moonlight. “Which is me.”
They were close to the ruins now, close enough that Zari could make out details like a shattered door and the broken pieces of the curved outer wall.Even mostly destroyed, the fort still resembled the photograph her father had once sent home. Two ruined lookout towers, half gone, half-covered with vines. A narrow outcropping of foundation and moldering beams might have been a mess hall. The wall that stretched out eastward from the fort remained imposing, even now. It had once marked the edge of territory protected by the Rhydonian army until Lord Lockwood formed the Crimsons, an elite task force willing to fight deep in the Gloaming.
Zari’s father, though, had despised the Crimsons. His arguments with Lockwood had echoed past the library’s hardwood door when Zari would sit close by and listen. He’d said that Lockwood was too focused on destruction. Lockwood, in return, had accused her father of going soft. As the years wore on, and Lochna became her father’s second home, Zari had begged to visit. Her father insisted it was too dangerous, too close to the fae, for her, and yet, here she was at Lochna itself, traveling in the company of fae.
They’d stopped on the very threshold into the broken fort. Zari swallowed, looking in at the shadowy rooms beyond. Part of her felt compelled forward, to see inside this place that her father had spent so much time. The rest of her wanted to run away, all the way back to the capital, and pretend none of this ever happened at all.
Hazelle made the choice for Zari, plunging into the ruins ahead without a care.
“Wait!” Zari called. She still needed to tell Hazelle about her father.
Zari’s foot landed awkwardly on something small, and she stumbled, losing her balance. Her knees hit hard on the stone floor. Only then did she notice what she’d tripped over: a chess piece, white as bone.
Her heart stuttered, again remembering her father’s letters.At night, the fae and I play chess while we work on the Accords. Despite his youth, he’s clever, far more so than anyone I’ve played against before.She picked up the piece. A pawn, cut in a similar style to the set her father had. Not only that, but hand-carved from similarly colored wood.
Similar or… the exact same?
Light. She needed light, but she had no torch, nor one of the military’s battery-powered lanterns.
“Are you alright?” Hazelle asked, kneeling beside her. As she did, she sketched a few symbols in the air with her fingers, leaving glittering light trailing behind. When she flicked her wrist, the lines vanished, replaced by a pale pink orb. It glowed enough to illuminate the room. “I’m sorry, I should have remembered that mortals can’t see as well in the dark.”
“No, I should have been more careful,” Zari murmured, distracted by what she saw. Broken chairs and tables littered the floor, along with the chess pieces. Zari reached for the closest one. It was the king. The pad of her index finger caught over a small engraving on the base. Her father’s initials.
Had he sat here the night Blood Ember attacked? Sweat broke out on Zari’s neck. “We should go.”
Hazelle turned, her light illuminating the hall ahead. As the pink glow bounced off the stone walls, horror set in. Zari screamed. Bodies littered the hall ahead. Not old, decaying corpses, but figures that looked as if they were merely asleep, aside from their severed heads. All of them wore the Crimson’s uniform.
