Page 112 of Oathborn
“Mercy?” Javen spat. “I had a chance to kill Blood Ember, and mercy stopped me. Now my family is gone, along with countless others, killed by the same one I should have destroyed.”
Captain Javen had faced down Blood Ember itself? Just how many more secrets did the man hold?
Javen pointed to the ruins. “I brought you here so you do not forget the lesson that damned me.”
Tobias wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet. “If we don’t help her, what will happen to her? This fae.” Tobias frowned, wishing he knew her name. “If she is to stand against the Queen, then…”
“She will die. As did others before her,” Javen said.
“Could you…” Tobias’s resolve strengthened. “Sir, I’m going to overstep, probably, but it’s clear to me that you know a whole hell of a lot more about the fae, and their language, than anyone I’ve ever met. So, can you help me find her? Warn her? She won’t leave my thoughts. I want to protect her.”
“Like you protected Miss Ankmetta?” Javen smirked as he stood, reaching for the cigarettes in his pocket. He hesitated, then, as if even the ghost of his dead wife would not approve of the vice. “And allowed her to escape?”
“You… you knew about that?” Tobias was once more at a loss for words. He plunged his hands into his pockets, bowed his head. Was this it then? Would he be court-martialed? Demoted? Left out here in the woods?
Perhaps Javen would tie him to a tree and use him as bait for Blood Ember. Then he’d have his revenge and be done with his useless lieutenant at the same time.
Tobias backed up a step, his heel sinking into the spongy grass. He should never have accepted this assignment in the first place and reported everything he knew about Javen to that mysterious stranger. Now, he’d pay the price of trusting the wrong person.
A sudden howl of pain cut through his thoughts. Whipping his head around, Tobias stared at Javen. On his neck, a strange mark had appeared. It glowed faintly, an almost silvery sheen pulsing like a beating heart. Even as Javen tried to cover it with a hand, blood welled from it, seeping into the gaps between his fingers.
“In all the hells,” he muttered, “what has she done now?” With his free hand, Javen dug in a pocket for his cigarettes. After clenching one between his lips, he dropped his bloody hand and snapped his fingers. A blue spark flickered above his fingertips, leaping to ignite the cigarette.
“You’re bleeding!” It was far from the most pressing statement Tobias wanted to make, and he winced as soon as he said it.
Javen glared at him. “Why is it that you received such high marks at the academy and insist so frequently on stating the obvious?”
A lot of Tobias’s teachers, and his own mother, probably wondered the same thing.
“I, uh… wait.” Tobias held up a hand. “You knew my grades?”
With a dismissive snort, Javen replied, “Why else would I have selected you? I was told you set high standards for linguistics and code breaking. Apparently, you did not merit the same in common sense.”
“You selected me? You thought I had merit?”
Javen lifted his head to stare up at the sky, making an exasperated noise that seemed to shake his shoulders. It let Tobias better see the wound on his neck, which appeared to be a set of four interlocking crescents, deliberately carved into Javen’s skin. “How is that a surprise, Lieutenant, when I have brought you along on this mission? When I have provided resources for you to learn the fae language? When you have been allowed far greater access to things beyond a usual soldier’s reckoning?”
All the events of the past weeks replayed in Tobias’s mind. All the times he’d tried, and failed, to be a help. The messes he’d caused. Somehow, still, Javen believed he was capable, that he could do something to help Rhydonia. “Thank you for trusting me, sir,” he said, more than a little abashed. “I am sorry I have not lived up to it. I want to do better and help you capture Blood Ember, and bring Miss Ankmetta back.”
Javen shook his head. “I do not think such things are within your ability. Nor, perhaps, anyone’s. Leave me be. See Lockwood for your next orders.”
The dismissal felt like a permanent one.
Chapter forty-three
Zari
Someone was carrying Zari, and by the grunts he made, she guessed it must be Tivre. She doubted she’d be such a burden to any muscular, trained Oathborn. Try as she might, she couldn’t force her eyes open, nor her mouth to speak. Her neck burned where the Queen had touched her.
Touched was too simple a word. The Queen’s fingers had sliced like razors against her skin. Agony followed the tracing patterns of her nails, and the wound still throbbed. Whatever the Queen had done to Zari, it was supernatural in some way, for no scratch should ever hurt this much.
The Queen. Even thinking those words chilled Zari. She’d not laid eyes on the fearsome ruler nor whoever had stood beside her, but she’d felt the Queen’s power, as if she was a thunderstorm trapped in a fae’s body. Every word she’d spoken had crackled with malice. Every silence felt like a blade against Zari’s skin. Every moment had been torture.
“You awake?” Tivre asked. There was a gentleness to his tone that almost sounded like sympathy. Had he not expected things to go this way?
He set her down on something soft that felt like a mattress. The not-exactly-gentle impact made the air escape from her lungs in a ragged exhale. Her arm flopped over the side of the bed.
Tivre sighed. “You still can’t move, can you?”
