Page 125 of Oathborn
“By the stars,” he muttered. “Is this her new trick?” He snapped his fingers, like Tivre sometimes did, to start a spell.
The pain on Zari’s neck doubled in intensity. This time, a scream escaped her.
Javen spun, searching for the source of the sound. His blue eyes locked onto hers. “You seem to have a habit of showing up in places you do not belong, Miss Ankmetta.”
“Let me be,” she murmured, still awash with pain.
“Let you be?” he quoted the words back to her, but her ears buzzed because something felt off. She must have spoken in the fae language, again. He took slow, measured steps toward her. “Do you think yourself a fae? For you speak like one, dress like one… do you plan to die like one?”
She scrambled to her feet. “I mean you no harm. I just—I came here to—” Fear made her stammer. Gone was any trace of the composed captain she’d met before. This figure standing before her crackled with fury and rage. Fangs showed in his snarl and his fingernails seemed sharpened into glass-like points. Javen was fae. Fae, and yet, willing to kill any who stood in his way.
“Are you here to mock me in my grief?” he demanded. Two fingers lifted her chin up, forcing her to stare at him. “You desecrate sacred ground with every step. You have no right to be here.”
“The Queen—” Zari began.
His gaze dropped to her neck. With his free hand, he raked his fingers over the wound, revealing the mark beneath. “So she uses you to dampen my magic. What damned deal did you make with my mother?”
His… mother? Javen was the Queen’s son?
As she stared, she saw the same sharp features, the same cold blue eyes. That resemblance was unmistakable, and the weight of his betrayal now seemed far more severe. The Queen’s own son served in the enemy army.
Javen pulled his hand away. “Did she offer you riches? Power?”
“She offered me nothing. I’m here because I’m trying to rescue my father.”
“Your father is dead.”
“You’re wrong. Tivre brought me to—”
“Tivre?” Javen’s voice crackled with fury. “You are little more than a pawn to him. To any of them. Has Hazelle made you believe in her childish hopes for peace? As if her own sister did not lead in our first battle?”
“Surely Liyale was compelled, like all the Oathborn are.”
“You think an Oath is the only reason the Oathborn would lay waste to Rhydonia?” Javen laughed bitterly. “Your head is full of bedtime stories and lies. Let me tell you about the first battle Liyale fought, decades ago. TheRhydonian Second Infantry had just dug their first trench on the outskirts of Drumlin. Companies A and C were on duty.”
The crisp manner in which he shared facts made it easy to picture. A trench edged with barbed wire, soldiers staring out into the fog. Drumlin was a name etched into her memories, as it was for so many other Rhydonians. It had heralded a return to war and an increase in the deadliness of fae attacks. Before that night, there had been no battles for years. Many, like her father, had hoped the conflict was over.
How wrong they’d been.
Javen continued to talk. “Three of us Oathborn approached that fortification. Liyale was the first to strike, taking down the main artillery gunners with her bow, before the slaughter began. Now, I believe you’re a well-educated woman. So tell me. How many Rhydonians survived that day?”
She knew the answer.
None.
The Rhydonian army had been decimated, their bodies left for others to find. The newspapers had said they’d been attacked by a fae army. Standing here, she understood the horrifying truth. There had been no army. A trio of Oathborn had killed thousands of humans.
“It wasn’t your choice. If you hadn’t been given an Oath…” Zari began, thinking of Daeden’s struggle, his brief moment of nearly disobeying the magic binding him. “Surely you wouldn’t have—”
“We had no Oath to fight that day,” Javen said.
Zari shuddered. Ever since learning about the power of the Oaths, she’d wanted to believe that other fae didn’t want war, or bloodshed, that they had all been compelled to fight and to kill. Javen’s answer challenged all that. “But did you ever? Surely, some fae must have believed in peace.”
“Peace is nothing more than a pretty story told by the winners.”
“If you don’t believe in peace, then why join the Rhydonians?”
“It is not peace I fight for, but vengeance. Something you now stand in the way of.” Javen drew his sword. “I cannot have full use of my magic untilyou are dead. Shall we see if your little ruse has given you any actual ability to fight?”
