Page 19 of Oathborn
“What was that?” she spun to face Tivre. “I have never missed, have never faltered, and now, you make a fool of me.”
“That,” Tivre said, “was the power of the Accords. You nearly broke them, and your own Oath beside.”
She sheathed her blade. “All Rhydonians deserve to die.”
Her hatred came to her so easily. Tivre wondered if any fae, apart from the Queen, even remembered the cause of it, centuries later. He sighed. “And how lucky they are to be protected by the Accords.”
“There is no reason for the damn Accords.”
“No, no reason at all, except for peace.” Tivre murmured, as he adjusted the violin case on his shoulder. He’d told Quila that a human-made instrument would help him blend in, which was a lie. He’d just wanted an excuse to get his hands on one of the tools responsible for the beautiful music he’d heard from his phonograph.
He also didn’t tell Quila, because he could not risk those words returning to the Queen’s ears, how much the Accords mattered to the fae. The humans outnumbered the fae, by at least a hundred to one. As the fae’s number dwindled, their chances of victory diminished. The humans would have won the war eventually, not through hand-to-hand combat with Oathborn, but rather, through explosives and attrition.
If the Accords hadn’t been signed, Tivre had no doubt the humans would have invented an even more terrible weapon, one that no magic could hope to match.
If the Queen got her wish and the Accords were broken… the slaughter would begin once more. This time, it would be without the Traitor and his wielding of the Crescent Blade, without most of the Oathborn forces, and without Blood Ember, who had thankfully been neither seen nor heard from since before the end of the war. As much as Tivre despised that monster, he knew without Blood Ember, the war would have ended far earlier, and with even more fae dead, than it had.
After all, humans were not the only ones capable of creating a perfect weapon.
Chapter six
Zari
Since the day she’d treated the soldiers with silverbane, Zari’s sleep had been plagued with nightmares of glowing eyes, deadly smoke, and flashing claws. No distractions could shake the bone-deep fear which had settled in her heart. Despite how much the military and the politicians tried to cover it up, on Lockwood’s orders, no doubt, she was sure of it, something terrible had happened. What if Captain Javen was wrong? Could the attacker have been Blood Ember?
If the monster was back, how soon would more death follow?
A week later, Zari took her lunch outside to the courtyard and perched on the low garden wall. Eating in the cafeteria only reminded her that the other nurses never invited her to sit with them. As she passed, she overheard their whispered gossip about a recently dismissed nurse. Rumors had circulated that the nurse had entertained a man overnight in her boarding house room, which was enough to get her fired.
Halfway through her lunch, a quiet cough caught her attention. The wounded reporter, looking much better than he had that night, dressed in trousers and a faded blue shirt, with a pair of brown suspenders that matched his boots.
“Yansin?” she asked, surprised, and yet, delighted to see him again.
Brushing an escaped strand of auburn hair away from his face, he grinned. “Last I checked, yes, that’s my name.” With the effortless grace of a dancer, he hopped over the fence separating the garden from the sidewalk.
Zari stood to face him. “How have you been? I was worried. When we found out the others needed a plant to heal and—”
“Silverbane, right?” he asked, and at her nod, a shadow passed over his face. “I heard stories about it growing up.” He hesitated, watching her closely, as if gauging her reaction. “But the plant isn’t needed for one who isn’t entirely human.”
Zari’s eyes widened. “Then you’re—”
“Part-fae, yes. The name didn’t give it away?”
She stopped before blurting out something foolish, like a disbelief that part-fae even existed. Once, when Zari was a child, an old woman with bright purple eyes had come begging, claiming to be a part-fae in need of help. Her governess had sent the woman away with a basket of food, though she’d made sure to pour a line of salt over the threshold afterward. Those violet eyes had haunted Zari for years.
But Yansin looked entirely human. If he was telling the truth, his fae ancestry must be quite distant. He plunged his hands in his pockets. “Figured I might as well get that out of the way. So you can make of me what you will.”
How many times had someone learned of his heritage and changed their opinion of him? As if he’d had any control over his blood. “I like your name,” she admitted. “It suits you.”
“I’ve always thought so. Suppose that’s the reason I refused to change it.”
“Your last name… you’re from Karsic, right?” She’d picked up on his distinct, melodic Karsici drawl as he’d talked, and his surname wasn’t that unusual. Certainly nothing like his first name.
“Indeed, born with sand in my shoes.” He quoted the common saying about Karsic, the warmest, and poorest, province of Rhydonia. “Anything else you want to know? I have to confess, I’m not the best at recalling things, and ever since I took up night shift at the paper, it’s gotten worse.”
Zari thought of those veterans in the memory ward wing of the hospital, haunted by all they’d experienced. When he’d been hurt, Yansin had called out in agony, as if reliving something terrible. There might be more to his memory issues than just working late nights. “Did you serve in the war?”
“I did. I can’t… I can’t think too much of it without the nightmares returning. It was the last days, when the fighting was the most desperate.”
