Page 69 of Oathborn
Caring about others was such a messy business.
Chapter twenty-six
Zari
As darkness settled, Yansin led them to a small glen, where feather-like ferns ringed ancient trees, their bright green fronds standing out against the shadowed forest floor. A gentle stream meandered through the glen, winding around smooth stones. The tree branches above filtered the moonlight into a soft, dappled glow, reflected in the waters.
“Good, my memory isn’t as bad as I feared it might be.” Yansin gestured at the stream. “That’s clean water, purified and safe for drinking.”
“How do you know?” Zari remained skeptical, given the biology textbooks she’d read. He’d also told her that his memories were fragmented from the war. The combination of the two made her hesitate.
Kneeling, Yansin cupped his hands in the stream. He lifted a handful of water to his mouth and drank deeply. “A fae mage carved sigils into a stone upstream from here. The purifying magic lives on, though…” his smile faltered. “Though the mage does not.”
“How can you be sure?”
“No fae mage survived the war.”
“But Tivre—”
“Is something both more powerful than a mage, and far less trained.”
Yansin had spoken as if he knew the white-haired fae. He was keeping secrets. Ones that she was becoming increasingly concerned about. “You said you fought in the war,” Zari began slowly. “Which side did you fight on?”
His expression grew more solemn, darkening his hazel eyes. “Does it matter now?” he asked. “Or did it ever matter, when soldiers were tasked to do what their leaders commanded, and punished with death if their morals told them otherwise?”
A conviction carried in his words, a soft, banked fire of intensity, as if he would never yield to one he disagreed with, no matter the risks. “Yansin… did you desert?”
Glancing away from her, he nodded. “There was no side that I would not be asked to kill those who looked like my family.”
She thought of his agonized murmurs, the mention of blood, his fragmented memories, and realized how great a burden he carried. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t imagine.”
“Nor would I ever ask you to. I hope that war will never again burn through these lands. The stream is safe; its water purified. The greedy hearts of those in power… those are not so easily cleansed.”
When she drank from it, she marveled at how crisp the cool water tasted. With a yawn, she lay down, not minding the pine needles or grass beneath her.Just a moment’s rest,she told herself, and she’d wake back up.
Sunrise woke her. Shafts of dawn’s light filtered through the trees, dappling the pine needles and the grass where Zari sat, her chin resting on her knees, as Yansin tended the fire with quiet efficiency, his brow furrowed.
Onto the smoldering embers he added a dry stick of wood. He’d pulled his hair back and rolled his sleeves up, focused on the task. Zari watched, taking in every detail, how graceful his movements were, how the firelight caught in the gold flecks of his hazel eyes. He’d told her he’d deserted, but she still couldn’t imagine him as a soldier. He was too gentle, too sweet, too graceful to be anything but an artist.
“When did you come to the capital?” she asked.
“A few years ago,” he replied, still prodding at the fire.
“What did you do before then?”
He didn’t look up at her. “I believe I may have mentioned a few bouts of petite larceny.”
A breeze swept through the glen. It was sharp and cold, carrying none of the spring warmth from earlier. The hairs on Zari’s arms prickled. The fire flickered violently, flames bending sideways as if sucked toward something unseen.
The smoke from the fire thickened, swirling in a slow spiral, unnaturally dark and heavy. Shimmering, it changed colors, morphing from ashy-white to purple.
“Yansin!” Panic crested in Zari’s voice. That was the same shade the smoke had been the night of the attack. Whatever had been summoned that terrible evening had returned, or worse, had followed them.
The smoke hovered, then dipped to the forest floor, writhing like a nest of snakes. Tendrils shot out as if tasting the surrounding air. It coalesced into a tangled mess of thick, smoky vines. The thickest surged forward, whipping toward her, and caught her around the waist, lifting her from the ground like a doll.
Yansin shouted, but she couldn’t see him. The smoke pulled itself over her face, masking the world from view. Smoke clawed at her throat. She gasped, struggling, the world narrowing.
She kicked wildly, and the smoke threw her against the ground. Her shoulder slammed into the earth. She rolled, coughing, eyes stinging. Still. She was free. But where was Yansin? A flash of red hair caught her eye. She turned toward him.
