Page 88 of Oathborn
“I didn’t kill her.” With the flat of his hand, he pushed down Hazelle’s blade. Tears glittering on his face, Javen’s lip twisted in a familiar snarl. “You lost your sister to Blood Ember, and I lost mywife andchild.”
“Your… child?” Hazelle asked. A sob broke her words into fragments. “Why would—”
“Because the Queen always gets what she wants.”
Zari’s mouth went dry. Celene, Hazelle’s eldest sister. Javen had been her husband. He knew Hazelle because they’d beenfamily.The realization strucklike a blow, made sharper by the fleeting regret she’d glimpsed. Some part of him still cared for Hazelle. If that ember of emotion remained, perhaps, just perhaps, there was a chance they could all survive this.
Carefully, she spoke. “Captain Javen. Please, get Tobias to a medic. Let us be.”
Her words had no immediate effect on him, until Hazelle looked up, her eyes wide, to whisper, “Please.”
“So Daeden can hunt me down when my back is turned?” His jaw twitched, all vulnerability gone from his expression.
“I’d stop him.” Hazelle shook her head. “Daeden would sooner break than hurt me.”
Javen let out a low growl, as his eyes filled with silver light. “You’d wish this on him? This eternal damnation of breaking? The blood-soaked thoughts demanding you forfeit your life for your failed oath? No. If you care for Daeden, and he breaks his Oath, kill him.”
“Don’t say that!” Hazelle cried.
“To live Oathbroken is no life at all.” Javen snarled.
“Yet, you still live.” Zari might not know about Oathbreaking, but she knew about days of ceaseless grief. After her father’s death, the numbness that followed had threatened to drown her. Only the hope that she might be able to heal others, if not herself, had led her way out of the darkness. “Is revenge your only reason for doing so?”
A dangerous wager that risked making him more furious. But he’d sat vigil by Tobias that night. Why do that, only to let the young man die here?
Hazelle began, “Celene wouldn’t want this for you.”
“Celene isdead!” Javen shouted, his voice cracking in anguish. “Killed for daring to believe in this damned peace! Killed, and left nothing behind. Nothing for me to live for but revenge.”
“You’re wrong. There is still hope!” Hazelle’s voice rang out as she pushed past Zari, her eyes flashing with defiance. She squared her shoulders and glared at him, her grip tightening on the hilt of her sword. “Hope remains, evenwhen nothing else does. We could work together, if you came back to the isles.”
“Don’t be foolish.” He seized the blade from Hazelle’s hand, its edge biting into his palm. Blood coursed down his arm, staining his uniform, but he didn’t flinch. With a swift flick of his wrist, he hurled it aside. “There is no hope left on the isles.”
Regret flashed in his eyes, gone as quickly as it appeared. He muttered a word and a flash of blue light passed from his hand to Hazelle’s scalp. Without a sound, she crumpled to the ground. Zari bit back her scream, her hand tightening around the pistol. All she had to do was pull the trigger, and pray that it would be enough to kill him.
Javen glared at her. “If you kill me, can you be sure your precious Accords will not be broken?”
Because he was a fae, and she was a human, and if she shot him… it would not be in self-defense.Damn him,Zari though.That was why he hadn’t attacked me directly. But Hazelle—
Javen brushed past her to where Tobias lay. He knelt, checking the young man’s pulse. His touch was clinical, with none of that wide-eyed grief she’d seen earlier. Still, there was the faintest hint of tenderness in his actions, as if he was fighting not to show he cared about Tobias.
It seemed to Zari that Javen’s greatest battle was fighting against caring about anyone at all.
“He’s alive,” Zari said. “As is Daeden.”
“You speak so fondly of an Oathborn who would kill you faster than your next breath, if the Queen ordered it.” Javen laughed bitterly. “And your dear Tivre’s hands are coated in the blood of innocents.”
“I want to trust them,” she said. She wanted to believe in their kindness, in their empathy, in their… humanity. Except even that word’s existence hung heavy in her mind, reminding her of Tivre’s earlier comment.That depends, if being fae is a question of blood or beliefs.“I want to believe we all want peace.”
“Then you’re a fool, like your father was.” Javen tossed something toward her. She caught it easily, her fingers already knowing what it was before hereyes confirmed it. A queen from a chess set, carved from dark wood, its weight familiar in her palm. Her father’s initials, neatly etched on one side, seemed to burn against her skin.
Zari’s breath hitched, a shiver running through her. “If you knew him—”
Javen didn’t answer. He lifted Tobias into his arms and started walking away, up the hill. The chess piece remained in her trembling hand.
The faint outline of the captain disappeared entirely in the misty haze. Zari turned back to Hazelle and let out a sigh of relief that she was clearly still breathing. And Daeden… Zari bent to touch his forehead. The skin already felt cooler.
They’d survived. The cadevesh had worked, and she’d saved Daeden.
