Page 183 of Shifting Hearts 1
The doors of the cathedral slammed open before I could finish. Cold air blew in, carrying the stink of war, of ruin. And beneath it, something deeper, sharper — rotten.
That’s what it felt like.
The oath turned inside me. Punishing hesitation. Poisoning refusal.
I opened my tunic and showed him the veins at my ribs — already turning black at the edges. The corruption crept outward from my heart like frost spreading through a cracked pane of glass.
Brannan flinched. “How long until?—”
“Not long,” I said. “Oath-magic’s greedy. Especially when you break its rules.”
He stood, slow and sure, as if he’d known this would come, eventually. As if part of him had been waiting.
He crossed the stone between us and knelt. Reached out. Took my hand.
I should’ve pulled away. Should’ve shoved him, cursed him, anything to keep distance, but I let him touch me, because I was so tired of pretending, I didn’t want to be held by the man I was supposed to kill.
He guided my hand to the side of his neck. His pulse thundered beneath my palm. Warm. Alive.
“I’ll make it easy,” he said. “Do it. End it.”
I blinked.
“No.”
“Eris—”
“No.” My voice cracked. “Don’t ask me to become what they made me. Not tonight. Not with you.”
His expression twisted, but he didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. “If you don’t kill me, it’ll kill you.”
“Then it kills me.”
He stared at me like I’d just handed him his own funeral.
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do.” My throat burned. “You think I haven’t tried to find a way around it? That I haven’t bled and bargained and begged for some loophole? There isn’t one. The oath is carved in bone. I was a child. I didn’t know what I was becoming. But it doesn’t care.”
Brannan’s fingers curled tight around my wrist. “Then let me go. Let me end this for you.”
“I can’t let you die.” I reached up and yanked the dreambone from my throat — the necklace ripped, brittle cord snapping. Teeth scattered across the floor like shattered pearls, like memories lost to the dark.
The magic screamed.
So did I.
The pain was instant — a searing, holy agony that ripped through my chest like a blade dipped in fire. My body convulsed. My knives sparked at my hips. And for a heartbeat, I thought I might die, anyway.
But then the light flared — bright and brutal — and the bond broke.
The death-oath splintered.
The magic in my blood writhed, and then… went still.
I gasped, falling forward onto my hands. Sweat poured from my skin. My head spun.
Brannan caught me before I hit the ground. Cradled me like something sacred. Or ruined.
