Page 16 of Oath-Maker

Jessa nodded and reached for my hand. I held hers between mine. “What I know is that you care for your people, so Alastia is as lucky to have you as the Order always has been. We’ll figure this out, Ayla. Besides, even if you’re prophesied to destroy the demons, it doesn’t mean you will. Just means some old hag hundreds of years ago decided to write something down.” She smiled again, an unspoken question on her lips this time.

Are you going to be okay for now?

I didn’t need to hear it aloud to know that she was wondering.

I squeezed her hand. “Yes. I’ll be okay, at least until Merek returns—”

A loud screech pierced the sky. Jessa and I turned in unison to find light flashing along the closest city border. Not lightning, but radiant magic.

Paladin magic.

Only then did our guards catch up to us, running now to protect me as they were.

“What are the chances those are just our people training with some demons?” I asked Jessa as dread settled low in my gut. Instinct told me that was definitely not what was happening.

Jessa shook her head. “Ian wouldn’t take them to the edge of the city like that.”

“Right.” I turned to the guards who’d accompanied us. “We’re going to check that out.”

The tallest stepped in front of me while the others flanked my sides. “Out of the question, with all due respect.”

I leveled him with a gaze. “I’ve fought on the front lines for years. Wouldn’t it be beneficial to the people of Alastia to see their queen fighting for them?”

“It’s dangerous,” he said curtly, his gaze hard.

“I understand that.” I tucked the scroll away as best I could under my waistband and pulled my shirt over it before drawing my celestial sword. With a tiny burst of radiant magic, the blade lit with pulsing power. “Let’s make quick work of it, then.”

I went to pass the guards, which gave them pause the same way Basara’s radiant magic should’ve given Lucius pause, but the guard grabbed my arm above my elbow.

“As the only ruler of Alastia who—”

I cut him a glare. “Iunderstand. But I don’t stand by while evil lurks, that’s the first oath I took. And it happens to beourpeople who might need this help. Are you going to let me go and fight with me, or detain and forcibly return me to the castle?”

The guard’s jaw locked. I saw Jessa cringe out of the corner of my eye but ignored her. I understood the danger. If I died, and then Lucius did, there’d be no one to rule and protect Alastia and all of its citizens. But I’d never been one to sit inside when there was danger. I wouldn’t be sitting this one out.

“Fine,” he said with heavy reluctance. “As you wish, my queen.”

Finally. “Thank you.”

We took off as a group toward the screeching and the radiant magic flares. Demons ran away from it toward us, but we only stopped long enough to heal any injured before moving on. On the very edge of the city line, paladins and demons clashed in a fight. I vaguely recognized the paladins as younger ranks, but their names didn’t come to mind. They squared off with non-humanoid demons that looked like crawling wolves made from shadow.

I raised my hand and fired a bolt of radiant magic toward the center of the fighting. The red tinge on the edges of that magic—new though it was—made my chest squeeze tightly. All this time, and I’d never known I was a Fallen. It was possible the Paladins Order didn’t know, either. That they’d always assumed what they saw was truth: tainted magic meant demon, and so “half-demon,” they’d called me.

“Enough!” I shouted over the chaos.

The fighting drew to a stalemate as both sides turned to face our party. Jessa shored up next to me, her celestial sword raised and lit with her magic. The guards flanked me as well, but Jessa managed to take the spot I was sure the tallest guard had wanted.

The paladins sputtered when they saw me. I turned the magic in my hand from radiant celestial power into the potentiality magic that marked me as Lucius’s.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” I looked at each of the paladins in turn, hoping they’d seen reason. Enough paladins had died along this city line already. “The Guardian himself appeared to me. He sends a messenger this morning. There is to be no more fighting until then.”

“They attacked us!” one of the demons called out in rough, guttural words.

I raised an eyebrow. I believed it. The Order, despite the long-ago agreement upon rules of engagement, had often crossed over into Alastia for this and other reasons. So I guess in some respects, I shouldn’t have been so mad with them now.

“Leave,” I told the paladins. “This is not your place.”

“Hard to believe it’s yours,” the female spat. She was Jessa’s age, maybe younger. But old enough to know plenty about me and Merek, and everything the Order had been through over the last few months.

---