Page 35 of Oath-Maker

“Wewere, you mean,” someone, a younger male teen in the back of the room, said. He was tall and lanky, not totally built for fighting demons yet. I wondered how many of these paladins were trainees fresh off recruitment. Ian and Jessa, a few of the others who’d come to Alastia during the battle, they might have been the only loyal senior members left in Serenia.

I lifted my chin as confidence slowly bloomed within me. “Wearepaladins. It may have been revealed to us that the source of our power and oath is less-than-good. That they are Fallen celestials hellbent on destroying not only the demons, but what is left of the human population of our world. And that may leave us feeling bereft. Believe me, I understand it. But we still have our oaths—to the protect the innocent, to fight evil. We haveeach other.”

“No offense,” a young woman to my left said more-than-a-little-sheepishly. She had a short braid of dark hair and questioning eyes. “But since you allied with a demon, how can we trust you, either? Humans have been on their own for so long.”

I nodded and stepped closer to her. “I understand that, too. I was raised in the Order like many of you. The Order was my entire life. So you can trust that I wouldn’t have done anything that I thought would’ve put you or another paladin in danger. My alliance and marriage to the Angel of Death is a direct result of the danger the Fallen pose. We have to fight together, or we will lose not just Lightport or Serenia, but everything.”

“But what about the demons?” she pressed. “We’ve been trained to kill them for years, and you want us to side with them?”

“Yes, I do, Miss…?” I gestured to her.

“Miranda,” she offered.

“Yes, Miranda, I do expect you to.” I had to. And I knew it was asking a lot. “There are plenty of evil, dangerous demons, just as there are evil Fallen and humans. But there are innocent ones, too. Those are worth fighting for as much as we are, and Lucius—the Angel of Death—and I are now very much on the same page about this.”

“Not to be the doubter,” the teen trainee from earlier said, “but you and the Guardian were once on the same page, too. Now he’s taken over Lightport.”

“Jordan,” another paladin hissed at him.

“No, it’s okay. You’re right,” I said to Jordan. “And you know what I say to that? Everything’s changed. We didn’t know about the Fallen back then. And even if we did, could we have stopped this slow incursion in Lightport? Maybe not. But we can now. The future is what matters most. We can change it,together. But I need you to not only trust me, but to see the larger picture that exists past what you—what I,allof us—were trained to believe.”

It was easy now to see how the Fallen had gained control and used us all as puppets against the demons. I did believe that there were celestials in our world from Soltar who genuinely wanted to help humans after their war with the demons had torn this world apart. But I now knew the Light wasn’t one of them. The Light had created the Order to fight on the ground against demons. To create a completely indoctrinated fighting force that could be swayed. And Basara had put one of their own—me—directly in the middle of it.

But no one had suspected my mate bond with Lucius. How could they have?

“I’m in,” Cole said as he joined me at my side. “When I saw you arrive in Lightport with the Guardian, I knew you were here to help us. To save Lightport.”

Isabel chimed in. “And Serenia. You have my sword as well.”

“And mine,” another paladin said, a shorter woman with close-cropped, pink-dyed hair.

Slowly, more and more came forward. I was pretty sure the intended reason for this meeting was to confirm everyone’s participation. Which meant that Isabel and Cole had to have been pretty sure theydidhave the numbers.

A small collection of the fifty promised. Fifty paladins on the inside of Lightport.

It wasn’t an army, but maybe it didn’t need to be.

“I’m also in,” Jordan said, but his prickly tone didn’t match the promise in his words. “But I’m not vowing another oath to the Order. Not after all of this.”

“You don’t have to,” I said. “In my eyes, our oath wasn’t to them. It was to the greater good.”

Jordan shook his head and drew a hand through the air. “We need a new oath to a better group. A new name to fit our new purpose.”

I glanced around the room. Many nodded in agreement, while others fidgeted in place with clasped hands and rocking feet. A number had black-painted nails or black beaded jewelry like Cole’s. On some it was a black scarf, too, something equally both innocuous and easily ignored. But I saw the signs all around me now.

Black like shadow. Like Lucius’s magic.

I held my hand out to Cole. “Give me your sword.” He did so without hesitation. I held it before me and summoned my magic to its runes. On another, a blade would form with radiant celestial light—the power promised to us by the Light when we became paladins. But I had a new source of power now, a mate bond that had changed everything.

My blade formed out of starry night, an inky-black shade of magic the same color as my wings, which I also opened as I stepped back. Some of the paladins gasped, but Isabel only grinned. She was the first to step before me and kneel.

“I vow to protect the innocent, no matter where they come from,” Isabel said. “To vanquish the Fallen from Serenia. To rebuild our home with hope, and light, and cooperation.”

That was a better vow than anything I could’ve come up with on the spot, so I nodded and let the blade rest just above her shoulder without touching it. “The oath is yours, to our small new Order of Shadow Paladins.”

Isabel bowed her head a little, an acknowledgement, and then stood so Cole could take her place, repeating, “I vow to protect the innocent, no matter where they come from. To vanquish the Fallen from Serenia. To rebuild our home with hope, and light, and cooperation.”

One by one, I swore in my new Shadow Paladins. More would come in the next days—I was sure of it. But for now, these few were leading the way.

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