Page 127 of An Honored Vow

“But he wasn’t there …” I thought aloud trying to piece together Damien’s last puzzle. My breath hitched. Collin hadn’t been there the night I made that oath, but he had been in the audience the night of Nikolai’s feast celebrating the return of Maerhal. The night he told the Elverin of the oath I had made only days into our alliance to help me earn their trust.

I closed my hand and the flames sputtered out. “What does an old oath have to do with this? Is this truly what you want to spend your last words discussing?”

Damien shook his head like a disappointed tutor about to chastise a student. “I know that when you made that oath, you knew little of magic. You didn’t know what you had promised. But how can you not see it now?”

I snarled, making sure my fangs were on full display. “I would never hurt Nikolai.”

“Yes, you would.”

I kicked him in the gut. Damien merely coughed and wiped his face again. Red blood smeared across his jaw and cheek. It was like an unmasking, his feral, predatory self finally on display with nothing to hide. The sight unnerved me.

“Explain or I will burn you until your skin blisters to ash, then heal you so I can do it again.”

The briefest look of fear flashed across Damien’s face before settling into cool resolve. He hoisted his other arm behind him so he was leaning against the throne, casual and unperturbed. Damien still thought he was in control. I gritted my teeth and started to pull the air from his lungs. He coughed and waved his hand.

“There was no time limit on your oath, Keera.” He paused, making sure I had ceased my attack before continuing. “You made yourselfvulnerable. For as long as you and Nikolai both live, you cannot do him harm. If you do, you die.”

I laughed. “Most people don’t have trouble not inflicting harm on their friends.” I had bruised and nicked Nikolai many times in training practice. And I had definitely pained him emotionally more times than I liked to admit. None of those instances had triggered the oath. Damien was too confident. Feron had taught me enough of magic to know that the oath would only hold me to the spirit in which it was made. That night I wanted to convince Riven and Syrra that I wouldn’t kill their friend. And Nikolai was nothing but safe around my blades.

“Yes, I’m aware of the sentimentality of lesser creatures.” Damien started to pull at the cufflinks along his left sleeve. “It’s what makes you so easy to manipulate.”

He pulled back the fine black fabric of his sleeve. A burn circled his wrist. It was beautiful, delicate wisps of fine lines that would settle to an almost unnoticeable silver.

It matched the one around Nikolai’s wrist.

“This is why you didn’t kill him?” Rage radiated through me with so much force my voice shook.

Damien gave me a feline smirk. “Icouldn’tkill him. If he dies, I die. That’s how tethers work.”

I froze. Tethers were rivers that flowed in both directions.

“So when you kill me, you will be killing your precious Nikolai too,” Damien said, reading the fear on my face. “And that blood oath you were so foolish to have made will claim your life for it. I may not have won our game, Keera, but neither have you.”

My lips quivered as I threw my words at him like flaming arrows. “We have shattered your kingdom into pieces.”

Damien’s grin was dangerous. “And if you kill me, you won’t live to see them fall.”

“Did you think that would protect you?” I paced in front of him, needing somewhere to focus my energy so I could think. “Bind your life to Nikolai’s, and we would let you live out the rest of your days in a cell instead of hanging you from the city wall?”

Damien jutted his chin at my exposed arms with a laugh. “You wear the truth on your flesh and still don’t see it?” He shook his head. “You have been weighing the value of people’s lives for your entire tenure as Blade. Deciding whose life was worth the risk and whose was not. Rudimentary and uncalibrated, but the math is written on your skin all the same.”

“Make your point,” I demanded through clenched teeth.

“I didn’t tether my life to that dirty Elf as a chance to save myself, Keera. I know you too well for that.” There was a glint in Damien’s dark eye. His tongue ran across his bottom lip. Damien wanted this. He knew that one life, even one I cared about or would kill a thousand soldiers for, would not be enough for me to spare him.

It wasn’t worth the risk.

“You have a debt to pay,” he whispered. Damien knew the truth of it now; he knew how we had deceived him, but he also knew exactly what that night meant to me.

I had a vow to honor.

A promise.

Damien unbuttoned his collar to reveal the glowing light embedded into his chest. The pendant. Damien was using it to call back one of the remainingshirak.A loud screech shook the ground as the beast circled overhead. The skies had filled with smoke again, allowing it to fly freely. There was no time to get anyone else. There was no time to defend them before the beast attacked. My heart hammered in my chest. The fields were full of innocents collecting the dead. Many who would die if I didn’t end this now. I couldsee Damien’s heart beating behind the pendant—they were fused as one. Breaking it would kill him. And that would kill Nikolai.

My throat tightened. Had I not fought Riven and the others on trading the pendant because I knew that Nik’s life was not worth hundreds? Had I not said that I would want any of them to make the right choice and let me die?

Damien had put me in the same position—balancing the value of people’s lives until the very end. The job had always been mine. At least this time it would cost me my own.

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