Page 36 of Fragile Oath

“Is it true?” I finally found my voice, holding the parchment out for Gal to see.

His gaze darted from the note up to my face just as a cry rang out across the road.

We turned just in time to see one of the rebels go down. Her dark ringlets fell into her face as she gripped her stomach, blood pooling from the wound out onto the ground. Davin called out for his cousin, succeeding in gaining the attention of Alexei as well.

Gal darted past me, dipping into the carriage to grab his medical kit.

“Yes,” he said, before turning away once again. “It’s true.”

I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until he confirmed it. My parents were safe… My knees trembled and vision swam.

I didn’t have long to feel relief, though, not when Alexei’s sword was dripping with blood and he was circling Davin like a predator.

Davin gave a quick nod of his head, gesturing for the rest of the rebels and soldiers to fall back. Alexei let out a low laugh, a sound wholly unfamiliar in the rough cadence of his voice.

“You actually think you can best me in combat?” he asked, adjusting his grip on the hilt of his sword.

Davin arched a midnight brow, his eyes narrowing as he took up a defensive position. A ghost of a smirk crossed his lips, but fury blazed behind his eyes.

“I guess we’ll find out,” he said coolly.

Alexei glanced from me back to Davin, a flash of betrayal evident on his features before he lunged at Davin without warning.

Then there was a blur of motion, an endless clash of steel. I waited for the inevitable moment. Surely, if it came down to it, Gallagher would intervene. He wouldn’t let his cousin die for honor. That’s not who the Lochlannians were, certainly not the royal family.

But my fears, as it turned out, were unnecessary. Davin was grace in motion. He blocked each of Alexei’s attacks with movements that bordered on lazy.

I had somehow forgotten that when I got out of the carriage, his sword was stained red with blood — that he had been fighting the Wolf soldiers and hadn’t even appeared to break a sweat.

Another flash of steel, another thunderous crash of sword against sword. Davin ducked and weaved, dodging Alexei’s attacks with the grace of a dancer. And he took advantage of his battlefield, pushing Alexei toward the uneven ground, using it to off-foot him until he stumbled.

The moment he did, Davin kicked up some snow and dirt from the road into Alexei’s eyes, using the distraction to go on the offensive.

His sword sliced through the air with an intensity I had never come to expect from him. His expression was carved in stone, unyielding and unreadable as he brought his weapon down again and again like one of the relentless storms in Socair.

Gallagher came to stand next to me. In my periphery, I noticed the blood on his hands and the girl he’d helped, standing next to her friends — only barely nursing the wound that should have killed her.

Still, I couldn’t focus on those things for too long, not when I could barely tear my eyes away from Davin and Alexei.

“Davin might be the least competitive of our family. He doesn’t try when it comes to casual sparring,” Gal said after a moment. “I think he likes to make people forget that he’s trained with the best swordsmen in the kingdom since he was old enough to hold a blade.”

Of course he did. Because Davin always had a plan, and half of that plan was in making people underestimate him. He didn’t carry his power around on his shoulders, wielding it like a battering ram the way Alexei did. He carried it like a poisoned dagger, tucked out of sight and twice as deadly for it.

Alexei was not the only one who had underestimated him, and damn if I didn’t hate being part of that short list.

It was over faster than I would have believed possible, with Davin’s sword back at Alexei’s throat. With a sweep of his leg, Davin forced Alexei to his knees, kicking his sword away in one swift motion.

Just as I thought he was going for the finishing blow, he hesitated. His gaze found mine without hesitation, like he knew exactly where I was standing by instinct alone, like he was pulled to me by the same force that constantly tugged at my own soul.

“Your choice,” he said quietly, speaking to me like we were the only two people in this clearing, in the world. “The sword or the cell.”

I looked at Alexei, a giant felled by a man he had done nothing but mock. His face was impassive, every inch of him defiantly clinging to whatever pride he had left in the end. Being put in a cell — a Lochlannian cell, no less — would effectively rid him of that dignity.

Perhaps I should want that. Perhaps some part of me did want him to feel as small, as helpless, as insignificant as he had made me feel.

Wanted him to know what it was to be crushed under the heel of someone you wouldneverbe able to defeat.

But hadn’t he ruled over my life for long enough? I didn’t want the threat of his return looming in my existence. I didn’t want to know he was alive out there, waiting for a chance to reclaim what he believed was his.

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