21. Chapter 21
Chapter 21
I had never been in the palace this early, as I was part of what was called the third hunt. The Fae liked to call the fleet of humans that lived below them in the catacombs, in a mockery of their favorite pastime, the wild hunt. Each of us was assigned to a specific squadron of individuals. I had to, upon reflection, admire the precision with which each was arranged. It allowed the great hordes of humans that the Fae ignored, to move about the castle and funnel up into it without overwhelming the corridors.
Even when three entire fleets of humans were scurrying about the palace, I was one of two humans in this corridor.
I made my way, unattended for the first time in weeks, to that dreaded bedroom I was shackled to by day. I hadn’t seen The Raven nor the King since the incident with Lady White Dove.
At night, I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, concerned that I might have killed him. The image of that great man collapsing against a table and needing to be helped away haunted me in the darkness of the warrens. He had been kinder to me than most other Fae, and there was a certain regret that rotted in the pits of my stomach over the idea that I might have accidentally killed him. If he died by my hand, I wanted it to be on purpose, and I wanted to watch the light flee from his damnable, stunning, annoyingly beautiful forest eyes.
I was lost in thought when I bumped into the Chamberlain, the human whose job it was to arrange and manage the entire royal quarter’s fleet of servants. He bristled under the contact and pushed me away.
“What are you doing here, Cricket!” he demanded, the feathers woven into his hair twitching in irritation.
“Uh . . . pretty sure that should be obvious?” I made a vague gesture toward that damned oak door a few paces from the junction we had collided in.
“Are you stupid, girl?”
“Apparently as stupid as your reflection, sir. ” I emphasized that last bit as he had scolded me for not “addressing him with his proper due” the last time I had the displeasure of speaking with him.
He scowled deep into the walrusy bristle of his mustache.
I rolled my eyes and jammed my fist into my hip. “Is there a reason you’re blocking me from getting on with my day?”
“Watch your attitude, Cricket. Or I’ll have you chastised.”
“You know, I’m getting real tired of all the endless hollow threats, Chamberlain. You, the Laundress, the guards. Every one of you seems to think I’m absolutely terrified of a little pain. And none of you seem to have the cock to follow through. So. Spare me your tired threats and tell me why I shouldn’t be here. Or do it. Either way would be far more interesting than what we’re doing.”
If he had spikes crafted onto him, he would have bristled from head to toe with my simple annoyed statement. I was right, and he knew it. Whatever had happened, no matter how lippy I had gotten since the last time I saw The Raven, I had been left alone. While others were slapped and beaten for the smallest of mistakes, I remained relatively ignored save for weak threats.
“Fine,” he growled, narrowing his eyes on me. “Return to the warrens. The court has gone on the hunt, and His Majesty has not visited his quarters in two days’ time. There is nothing for you to do in there today.”
“Oh, gee! Does this mean I get a Saturday all to myself to lounge about and work on my firelight tan?”
“It’s Tuesday.”
“It was sarcasm. ”
“Just return to the warrens, dammit!” He snarled and stomped, pointing back down the corridor.
“Sure thing, boss. I’ll definitely do exactly that.” I smiled sweetly and turned on my heel.
I had absolutely no intention of returning to the warrens. If I was granted a day without the guards looming about and a day I was not locked into the King’s apartments, I was going to make the most of it.
Every morning, I had used my fingernail to scratch a 21 into the top of my thigh. Reminding myself of my promise but also to remind me that this place was not my home, and I needed to find a way out as soon as possible.
I had been blinded when I came here so I didn’t even know where the entrance was, but I was going to find it today.
I wandered the palace, walking corridor after corridor, virtually abandoned by souls aside from the occasional human and the even more rare guard. I found the kitchens, full of a small hive of humans cleaning pots and pans and cooking. I watched them for a long while, as they loaded wicker baskets with food for a small army and set them on a windowsill to be carried off by unseen creatures.
After stealing a roll from a cooling rack, I abandoned the kitchens, out a door that led into what looked to be a kitchen garden. The air was redolent with spices hanging thick like the freshest incense. I strolled lazily, soaking in the warmth of the sun as I walked the rows of vegetables and berries.
This would have been an idyllic day, surrounded by the bounty of nature and the sun on my face, if it weren’t for the press of reality.
A small corner of the garden hid an abandoned wooden gate, draped in brilliant green ivy, blending it nearly completely into the ancient stonework. A quick look around told me that no one was outside. Not a single soul would see me as I snuck to the gate and pried it open. No one would witness me as I slipped through it and settled it back on its latch.
It was not that simple, though, and the garden I slipped out of was part of a greater complex. The one behind the gate was massive. So massive that as I stood on tip toes on a large boulder, I could barely spy the edges of it melting into a vast orchard of trees. If freedom was on the other side of those trees, I would find it. I had all day to wander, with no one keeping track of me.
The garden of the palace proper was virtually abandoned, like the rest of the castle, except for the humans that tended to it, and they had no time nor interest in watching another human walk through their hard work as long I didn’t disturb it. So, I did, wandering the neatly manicured hedges and flower beds. The riot of colors, the majesty of the sculptures and fountains, was humbling. In another world, in another time, I would have stopped to truly marvel at the otherworldly beauty that was laid out before me. Flowers I had never seen before and didn’t know the names of bloomed in dinner plate size blossoms. Fae flowers that were so breathtakingly beautiful sweetened the air and filled it with a glittering whimsy that was straight out of some fantasy movie.
It was truly a garden of Eden. Too bad the normal denizens of this garden were more evil than even the snake that had inhabited Eden.
It took me the better part of the day to make it through the garden with the occasional stop at a pond filled with glowing jewel-like fish swimming lazily in dark water surrounded by shimmering water lilies.
The orchard surrounding the garden proper was a milúll grove—because of course it was. The shadows lingered thick between the gnarled ancient trunks, speared through with the radiance of a sun that the boughs did everything in their power to hide. I had never been truly afraid of the shadows, not in the traditional sense. I had been afraid of what might hide in those shadows.
Here, though, I knew what nightmares were hiding in them. They stalked the hallways and corridors that I traversed every day. There was no need for me to fear what might be in the shadows when the reality was as horrific as anything my mind could conjure.
“I wouldn’t advise it.”
The voice of a woman, gentle and melodic, sounded from my left, and I turned to face it, ready to fight off anyone that would stop me from my mission .
It was a Fae woman, one I had seen in the throne room the first day I was here, but I couldn’t place exactly why I remembered her. Only a watery memory of sunlight catching her soft summer-sky eyes stood in my mind, the finer details erased completely. She was beautiful then, but in repose and with the golden halo of the sun playing in her rich chocolate locks, she was a goddess.
She sat at the base of one of the fruit trees, the vastness of her skirts swallowing up her legs, a swath of grass below her and the roots she sat on in a blanket of midnight-blue velvet that feasted on the sunlight and cast back a soft radiance of its own. A carafe of water, condensation sliding down its surface, and two glasses were off to one side while a small picnic basket rested atop her dress, and in her lap was a large leather-bound book.
Pale cornflower-blue eyes smiled up at me as I debated whether I should run or act cool. The roses that seemed to grow directly from her scalp danced between her soft curls and caught the light nearly glowing with their perfect deep-red hue.
“Why not?”
It was a stupid question. I should be ignoring this woman. She was dangerous. She was part of the court and the only Fae I had met that were even somewhat decent people were from the temple. The jury was still out on The Raven.
She shrugged and bit into the juicy flesh of a fresh milúll, gesturing with it as she crunched. “Spiders” was her simple proclamation with a mouth full of burgundy fruit.
I was not thrilled with the spiders in Human. I had no interest in learning what Fae spiders looked like. My waking nightmares conjured great minivan sized creatures with too many eyes and mouth parts dripping with venom.
“I can handle a few spiders.” I lied.
“Oh, sure, a few. But the spiders love the fruit and the . . . creatures it lures. There’s more than a few out in the darker parts of the orchards.” She pushed aside her book and then the picnic basket, patting the furthest part of her blanket-like skirt. “Come, sit awhile in the sun with me. I have cheese, some cold water, and I managed to convince the Bandrui to let me take some of her loaves this morning. It’s not palace fare, but her bread is the best in the land. I swear she uses magic to bake it. And the cheese is from the lower larder so not too rich and the salt crystals in it are Feidlimid’s own blessing.”
She stopped herself and blushed behind her hand. “I’m so sorry. That was rude of me. Please, come sit down and keep me company? It’s not an order, by the by. Please choose whatever you wish. It’s only that I don’t want to go in there after you. I don’t like spiders. They make my skin crawl—pardon the pun. Oh, gosh, look at me jabbering on and on . . . I’m sorry I’m Oaken Rose, and you are?”
She tittered on like a nervous bird, and I hated to admit it, but it was endearing. I nervously toed a stone stuck in the damp ground before deciding, Fuck it . I wasn’t into fist fighting a creature with eight fists today.
“Cricket,” I mumbled as I crept closer to the Fae woman, caution giving me pause to watch her as I did so. The gentle smile seemed natural on her pale face, the soft dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose making it seem as at home as the sun was in the sky.
“Like the bug?”
“Everyone asks that. Yes, like the bug.”
“I read once, in some cultures in Human, they are considered lucky. Is that true?” She poured me a glass of the cool water and passed it to me as I sat.
“I think so? I’m not entirely sure, to be honest.”
I was caging and didn’t want to tell her that the reason I had named my snake that and subsequently myself was because when I got Cricket, I felt a bit like Pinocchio. I hadn’t felt like a real girl at the time. I was lost and alone and in a strange world. Cricket was my lifeline to stability, just like Pinocchio’s cricket.
“It’s a lovely name, Cricket, and it’s a pleasure to meet you. I was there when The Raven brought you in, you know.” She was busying her hands by slicing cheese from the basket and setting it on a small rustic-looking wooden saucer. I winced at the memory of the throne room, and she noted it softening further. Her hand stilled on the cheese and came to rest on mine. Her pale-blue gaze met mine, and her voice dropped with sincerity. “I’m so sorry, Cricket. Genuinely, I am. This business with how some of the younger Fae treat humans is abominable. And what happened that day, all of it, should have never happened. I am deeply sorry for all the pain and terror you have been put through.”
I squirmed under her regard. It felt invasive for a woman I didn’t know to be apologizing for something that she should not know about let alone be sorry for. She was not the one that had harmed me. She was not the one that kept me captive here. She was just another Fae in the court but her apology had hooks none the less, and it sank deep into my heart and wriggled between my barriers. “It’s fine.”
She went quiet, simply watching me for a long time. I felt like she wanted to push on, to make it a point to say that it wasn’t fine, but she was keen enough to the cautious air about me not to do so.
“I hear you had the displeasure of meeting Lady White Dove.” Oaken Rose offered as a means to exit the awkward silence that hung about us. She sipped her water, a cat’s grin playing on her lips.
I knew that look. That was the look of a gossip getting ready to have a full session. It was one I didn’t often get included in, and I was intrigued. I let myself slowly lower my plush body down onto her skirt, prepared at a moment’s notice to leap up and scatter if she turned on me.
“I did . . .” I left the road open for her, eager to see where she would drive this vehicle.
“She is the absolute worst. She’s new to court, you know. She’s been here maybe a week or two longer than you have and thinks she runs the place. Walks around with her nose held high and boasting about how her gifts are so incredibly strong and how she is almost assured to be selected to ascend.”
She passed me the water, and I accepted. “She wants to be a god? Is that . . . I don’t know, is that a common ambition for you guys?”
“Common? No, not especially. There are only nine gods, after all. And despite the recent events, they rarely chose to return to magic. It’s incredibly rare. To even say it’s a once in a lifetime event would be too common. It’s a once in an epoch event. Most of us have never even seen an ascension ceremony, let alone the two that we should be facing. So, for Lady White Dove of all people, daughter of a minor lordling from the árus Adaig court, whose mother escaped the purge of Dawn only by virtue of her marriage, to consider herself worthy of ascending let alone becoming a chosen heir is . . .” She paused, trying to find some analogy that seemed to elude her. “Well. It’s the height of arrogance. Which I’m sure you can guess, is not exactly a shock.”
I smirked. “So, there’s no god of arrogance? She might have a shot, then. Sounds like there’s a hole to be filled.”
She laughed with me, the sound like water rushing over rounded pebbles in a creek.
“You have a beautiful laugh, Cricket,” she said with a smile as the laughter petered off. “I’m glad that this place has not taken it from you. Please, don’t lose it.”
A wan, watery smile was given to her as she passed me a round of the Bandrui’s bread. My mouth watered to taste that luscious crunchy heel again. “I’ll try.”
She pulled a piece from her own round, nibbling on it in silence for a while. “Cricket . . . can . . . Can I ask what you are doing out here?”
Alarm bells were ringing in my head.
She caught the shift in my demeanor, quickly trying to course correct. “No, no, it’s only . . . It’s only that I know humans are not allowed out of the palace. And the court is all off on the hunt . . .”
“I’m looking for a way out.”
I took a gamble. It was foolish, and I knew the moment it left my lips I should not have, but it felt good to be unburdened to try and trust.
“In the orchards?” She squeaked in fear. “Cricket, unless you’re courting the final way out, the orchard is not the way at all.”
I shrugged casually, brushing off the idea that I had almost walked into the jaws of my own doom. “Well, it’s not exactly like I know where I’m going. I don’t even know where the front of the palace is versus where the entryway is.”
She mumbled a long mmm around an especially crunchy bit of bread. “That’s by design. All the exits are woven with magic to prevent humans from being able to see them let alone find them. You could walk the entire palace for three hundred years and never see a single door that would lead you off the grounds. Even if you go through the orchards and somehow manage to not run afoul of the spiders and other beasties, you’ll walk until you fall down and die and never find an exit or a wall to climb.”
I sat back fully on my ass as I watched her, both annoyed and astounded at the deviousness of it all. “You people have thought of it all, haven’t you?” I exhaled in exasperation.
She shrugged bashfully. “I’m sorry, Cricket. It’s not exactly something I had a hand in, but, yes. The architects of the palace grounds were incredibly clever. I’ve lived on these grounds for a little over one hundred fifty years, and I am daily discovering new little aspects of it. There are secrets about the secrets about the secrets of this place. To be true, the guards only follow the humans to ensure they don’t get lost and die in an empty bedroom somewhere where no one can help them. Otherwise, the humans are free to roam the grounds as much or as little as they like. There’s no risk of their escape, and there’s other protections, too.”
I shivered at the idea, lost in a maze of corridors and hallways that never seem to end, having not seen another face for thousands of years. Not that I knew exactly how long a human could live in this place.
“I need to get out, though, Oaken Rose. I can’t . . . I can’t live like this. As a daoire.” I didn’t like the desperation that crept into my voice and set up shop between the letters of each word.
She regarded me in silence for a long time. Both of us sullenly eating our cheese and bread while we stewed over our individual parts in the atrocity that played out around us.
“Cricket . . .” She broke the silence after what seemed an hour, when the snacks had all but dried up. “I . . . I can’t promise anything, but I could perhaps try and help.”
I cocked my brow at her. Rules #1 and #6 banged on drums in my head. No one’s coming to save you. Debt is a great way to kill yourself. “How. ”
It was less a question and more a demand for additional information.
“I could try to find a way out for you. I don’t know if I can. And I’ll need something from you to be able to do it. But I can try.”
“Ah . . . a price. Let me guess, you want me to kill someone for you or something?” Suspicion and distrust were skipping side by side all over my face as hers blanched with innocence.
“No! No, nothing like that! It’s the way things work here. It’s how magic works. If I am to do something that is not normally able to be done—in this case, find some way for a human to break free of this place—I must have a contract with them, if you will. An agreement for payment. Only then will magic be willing to bless my actions. I’m not a very strong Fae. I don’t have mountains of stable magic at my fingertips ready to do my bidding whenever I have the need. If I did, I would not ask this of you, Cricket. You must believe me, but since I don’t, and I truly do wish to help you . . . I can only do what is necessary.” Her hand reached out and snaked around mine, squeezing it hard with her hope I will believe her. “Please, Cricket, I know my people have treated you horribly. I hate it. I hate what they do to humans every day and how they treat them. Let me help you?”
“What would the payment be.” I did not budge, did not move a single muscle or let my face react to her plaintive intercession.
“I don’t know. We could think of the payment. Something meaningless to you. Something you don’t even want. But something big enough that magic will deem it a worthy price for its help.”
“Like what?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea, Cricket. I didn’t wake up this morning thinking through the nuances of oath binding magic.” She chuckled at her own inadequacy, and I couldn’t help but find it endearing. Sweet, even.
“Can you word the oath that way?”
“What way?”
“That my payment will be something I do not want.”
A delicate finger, stained slightly with the dried juices of the fruit she had finished, tapped her chin as she thought long about it. “I . . . I believe so? I am a clumsy oath maker, though. The Bandrui could certainly help us if you are serious about wanting this. She is the most skilled oath speaker in the entire realm.”
I shook my head. “No, one more head involved is one more face that could turn on us. Just us. We will work out the wording of this oath together.”
“Then, we will have to craft the agreement ourselves. How about I will help you find a way to escape the palace grounds? In exchange, you will give me that which you have but you do not want. That which is heavier than the sun but cannot be measured. That which . . . Hmm.” She paused, her beautiful face twisting in concentration as she tried to think of the next line. “It must be something of value, though. étain’s tits. Uhm . . .”
“So, just that. Something that has value to others but I do not value?”
“Yes! Perfect. That which is yours and valued by others but you do not value.”
“And you only get it when you help . . .” I paused, thinking of all the faces in the warrens of those I had come to treasure. If it was going to be a deal, I was going to try to save as many of them as I could. “When you help me and all the rest of the humans.”
Her sky-blue eyes rounded like an owl. “Cricket, that’s too many! I can’t do that. There’s not enough magic in what we are crafting together. At least I don’t think. I don’t even know what it is you are promising away, and the wording must be very specific, or it won’t work.”
I deflated. “Fine. How about ‘and those I trust.’ I don’t trust very many humans in the warrens.”
She smiled softly to me, patting my hand. “That’s probably for the best, to be frank. Many of the humans . . . the longer they’ve been here, the more Fae-like they become.”
“I’ve noticed,” I stated blandly, remembering the Laundress and how she had not been seen again since that day in the baths.
“Okay. So, and those you trust. There’s also a very standard part of oaths. To bind an oath, it must be usually bound by true names. But since you are a human and are not bound by your name like we are, it must be bound on something else. Something that makes you who you are and something that you cannot alter.”
“Like blood? I mean, that’s about as close to something like it that a human has.”
“Ooh! Yes! Like blood. No one can take your blood from you. It will always be yours.” She was nearly wriggling with her excitement over the conspiracy we crafted together. “Fire. We’ll need fire. Fae oaths are sealed on the air element, but unless you can vaporize our blood, that won’t work.”
I snorted a laugh and produced a small box of matches from the pocket I had taken to wearing on my belt. They had been artfully lifted from the store His Majesty kept in his chambers for his candles. In the warrens, you had two choices for acquiring fire, light it off the main hearth and hope that you could make it back to your alcove in time not to burn your hand and with the flame still alive or hope you were agile enough to light your candle directly off the open firepit. Having a tiny box of matches was like having gold.
Seeing the box of matches, she began clapping with child-like glee. “You are so prepared! Yes, okay, so we will cut our fingers when we say our part and then we will repeat the other person’s part and light the blood on fire. Oh!” She snatched my glass of water and dumped its contents in the grass, then dried it on her skirt and set it before us. “So, I will say what I will give you, you will say what you will give me and then we will say the whole thing together. Are you ready?”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, some small voice whispered faintly about how this was a terrible idea, how I shouldn’t be making deals with anyone let alone a Fae woman I had just met. But I was desperate. I could only survive so many days watching the Ard Rí rape daora, courtiers, and anyone else who happened to have the misfortune of existing in his orbit. The Raven had presumably abandoned me, and even when he had been around, he could not protect me from most things, it seemed. All he could do was give me long looks with those devastatingly magnetic eyes and turn my insides to water, wishing he would touch me .
“Ready,” I said, locking that tiny voice of doubt away and risking it. Either I would get a way out, or she would have taken something from me that I didn’t even want.
“I, Oaken Rose, pledge that I will assist you and your trusted humans in escaping the palace.” She shoved the blade of her cheese knife into the tip of her willowy finger and let several drops of her blood fall into the mouth of the goblet before passing me the blade.
“I, Cricket, pledge to give you in payment that which I have but do not want. That which is heavier than the sun but cannot be measured. That which is mine that others value, but I do not. I will give this payment when you assist me and my trusted humans in escaping the palace.” I plunged the tip of the knife into the tip of my finger and let the blood drip into the throat of the cup.
The Oaken Rose took the matches and struck one as she looked to me to repeat it with her. “The Oaken Rose pledges to assist Cricket and her trusted humans in escaping the palace. Cricket pledges to pay this debt with that which she has but does not want. That which is heavier than the sun but cannot be measured. That which is hers right now and she does not value. She will pay this when The Oaken Rose assists her and her trusted humans in escaping the palace.”
I repeated what she said word for word, and she lit the blood on fire. I expected the match to sizzle out from the liquid, but instead, it fell, caught the edge of the mingled pool on fire, and a great plume of neon-blue-and-white flame shot from the cup. Small flecks of blood, her red and my milky gold, danced in the air between us before popping in miniature fireworks until there was nothing in the goblet and nothing left between us. I felt every single pop against my skin like zaps of electricity as the air around us snapped and sizzled with the magic that now bound us.
“That was . . .” I tried to finish the sentence, but a sensation gripped me. It was like a snake slithering under my skin, running up my arm from the tip of my finger into my chest. It tugged at something there. Something stuck and then dissipated before I could even remark on it .
“Magic!” she said, filling the gap in my statement. “I’ve always loved the dazzling show of oath binding. It’s rare to see between Fae, you know. But I’ve never seen what happens when you bind one with blood. It was amazing.”
Wonder and joy played across her angelic face while I struggled with the strange feeling that made my mind squirm with discomfort. Something wasn’t right. Is that what magic truly felt like?
I had only experienced magic a few times, and it had mostly been against or without my consent. Was it different when someone walked into magic with their eyes wide open and with their consent? If this was what the aftermath of reaching out and using magic felt like, I was very glad that I was not a creature made of this.
I gave Oaken Rose a placating smile, one that acknowledged her excitement but couldn’t even fake that I wasn’t enjoying myself.
“Are you okay, Cricket? Was that too hard on the human body?” Her concern suddenly felt too saccharine. Too put-on. Too forced.
“No, no, it’s fine. I just . . . I don’t think I like magic too much. And I think maybe it might be a good idea if I went back inside. I don’t know when the others will be back from the hunt. And I was supposed to be in the warrens.” Regret was pounding heavy strokes through my blood, and I suddenly wanted to be anywhere but near this Fae. Or any Fae for that matter.
“Would you like me to walk you to the warrens entrance? So that no one thinks you were . . . well, trying to do what you were trying to do?”
“No . . . no it’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
I pushed from the ground and stumbled a small step before catching my balance. Exhaustion and worry plagued my steps as I carried myself back to the warrens and all the way to my cot where I lay down and stared into the darkness.
Goose,—the former kin’tha now revealed to be a failinis—I had renamed after another cat that was more than it seemed, was there. Despite our discussion about him staying close to me when I wasn’t in the warrens, he was still tractable and temperamental as always. If I could get him out of bed or away from the hearth, he would follow me. This morning was too early for him, and he had opened one yellow eye to me and made a sound I had come to realize was his sound for go away. Why it sounded like a freight train hitting the brakes was anyone’s guess.
“Wish you had been there with me today, Goose,” I whispered as he leapt up and made himself comfortable on my chest. He liked to rest his chin on mine in hopes I would scritch him. He always got what he wanted, and I was tucking my nail under his chin and scratching before I had even thought about it. “I met someone . . . I—”
I frowned.
I was trying to tell Goose about the deal I made with Oaken Rose, but nothing came out. I couldn’t even get my lips to curl around the word shapes and try to push air through. Fear lanced through me as I tried to rise to hide. Goose dug his claws in and glared at me. The only time I had felt something similar was with the tongue lock the King had put on me, but why would the King be in the warrens? And this was different. The King’s tongue lock prevented sound from leaving, this . . . I could not even mouth the words to what I wanted to say.
I lay there silently, listening for any footsteps in the dark to reveal someone approaching, but there was no one. It was just Goose and I in the warrens.
“Fucking Fae,” I hissed. It had to be connected to the oath I had taken with Oaken Rose. Some part of the magic she didn’t tell me about. Fucking bitch.
She had seemed so sincere, though. She had genuinely seemed like she wanted to help me. Like she gave a fucking shit about the horrible things that I had been forced to endure. I didn’t like that I was doubting myself or the choices I had made, but there was nothing to be done about it. I was locked in. And the oath had been simple. Something I didn’t give a shit about in exchange for freedom, something I did care about. I could tolerate it for a little longer.