Chapter 3
AN OATH brEAKER’S VOW
Asingle lantern burned low by the entrance to the revenant stables. I rubbed the chill from my arms, my breath pluming in the air in front of my face. The braziers on either side of the room had long gone out.
I hurried to the nearest one, intent on relighting it, but Yudh beat me to it.
“Allow me,” he said.
I stepped back with a nod while he set to work. Dhoona strode to the second brazier. A few moments later, firelight licked at the shadows, and heat swelled in the air.
The oath breaker gods prowled the shadows of their cells, obsidian catching firelight, muscles rippling as they paced.
Sassa, their keeper, was dead, and now they were my responsibility.
“What am I going to do with you?” I approached Alliana’s cell and peered into the gloom.
“I can’t leave you here to rot, but I can’t let you out unless I know for sure you won’t hurt anyone.
Sassa said you’d been tamed enough to work with the devouring force, but obviously not enough or you wouldn’t be in cells… ”
“We’ll have to leave them,” Kalani said. “We can’t risk—”
A gruff, broken voice cut her off. “Where Sassa?” A revenant detached itself from the dark recesses of its cell, stepping toward us and the bars.
“Did it just speak?” Kalani whispered.
“Oh, yes…” C’ael said softly.
Was this Alliana, the revenant who’d tried to attack me last time I’d been here? Sassa had obviously learned to tell them apart, despite their lack of distinguishing features.
There was only one way to find out. “Alliana?”
The revenant inclined its massive head. “Yes. Me.”
A soft, sticky, tearing sound filled the silence, and twin slanted slits opened on Alliana’s face. Bright green eyes blinked and fixed on me.
I sucked in a sharp breath, my pulse pounding hard in my throat.
“What the…” Kalani trailed off.
“Where Sassa?” Alliana asked again.
The worry in her tone drew me a step closer to the bars.
“Leela.” Dhoona matched my stride, his arm coming out like a barrier to stop me.
“It’s okay. She won’t hurt me, will you?
” She was different. More lucid than the others.
More in control of her primal urges. I met her gaze, waiting for her to agree.
There were bars between us, so technically she couldn’t get to me, but I needed to know that the intention to harm me was also absent.
So I waited, watching as she shifted from foot to foot, muscles rippling across her powerful body.
Her chest heaved a couple of times, and then she nodded slowly, as if coming to a decision.
“I not harm you,” she said, each word stilted and spoken with effort as if it was painful to articulate.
Twin low snarls erupted behind her, and her head whipped around, a low clicking pulsing from her throat that made every hair on my body stand to attention. Beside me, Kalani let loose a soft curse. Dhoona and Yudh moved to flank us.
The revenants at the back of Alliana’s cell shut up.
She swung her massive head my way, her gaze burning a path over me like jade fire. “Tell me where Sassa,” she asked, tone low with urgency.
I swallowed past the pinch in my throat. “She’s dead. All the warriors are dead.”
Her eyes widened. “Dead?”
“Yes. Poisoned.” I filled her in on the primordial evil and what he’d done. “I have to protect these people and get them to safety. We’ll be leaving here soon. But I…I can’t leave you locked up here, and I don’t know if it’s safe to let you out.”
“You let me out,” she said. “Not others. Not yet. You not be here when others let out.”
Goosebumps pinched at my skin. “Why not? What do you mean?”
“You reek of godhood.”
“I’m just a demigod.”
“No. We see it. The glow.”
“What glow? You fight alongside made gods all the time.”
“You have old glow.”
“Your Deva blood must be making you a target,” C’ael said.
“So what, we let you out and you’ll let the others out when we leave?”
“Yes. We not harm anyone. We go.”
“Leela, you can’t trust them,” Kalani said.
“She was a god once. And this…” I shook my head.
“None of this is her fault. The gods that signed the oath and broke it condemned others to this fate.” I stepped closer to the bars, and Alliana couched slightly so she was eye to eye with me.
“I’m giving you my trust, Alliana. Please do not break it. ”
The nostril slits in her head flared and snapped closed. “I give you oath, no harm come to the people of this camp in your absence. I not release the others until everyone is gone. But you cannot be here when I open the cells. Not all resist your light.”
“Very well.” I crossed to the wall where the cell key hung. One key. A master key.
I held it out to C’ael. “Let her out once I leave.”
C’ael exhaled sharply, his brows pinching in a frown. “No, I’m coming with you to the storm city.” He tucked his hands into his pockets.
I didn’t have time for this. “You can’t come with me. I don’t have Pakshiraj, and the moona won’t carry anyone but the riders who raised them. Kalani will fly me there, but there’s only room for one on the back of her chaysavar.” I looked to the Danava princess for confirmation, and she nodded.
“I don’t need wings in order to travel.”
I arched a brow. “Transference? You can do that?”
He frowned. “I have no idea what that is. I just…move.”
“Sounds like transference,” Kalani said. “But you’ll need to know where you’re headed and have been there before. And the longer the distance, the more energy it will consume.”
“I can do it,” C’ael snapped. “Leela and I are connected through Iblees. I can find her, so I can find the place where she will be.”
Yes, we were connected in a way I didn’t fully understand yet. He’d entered my dreams before, so I had no doubt he could find me if need be, but I needed someone I trusted to stay here. Someone the people knew and respected.
“I need you here. I need you to be a leader in my place. To keep these people safe. It’s no easy role. Can you do it? Please?”
C’ael’s jaw flexed, and he speared Yudh and Dhoona with a fiery gaze. “You two will keep her safe.”
It was a statement. Spoken with the kind of authority I’d only seen him depict once when defending me against Craven’s barbs.
Yudh tipped his head to the side. “We vowed to protect Leela, but even if we had not, we would gladly lay down our lives for her.”
I shook my head. “No one needs to lay down their lives.”
C’ael’s shoulders relaxed. “You’ll come back.” It wasn’t a question.
“I have every intention to. But if I haven’t returned by sunset, it means something’s gone wrong. In that case, get everyone out of here. Keep them safe.”
He sucked in a breath, his shoulders bunching once more, and I thought he would argue, but he pressed his lips together and nodded. “You can count on me.” I held out the key, and this time he took it. “I’ll get them to safety, Leela, but then I will come find you.”
I inclined my head. “In that case, I’d expect nothing less.”