48. Wicked, Wicked Oaths
Wicked, Wicked Oaths
Mariana
It’d been easy to slip past the guards into Castle Might.
Too easy.
The thought nagged as I made my way down the narrow corridor, deeper into the dank belly of the castle.
Far behind me, I heard the disgruntled groans of the vault guards coming-to, met by the muffled threats of the knights I’d ordered to keep watch.
It didn’t take long for their voices to fade, though, lost to the stone walls and the heavy thudding of my boots.
The underground tunnel formed a depthless, impenetrable dark.
The scent of minerals and earth filled my nostrils.
I raised Windthorn like a torch, its blue flame leading the way; the heat of it made my cheeks prickle.
My breaths came in short puffs, disturbing the magical fire.
Roused by the familiar scents and sensations, the rage of my eleven-year-old self rose within me like an old wellspring, a surge that mingled with the fury of now.
My resentment—toward Lord Haron, Heris Morvain, and the injustices that had constrained me my whole life—carried me forward into the black.
Gradually, beneath my feet, marble became stone and stone became dirt, and then—
—then I reached the ornately carved threshold of the Library of Ledgers.
In response to my frequent visits to this hallowed place, Lord Haron had attempted all manner of traps, locks, and guards over the years.
I had expected considerable measures tonight, yet I was met only by an open door and a single Mighty Knight.
My heart leapt at the sight of golden armor reflecting the light of my sword back at me; I squinted past the glare, deflating when I saw that the man was not Faren.
“I do not wish to harm you.” My voice sounded strange down here, nearly as thin as the cold air. “But I will if I must.”
“I do not wish to stop you,” the knight said, stepping aside. “Mariana.”
I lowered Windthorn to better see the man’s eyes, dubious of his intentions. But he appeared relaxed, with thumbs hooked through his sword belt and a coaxing smile on his round face.
“Hayward sends his regards.”
“Faren.” My heart throbbed painfully, and I took one stumbling step closer. “He…he’s alright?”
“On the mend.”
I let out a rough, relieved sigh. “He knew you’d be seeing me?”
The knight scratched the back of his neck. “He had a hunch.”
My mouth twitched with the faintest hint of a smile.
“We’ve worked together closely these past few weeks.”
“With Oderin,” I said.
“Major Farkept. Yes.”
I shifted on my feet, feeling antsy. To be in such close proximity to Faren and not race upstairs to see him—to help him, to hold onto him and never let go—was proving harder than I’d expected.
To know that Faren had accounted for me and kept the hope of our original plan alive…
it was too much for my foolish, oversensitive heart.
“Where is he now?”
“The Great Hall.”
Though I had expected that answer, my pulse stuttered. That was where Heris was headed. Where I was supposed to go next.
I die inside Castle Might, Faren had told me. He’d never told me where, exactly, but the Great Hall during a rebellion seemed more likely than any other time or place.
A fearful voice inside my head screamed for me to keep my distance and avoid distracting Faren in the coming melee, to spare him the potential harm of my proximity, remembering what had happened to Grinnick and how I’d failed him.
Yet another part of me—the part of me who’d laid in Faren’s arms and envisioned a happier future at my fingertips—wondered if we were better off fighting together.
If defying Heris—not serving him—was indeed the path to all our freedom.
But I couldn’t forget Heris’s leverage over me and my family. Your Fortune is self-sacrifice, I reminded myself. I knew my role in this. I could not allow myself to get distracted by hope. Even Faren’s hope.
“What’s your plan?” I asked the Mighty Knight.
“To save the realm,” he said simply. I could practically hear those words in Faren’s voice instead of his.
“Care to be more specific,” I ventured, “so I might avoid interfering?”
“Not to worry. Your role is already accounted for.”
I frowned. “You let us in on purpose.”
“We did.” The knight removed a set of keys from his belt. “Hayward said you might need these.”
I looked past him into the cavernous library beyond. Then I took the keys. The metal was cold, heavy, promising.
“Why are you down here?” the knight asked. “Hayward wouldn’t say.”
My throat tightened at the thought of Faren refusing to repeat my secret—even to safe ears. He trusted me. He respected me. He cared for me, even though he shouldn’t.
“I’m here to save the realm, too,” I replied weakly.
“Good.” The knight glanced at the ceiling, as if pondering the floors above. “I’ll be needed upstairs. Can you see yourself out?”
I nodded. “Careful on your way up. There are knights—Valiant allies—standing watch. They’re strange, with altered bodies and considerable strength.
” It had been easy for Heris to convince the former Morta to march on Fenrir—for revenge, for freedom—and after that demonstration in Kelebraim, it hadn’t taken much to rally the Valiant army.
“They don’t speak, but they understand; you’ll do best to talk your way past them. ”
He raised an eyebrow. “Hayward warned us of that possibility.”
“About the knights?”
“Their strength.”
I cocked my head. “How did he learn that?”
“A source in Waldron,” the knight replied. “He wouldn’t specify.”
My mind went immediately to Noble. He must’ve experienced an increase in strength from Hattie’s cure, too. So why didn’t his Oath remain intact, when the others’ had? My gaze slid to the hall of books again; perhaps my answer was in there.
I fiddled with the keys. “Thank you,” I told the knight.
His nod was friendly. “See you up there.” His armor clinked as he left me behind, heading back the way I’d come by the light of his own weapon’s fire.
Once he’d disappeared around the bend, I lit a proper lantern and replaced my sword in its sheath. Then I strode into the Library of Ledgers.
The library had not changed much since I was a child.
Vaulted ceilings. Massive marble columns.
Shelves upon shelves of thick books encased in iron cages.
In spite of my countless relocations of Lord Haron’s precious Ledger of the Sovereign, it was always returned to the same place: upon the carved marble pedestal in the center of the library.
The ledgermasters were foolishly particular about that.
The keys made more sense as I came upon the massive tome, though.
Rather than being splayed open as it usually was, the Ledger of the Sovereign was closed and locked within iron.
The worn cover was the color of a robin’s breast, and the strange lettering on the front was debossed in gold foil.
Pastoral scenes—Fenriran hills, the Wend, poplars, and sheep—had been painted in fine detail on the edges of the pages, art that could only be appreciated when the tome was shut.
Many of the other Ledgers here were massive and thick, having been re-bound as more and more pages and names were added, with layers of paper in shades of ancient brown, to beige, to pristine ivory.
But the Ledger of the Sovereign was of modest size and length, with no visible additions.
There hadn’t been many Lords of Fenrir in the history of this territory; there was still plenty of room for more history to be written.
The size made it easy to steal.
After trying a few keys, the lock gave way with a click, freeing the Ledger from its paltry prison. Without ceremony, I tucked it under my arm and ventured deeper into the stacks, still not finished with my task.
The air was cold and musty in the back of the Library.
Shadows abounded. The dust on the surrounding shelves was thick and undisturbed.
As I stalked down the aisles, the foiled spines of the tomes flickered in the yellow light of the lantern.
Eventually, I reached the section where the Ledgers of retired Orders were stocked.
Reciting the alphabet in my head, I slowed as I reached the M’s.
Then I halted. Lifted the lantern a little higher. Stared.
There were…seven Ledgers of the Order of the Morta. Each possessed a mark on the spine denoting the volume number, and they were arranged from oldest to newest.
I had known that Lord Haron was just one in a long line of Fenriran rulers who’d sought to wiggle out from under Marona’s boot and become independent once again, but…
seven attempts? Seven secret programs, where desperate men and women signed up to be experimented on.
Seven iterations of tampering with the laws of nature—the laws of Fate—in an attempt to amass power.
It disgusted me.
I reached for the newest one, unlocking the cage.
The book was fat with names, and I thumbed through it, searching for the confirmation I needed; eventually, I found the name I sought on the very last page: Noble Asheren.
This iteration of the Order of the Morta had been around for decades—long before Noble had taken the Oath—and based on how long the Valiant had been around, it was clear that this was the Ledger that controlled the Morta I had been tasked to kill, then cure.
The Morta whom Heris had convinced to take up arms against their creator, and who now served the Valiant’s cause.
But as I slid it into crook of my arm atop the Ledger of the Sovereign, cradling them close, my attention flicked back to the remaining volumes. I stared at the gap on the shelf I’d left, the smear in the dust.
A thought occurred. One I hated.
I doubled back, hurrying toward the section where the Ledgers of the active knighthoods were kept.
Orders both publicly known and secret were shelved together, a menagerie of purposes lined up side-by-side.
Having come from deeper in the Library, I recited the alphabet backwards this time, dragging my finger along the edge of the shelves.
The Order of the Wise.
The Order of the Vengeful.
The Order of the Valiant—
With a furious pang in my sternum, I paused to smooth my thumb over the textured spine. It seemed so unassuming inside its iron cage upon the shelf, and yet this book…this book was responsible for immeasurable violence and suffering.
My suffering.
For the briefest of moments, I considered how satisfying it would be to set the Ledger of the Valiant alight—but Ledgers could not be destroyed by common means.
I knew from lurking around the Collegium that Ledgers had to be magically unraveled, much the same as they were woven.
I’d once heard an Arcane Adept tell a student that to attempt to destroy a Ledger could prove fatal.
I kept moving.
Order of the Shrewd.
Order of the Righteous.
Order of the—
My stomach churned with dread.
Order of the Morta: Volume Eight.
The binding was fresh, with no sign of dust or fading on the pages. I unlocked it and thumbed through, finding only a handful of names bound to this particular Oath. Its existence shouldn’t’ve surprised me, but it did.
The seventh volume had created abominations that had escaped into the Western Wood, infected countless animals and people, and destroyed an entire town.
It had been such a disaster that the Valiant were created to clean up the mess, forced to kill innocent knights trapped inside a terrible curse.
And yet the Lord had run the program for decades more, uncaring that year by year, the ramifications of his experiments only worsened.
The eventual retirement of the seventh volume should have been the end of it.
Yet the Lord’s selfishness and complete lack of empathy for his people had persisted, and he’d created yet another iteration of this vile experiment.
The sourness in my stomach turned into outright nausea. Then fear.
Had the Lord finally caught up to Hattie’s solution with this newest Ledger? Or was this just another pointless attempt by a selfish ruler?
I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
I nestled the three Ledgers into my satchel, wedging them in between bottles of Morta cure and water from the Well of Fate.
I hadn’t been certain what I might need in the span of tonight’s events, but as I’d learned from Phina Farkept and the other alchemists, when it came to potions, it was best to be prepared.
Still, the weight of the glass bottles only added to the considerable heft of the Ledgers.
I tried to ignore the strap of my satchel digging into the side of my neck as I moved down the aisle.
When I reached the ironclad spine of the Order of the Mighty, I paused to trace the leather-bound tome through its cage, wishing it was Faren’s cheek I was touching instead.
I glanced up at the fan vaulted ceiling, wondering what I might find in the rooms high above.
A prickling sensation swept across my skin, telling me to hurry.
The tomes I carried weighed heavily on my mind and body as I broke into a run, racing back toward the entrance of the library.