Chapter 27
JO
I’m immediately concerned when I see Beau waiting for me when I return to the palace. “Why aren’t you teaching?”
“I have a parent covering class for me.” Beau’s eyes narrow as I approach. “Where have you been?” she asks, borderline accusatory.
I pause in the kitchen’s doorway and realize Sam has returned. Given the look on his and my mother’s faces, it’s not with good news. I’ve had enough revelations in the last three days to last a lifetime, and I suspect I already know Chryse’s response to finding out my Match is in Maile.
“He’s nervous you’ll quit upholding your end of the bargain if you suspect the war is no longer in his favor,” Sam says.
Sagging against the door frame, I push my windblown hair away from my face. “He knows Wren has made a deal with Edmond?” I ask.
“He didn’t say, but he certainly suspects something is amiss. He went as far as mentioning a blood oath to ensure you’re not going to turn on him.”
My mother doesn’t need to voice her opinion.
I can see the displeasure in her face at the concept of me swearing a blood oath.
When I came to her with the request to take over the crown, she promised to allow me the space to make my own decisions—and mistakes.
But if I ever want any advice, all I need to do is ask.
“Thank you, Sam. I think it may be best to just let the pieces lie where they are at the moment.”
He nods. “I agree.”
Exhaustion lines his features, clothes rumpled from repeated leaps across the land, and it’s unsettling. I’ve seen the man walk away from a day’s battle and appear as if he had simply gone out for a gentle stroll.
“Did you see the front lines?” I ask.
His mouth thins, eyes sorrowful as he answers. “The Roison have pushed the fight well into Kenta’s territory, leaving the land and Kenta people scarred in their wake.”
My mother tsks. “Mother Nature isn’t going to be happy.”
“No, she isn’t,” he agrees. “We’re going to be in for one hell of a winter.”
I groan. “Does anyone have any good news?”
“Actually,” Beau says, grimacing. “I received word from my mother this morning. She’s found something … interesting.”
By the way she jerks her head toward the stairs, it’s clear this is a conversation she wants to have in private, so we leave Sam and my mother in the kitchen.
He’ll do the best he can to ease her worries, but he knows there’s little he can say to reassure her.
My decisions will, at the end of the day, be my own.
Beau and I don’t speak until we’re alone in her bedchamber. “Your aura is all over the place,” she says, shutting the door behind me.
Beau’s room is decorated in soft shades of neutrals.
Everything from the curtains to the bedding to the rug on the floor is void of any patterned designs or starkly contrasting hues.
It’s at complete odds with her home in the ornate gaudiness of the Kenta palace.
The only pop of color comes from the stack of mystery novels she has piled on her bedside table.
And as I sit on the edge of her made bed, I can maybe understand the calm such a minimalist style brings to her. “What did Greta find?” I ask, avoiding responding to her assessment.
She opens her mouth, as if to push me further on my current emotional state but then seems to think better of it.
Standing at her desk, she picks up a stack of papers and hands them to me.
They appear to be pages that have been ripped from an aged text.
I skim the first few lines before I realize what I’m reading.
It appears to be an old handwritten note, specifying exactly when and how an oath can be utilized.
“Where is this from?”
Beau pulls the last page from the pile and passes it to me, tapping on the emblem stamped underneath the philosopher’s signature. The Strou’s emblem. Red with the depiction of antlers. “My mother found it hidden in a text in Acker’s bedchamber.”
I return to where I left off, but most of it seems to relay things I am already aware of.
A blood oath must be sworn using the blood of the person performing the oath mixed with soil from the land.
The cost of breaking the oath, regardless of the oath’s content, is the person’s magic.
But creating a blood oath with another while telling a lie, the price is higher: death.
And due to this high price, it’s a tool that can be used to reveal truths.
The next line has a hand drawn asterisk next to it.
If a sworn oath is given with an accompanying declaration of truth, the sworn promise is tied to that truth itself. As long as the declaration remains true, then the oath’s binding will remain intact. In the event the truth no longer holds any value, then the oath will be null and void.
It feels like a stone drops to the pit of my stomach as I look up at Beau.
She nods. “My mother said it’s from before she met my father, likely before Edmond held the thrown, even.
” She comes to sit on the bed next to me.
“She found it in a text not contained in any of Kenta’s archives, and after examining the simpler binding technique used on the pages, she surmises that Acker likely brought it back with him during one of his many visits to Strou. ”
Holy shit. He knew.
He knew when he made the oath with our combined blood that his promise to protect me would only hold as long as his declaration of love remained true.
And, I love her.
“But who’s to say this is accurate?”
Beau shrugs. “We can’t. Blood oaths are notoriously difficult to navigate. People have always looked for loopholes.”
“Were you able to tell from Acker’s aura if he still loves me?” I hate that I asked as soon as the words are out of my mouth, knowing it’s not fair to her, but I need to know if he came to Maile to test the bounds of the oath after all this time.
Beau shakes her head, forlorn. “I would need to see how his aura interacts with yours to know. How did he react to Fredrich coming to your bedroom last night?” she asks, slyly.
My mouth parts in surprise. “How do you know about that?”
“I was worried when all of my hair pins went flying,” she says, pointing to the wall behind me. Gold and silver metals dot the stone wall; the pins are embedded in the stone. “I was concerned, obviously, but just as I was about to rush into your room to save the day, I heard … things.”
A blush creeps up my neck. “Great.”
“I thought it was just my brother, so I waited outside, not wanting to intrude, but still wanting to make sure you were safe.” She makes a face at the recollection that I don’t think I’ve ever seen on her before; something like a mix of horror, embarrassment, and nausea.
“Imagine my surprise when Fredrich was the one to walk out of your room.”
“It was a terrible decision, I know,” I groan.
Beau shrugs, expression contemplative. “Did it achieve what you wanted it to?”
I ponder her question as I remember the night before.
How desperately I wanted a reprieve from the pain, so much so that I was willing to take the second option that walked through the door, only for the entire plan to be foiled by Acker’s presence.
How he became enraged. Then, in his own desperation to take me from Fredrich, it was almost as if he was …
helpless to not participate. Like he couldn’t not be involved in something—anything—that brings me pleasure.
“I don’t know,” I answer, honestly.
“Well, just a warning, Iona absolutely told your mother.”
The doorkeeper is very much a tattle tale, but, somehow, my mother finding out about my nighttime debauchery is the least of my worries. “What time is it?”
“Wouldn’t know,” Beau says, flicking a hand toward the scattering of metal shards. “My timepiece is crushed into the wall.”
I roll up the papers and hand them back to Beau. “Messer and Drake should be escorting Acker and Irina to their boat imminently. If he did come to test the oath, he’s out of time.”
“You took him to see Cadence this morning, didn’t you?”
I nod. “Possibly another bad decision.”
“Sometimes decisions aren’t good or bad. Sometimes they’re just decisions.”
As I let her words soak in, everything feels heavy all of a sudden. There’s still so much to be said, especially considering everything Cadence revealed to me. I look at Beau and she gives me a sad smile, knowing without words the weight I’m carrying. She sees it as much as I feel it.
I stand to leave, stopping at the threshold of her door. “Can you organize a meeting tonight?” I ask her.
“Sure,” she says. “Want me to reserve the room at the tavern?”
I shake my head. “No. I want it here at the palace.”
I don’t want to risk the chance of anyone overhearing, not with this kind of world-altering information.
The evidence of last night’s liaison is gone from my bedchamber.
My robe, my lingerie: removed from where I left them on the floor when I bathed afterward.
The made bed calls to me, but as I consider climbing in for a mid-morning nap, I realize I’ve made a grave mistake.
My fingers reach for the gyve at my neck, but it’s not there; I must have left it around the pommel of the gelding’s saddle.
I open my bedside drawer and find the last necklace of mangi stones I have.
It won’t be enough to stop Acker from breaching my side of the Bond if he wants to, that much is clear, but it’s better than nothing. At least while I’m awake.
I’m hesitant to put it on.
Even though he needs to leave Maile for multiple reasons, the Bond is already protesting.
It’s been four years since I left Kenta, and the three days he’s been in Maile have felt like the first time I’ve been allowed to drink my fill of water after being deprived of even a single drop.
As if being apart from him is equivalent to being in those mysterious lands of rumor where there’s only desert and sand and no drop of water in sight.
My magic hates being deprived of my Match’s presence.