Blood Oath

by Raye Wagner

  Another scream followed, along with men shouting and the hammering boom of fists on wood. Close. Too close.

  I leaped out of bed, already dressed on Mum’s orders. The door flung open a moment later, and Mother rushed in.

  “We’re leaving now.”

  “What’s happening?” I asked, reaching for my bag, but Mum pushed me toward the door and then pulled me back, only to push me toward the window.

  “They’re coming for you. They’ve gone to the wrong house.”

  How was that possible when Snake and Toady knew where I lived? “How will we get . . . ?”

  The rest of my sentence evaporated as I caught sight of my mother’s face and spun to the window just in time to see Lord Irrik climb through. If this situation didn’t leave icy-cold fear in every part of my body, I would have been rolling on the floor with laughter. The Drae even looked mildly disgruntled at being subjected to the indignity of a schoolboy entrance. He was dressed exactly the same, in fitted black clothing.

  His dark gaze rested on me, searching up and down. Then it went to my mother. His nostrils flared, and his eyes widened as he gasped a string of words in the same guttural language I’d heard him use before.

  Mum didn’t budge.

  “How. . . ?” he said, staring at my mother as though looking at a specter. “How can you be here?” He reached forward as if to touch her but stopped before making contact. “I was told you all died.”

  His voice radiated fury, and it was the simplest of self-preservation instincts that had me backing away toward my mother.

  Mum ignored him, tapped her index finger to her lips, and began to pace.

  I looked between them. Did my mother know who this was? She couldn’t, based on her inappropriate lack of fear. And how did Irrik know her? Why was he asking questions that didn’t make sense instead of killing us?

  Mum’s shoulders were tense, halfway up to her ears, a sure sign she was stressed. Stressed but not afraid of Lord Irrik, which made no sense. Slowly, her shoulders dropped, dropped past the point of normalcy into defeat.

  I’d been so busy watching this happen and keeping one eye on Lord Irrik, who now contemplated me with an intensity that made me want to jump out the window he’d just come in, I missed the moment my mother started crying.

  Her eyes were filled and spilling over as she knelt in front of me.

  I’d never seen my mother cry, and I ached to make it stop. I winced at her pain, and my apologies spilled incoherently from my lips. I sat before her, trying to dry her tears as I babbled.

  “You must go,” she said, cutting me off. “You’re running out of time. You need to go.”

  I inhaled shallow breaths. This wasn’t what I expected or wanted to hear. I didn’t know what I expected or wanted; actually, nothing about this made sense. And didn’t she mean we must go? “There’s a Drae in my bedroom.”

  The only response to my crazed mutterings was Mum stroking my cheek.

  “It should’ve never happened, but I’m so glad it did, Rynnie,” my mother sobbed. “Please know that.”

  Her heart was breaking. Why was her heart breaking? “Know what?”

  “I have no regrets. You’re a miracle, my miracle, and every minute with you has been the air in my lungs and the blood in my heart.” She pulled me into a hug and kissed my head.

  “Mum.” I wet my lips. “You’re scaring me. Why are you saying this? What’s going on?”

  She cupped my face in her hands and stared into my eyes, her own eyes taking on a fierce look as she said, “No matter what happens, don’t come back here. Go straight to Dyter’s, and I’ll come get you when I can.”

  Her words made no sense, but her panic drenched the room and filled me. Her alarm was so raw, it overrode the terror induced by the predator not three steps from where I trembled. I knelt there, struck dumb. Was I missing something obvious? Lord Irrik seemed to know more than I did, and he’d just met my mother. Didn’t he? I’d known her my whole life, but I didn’t understand. If I did, I’d know why she was saying these terrible things about miracles and . . . I swallowed, struggling to translate the warning my mind was screaming at me.

  Mum pushed me toward the window. “Hurry, Ryn. You mustn’t be caught.”

  The rest of her words were lost to the pounding in my ears. We were already caught—Lord Irrik was here, but mother clearly wasn’t worried about him. She hardly spared him a glance.

  “What about you?” I looked at Lord Irrik and asked in an almost foreign voice, “What are you going to do to her? What’s happening?”

  He shook his head, but his baffled gaze told me he was still reeling from whatever shock seeing Mum meant to him. His dignified bearing didn’t wear shock comfortably, and my stomach twisted as I felt a spark of kinship. My entire world was upside down, and the Drae was just as disturbed.

  His gaze darted from me to mother and back to me. Stepping up next to Mum, he pointed to the window and, in a low, hoarse voice, said, “You must go. Now. If they find you here, I won’t be able to stop what happens.”

  He’d said the same thing to me mere hours before. We should have left straightaway.

  The screaming cut off, and we muted.

  A door slammed. The sounds of a scuffle floated in the window, and while not uncommon on our street, the disturbance was nearer than any I’d heard before.

  “Ryn,” my mother warned, wiping a tear from her smooth face. “Please, you must go now.”

  The fact she begged shocked me to my senses. She’d never begged me for anything. Ever. My mother was strong, efficient, direct, not. . .

  “I misdirected them, but they’ll be here soon,” Lord Irrik said, eyes fixed on the door of my room.

  I scooted back to the ledge and slung my leg over. “You’ll come get me, Mum? When it’s safe, you’ll come?”

  “You need to go, baby. I love you. I’ll come get you . . .” She blinked, her vibrant-blue eyes filling with fresh tears. She waved at me, both a shooing motion and a farewell.

  Another scream, closer, propelled me out the window. I grappled with the stalks as I slid and fell to the dirt below.

  Mum wanted me to hide from the soldiers.

  They were after me, so it made sense I had to be gone. A faraway voice nudged me about the presence of another in the room, but my mind zeroed in with tunnel vision on hiding to protect my mother.

  I ran, dodging in and out of buildings, in and out of shadows.

  I might not be able to go back for months or more. Where would I go?

  Lungs burning, I crouched in the darkest shadows of the rich housing by the fountain garden, sucking in long gasps of air. Where was it best to hide? The fields? Lord Irrik would find me if he flew overhead. Nothing could hide from the black-winged beast in the open.

  I froze.

  Lord Irrik.

  Without conscious thought, my head spun to face back the way I’d come. I’d left my mother with the most ruthless and cruel of the king’s lapdogs. My blank gaze blindly searched the barren square, thoughts running rampant. As I did so, the light from the twin moons caught at something.

  The welded flower on the side of the fountain.

  The one my mother had taken me to see most days of my childhood. It was our flower.

  Gut-wrenching horror clenched my stomach. I gasped. I’d left my mother all alone with a Drae while soldiers were going door-to-door searching for me.

  I let my pack fall to the cobblestones and stared at the welded flower, the dark night’s heat swirling around me. My skin prickled in chills as anxiety stabbed me in a thousand different places. What had I done?

  I abandoned all pretense of hiding, taking the most direct route back to my window and to the woman who had raised me.

  There was still time to help her. There had to be time.

  I pushed through the stalks of maize and climbed to just beneath my windowsill, pressing myself against the warm stone wall, and listened before entering. If the soldiers already had her, I’d
need to formulate another plan to save her from the king’s dungeons. I’d be useless to her if we both got caught.

  Hysteria rose in my throat, and I pulled myself back from the brink by my fingertips.

  “How can that be? What you’re saying is impossible.” The rumble of Lord Irrik’s voice carried out to me. “That would mean—”

  “It’s why he must never know. You need to protect her. You must swear to me. If there was any other way, don’t you think I would take it? If you take me to the king, he will find out.” My mother’s voice was choked and filled with tears. Before tonight, I’d never ever seen her cry, aside from peeling onions.

  “I didn’t know,” Irrik said quietly.

  He’d followed several of us home after The Crane’s Nest.

  He’d assigned the soldiers to tail each of us.

  Even if he’d changed his mind about having me followed for whatever shocked him so much about Mum and me, he’d started this whole thing.

  Whatever was happening now, fault rested with him.

  I stood to go inside but returned to my crouch at Mum’s next words.

  “Promise me you’ll keep her safe,” my mother said in a rising voice.

  He said nothing, and I was left to wonder if he had nodded or not.

  Mum spoke again. “You must do it now.” A moment of silence passed, and then she continued, “This has Phaetyn blood on it. It’s the only way.”

  “How do you even have this?” Lord Irrik said, breaking his silence. He sounded flustered for the first time. “I can’t do what you’re asking of me. You know I can’t.”

  “Yes, forgive me. I’m not thinking . . .” Mum trailed off. After another beat of silence, she said, “Your soldiers will not stop hunting until they have a head for the king. You tell him I was alone, that I was the one the soldiers were meant to follow. You promise me you’ll look after my baby.”

  Their words made little sense to me, with the exception of the phrase, “head for the king.”

  I remembered her tears before I’d left, her nonsensical mutterings, and finally, finally my mind deciphered what they’d meant.

  Goodbye.

  Someone hammered on our front door. Several someones shouted. But these realizations came to me as though from a great distance.

  She’d lied to me. When she’d pushed me to leave, there had been no intentions or expectations of her seeing me again. The realization was like a punch to the gut, and my mind refused to believe what my instincts told me was happening. Until I heard her gasp. There was something about the sound…as soon as I heard it, I knew.

  Lord Irrik swore, and I pulled myself over the ledge in time to see Mum crumple to the floor, the hilt of a golden dagger protruding from her chest.

  I screamed.

  My mother’s eyes widened as she saw me. Her hands uselessly grasped at the hilt buried too deep for her to pull out. Her mouth opened and closed, her words lost in the space between us. Lord Irrik pushed me toward the window, yelling something, but I pushed back, the same fire crawling up my hands as our skin touched. I had to see my mother, and I screeched at him.

  “Leave, foolish girl,” he hissed, picking me up and flinging me toward the window. “She sacrificed herself so you could get away.”

  I crashed into the wall, my right side missing the window by only a hair’s breadth. The air rushed from my chest, and pain exploded from my shoulder and hip from the impact. My mind couldn’t process the chaos surrounding me, and I sat dazed where I’d landed, loud footsteps pounding closer.

  Irrik crossed the floor in a single stride and picked me up once more. He stared down at me in disgust and strode to the window—

  —just as several soldiers crashed into my bedroom.

  7

  “Lord Irrik,” exclaimed a burly soldier from the open doorway. The soldier wore an aketon similar to Lord Irrik’s, but the material was loose and the color navy. Above his left shoulder were twists of gold, a symbol of rank in the king’s guard. He held his blade out, as if he’d anticipated a fight, but upon seeing Irrik he allowed the tip to drop to the floor, and his snarling expression smoothed.

  “Captain,” the Drae said, face blank.

  A distant part of my mind registered there were others here, that they were talking. I even saw droplets on the burly soldier’s sword, the blood of one of my neighbors, I assumed. But that was all in the periphery, for my gaze was on my mother, my wheezing, crying, strong mother. She didn’t look strong now, and as I stared at her, I knew all the other happy times I’d shared with her would be erased and replaced by this one searing image.

  A pain impaled my chest, and a scream worked its way up my throat. Lord Irrik released me, and I scrambled to my mother, dropping to my knees on the stone floor. My hands hovered, unsure where to touch. Her chest was heaving, and shallow gasps of air escaped her lips. She blinked, and a large tear trickled into her dark hair.

  “Mother,” I mouthed, unblinking.

  “Must . . . go,” she wheezed, but the fear in her eyes said she knew it was too late for me to run.

  The worst thing was a part of me felt I was watching a stranger die. Who was this woman who didn’t fear the Drae and could shove a dagger into herself? She had clearly concealed . . . so many . . . huge things from me.

  The heaviness of hopelessness swept through me as her breath began to rattle.

  “I’m sorry, Mum. Please.” I wanted so much for her to know just how sorry I was. Sorry for not being careful enough on the walk home, sorry for getting caught by Irrik, and so sorry for leading trouble straight to our doorstep.

  “Please,” I cried out. “Please,” I begged, to no one, anyone, to the nameless, make believe person who could save her.

  “Who is this?” the soldier behind me asked. “Is this our little renegade?”

  I reached to stroke Mother’s hair. Her long, cinnamon-brown hair just like my own.

  Lord Irrik snorted and pulled me away from my mother. And like a worthless piece of lint, he tossed me across the room. “Stupid girl.”

  I slammed into the wall above my bed, this time on my left side, and pain exploded in my ribs in a burst of blinding white. My hatred ballooned for this . . . monster. This unfeeling, horrible monster.

  Revulsion tore through me, but it wasn’t enough. It needed an outlet. I needed to hurt him. I rolled off the bed, clutching my sides, and the room blurred as the blood drained from my face. Loathing sharpened my vision, and I lifted my chin only for my heart to stall.

  Irrik had his back to me now. His boot on top of the blade in my mother’s chest. Mum was facing me, the peace in her eyes at odds to the turmoil and rage in the room.

  “Baby,” she mouthed.

  Mother, I answered her silently.

  “This was the one you were meant to follow,” Irrik said as he pushed down on the hilt with his boot.

  My mother’s body jerked before the spark in her eyes went from dazed awareness, to acknowledgement, to acceptance. The spark became smaller.

  Smaller and duller.

  “No,” I screamed, throwing myself at the Drae. We crashed into a heap on the ground, and I drew back my fist, punching him as hard as I could on the chin. I couldn’t have been the only one surprised when his head snapped back in response. His gaze returned to me, an intensity in his eyes as he stared at me.

  “I hate you,” I whispered.

  I slid off him and crawled to Mum, even though I could see she wasn’t there anymore. I closed my eyes, tears streaming down my cheeks, and opened them to find her still dead.

  Blood saturated her tunic. She stared vacantly at my room’s ceiling. She was . . . extinguished.

  Gone.

  But my mind couldn’t make sense of this fact or of the sight of her.

  Someone lifted me to my feet, and I struggled to free myself from his grasp. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

  “I’m not leaving,” I snarled. Just try to take me away. I’d never wanted to hurt someone more than in
this moment.

  “Throw her on the street,” Irrik snapped as he brushed a speck of Mum’s blood off his aketon. The Drae radiated anger and disgust, and he didn’t look at me whatsoever. His tone was a haughty command. “She’s upset about her mother, an ignorant child. I won’t be wasting our resources—”

  “She attacked you, sir. It is an unpardonable offense,” the captain countered, stepping up to the guard holding me. The captain grabbed my chin and squeezed until the pain elicited a whimper. “I’d think you would be happy to dispose of her, Lord Irrik. After all, she is the daughter of an insurgent. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, so they say.”

  I couldn’t look at the Drae. I couldn’t look at the person who had kicked a dagger into my mother’s dying heart. A scorching abhorrence bubbled up, filling my chest and pushing up my neck, and I couldn’t keep my anger contained. I flung the vilest insults and obscenities at Lord Irrik, needing him to know how much I loathed him.

  The captain slapped me. Hard. His hand connected with my face with a sharp crack that made white spots erupt in my vision. I slumped in the guard’s arms, head stabbing with pain and vision blurring.

  “There’s no challenge in disposing of one so weak,” Irrik said to the captain. “She’ll die during the cold season, and I like the thought of a drawn-out death for her.” He stared at me, pointed at mother’s body, and said, “We’ll have someone collect the body to take to the king. I have reason to believe she was high up in the rebellion, so leave her to rot for a day or two. Let the Zone find her so word will spread. He’ll be pleased.”

  So callously said. This man was dead inside.

  I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. Ever. He was a liar. No, worse. He was pure evil, rotten from the inside out.

  I stamped my foot down on the guard’s instep and shoved the captain aside, then pulled the dagger free from Mum’s chest—knowing the squelching sound as it came out would never leave me—and launched myself at the Drae. He had to die.

  He killed my mother.

  Irrik grabbed the hand with the dagger, squeezing until it clattered to the floor. I swung my other fist into his gut, but if he felt anything, he didn’t react. Instead, he flipped me so my back was to him. With one arm, he circled my waist, and his other arm wrapped high across my chest, pinning my arms to my sides.