Page 1 of Fate's Wicked Oath

Prologue: Thief

Twenty-Four Years Ago

The lock was easy enough to pick, and the door’s hinges were silent as she slipped through. There was another long corridor, the air cool and dank against her skin. Her breathing came in short puffs, echoing off the walls like a chant. Fury made the fine hairs on her arms and nape stand up; it felt like static, electric, racing through her with the pulsing of her blood. An angry whooshing in her ears.

Rage led her deeper into the depths of Castle Might. At eleven, she didn’t understand Lord Haron’s dealings nor political logic. She understood only the cruel amusement of his expression, his unapologetic “No,” her father’s flushed face, and her family—back home in their too-small cottage—with pinched stomachs, praying to the Fates for relief. She understood only the rationale of childhood: of hunger, of mischief, of taking someone’s toy because they took your dinner roll.

As she snuck through the belly of the castle, past lazy guards and down narrow, underground corridors, she sought a toy worth taking—a Fortune. Something the Lord would regretlosing. Something that would make him change his mind about her father’s taxes.

Beneath her feet, marble became stone and stone became dirt and then—through another unguarded door—the floor became marble again. The ornately carved threshold—its frame tooled with pretty lettering—led into a grand and spacious chamber. Inside, the air was still and thin; it smelled sweet and earthy, like old paper. She would’ve shivered if it weren’t for the wrath coursing hot inside her. The desperation.

There was an oil lantern hanging by the door; she took it, lit it. The tiny orange glow of the flame illuminated more of the grand hall. Rows of massive pillars extending into the dark. Vaulted ceilings with extravagantly ribbed, fanlike arches. Many, many shelves of books.

The tomes themselves were massive, some thicker than her straw mattress back home. Each was caged in iron and chained to a bar running along the length of the shelf, like the foot traps her father set for the predator that massacred their pigs last winter. She half expected the books to yowl or snarl when she crept closer. As she ran her finger through the dust on one of the covers, she thought of the livestock her family raised, and it occurred to her that animals were also sometimes caged to keep safe.

The lantern’s metal handle squeaked as she lifted it higher, searching for her prize. She crept farther into the stacks, passing row after row of formidable shelving. Then she came upon a lone pedestal, carved not unlike one of the columns leading up to the ceiling. Cradled atop it was a book. This one was average in size, not chained, but splayed open, its pages parted by a string of white clay beads.

Her fingers tingled at the sight of it.

Due to malnourishment, she was small for her age; she had to rise up on her tiptoes to read the book—only, when she tried, shefound that its contents were inked in an alphabet she recognized but had not learned. Though she did not know what it said, she knew in her bones that she’d found a prize worth taking.

So that’s exactly what she did.

1

Oath

Mariana

The punch was a bright sunburst juddering through my cheekbone. I licked my teeth and spat a glob of bright red blood onto the mossy cobblestones.

Then I lifted my chin. “Tell me how you really feel.”

Mist shrouded the ruins of Kelebraim-on-Gray in a silvery haze, obscuring the crumbling spires and the surrounding pines. Converging with the steam rising off the nearby geothermal pools, the fog swirled and eddied. The air was humid, but the rain was icy, needling my sensitive skin.

Heris pointed at his neck. It was weathered and wrinkled, still ringed with the faded black tattoo of his retired Oath. “Thiswas supposed to be gone. Your kowtowing to that bitch alchemist was a waste.”

I balled my fists, feeling the rigid muscles of my forearms strain against the grip of the two knights who held me captive. “The potion wasn’t for you, and you know it,” I said. “It was for the—”

Heris flicked his wrist, and one of my captors gave me a swift punch to the stomach. I doubled over, coughing, a dribble of pink saliva dropping onto the toe of my boot. I hissed through the pain, gritting my teeth until my molars squeaked. I was no stranger to suffering—especially by Heris’s command—but wounding me wouldn’t help his cause.

Or mine.

“I did as you asked,” I gritted out. Not a plea, but a reminder.

Heris bent forward, peering at me with his one remaining eye; in the dim gray light of morning, his empty socket looked like a bottomless pit. “I did notaskfor you to gallivant with gold brutes and academics. Iorderedyou to supply us with a cure.”

In addition to serving Heris’s whims and carrying out the tenets of my duty—which were to hunt and kill monsters and keep the secret of their existence—I’d spentyearslending my talents to Professor Phina Farkept’s research. I hardly considered gathering samples from deadly geothermal pools and retrieving monster blood—on my own—for alchemical experiments asgallivanting, but semantics were the least of my concerns.

“And I supplied that cure,” I said pointedly. “You’re just angry that it wasn’t foryou.”

I saw the next punch coming and braced my stomach. Talking back never deescalated Heris’s tirades, but I couldn’t help myself. Thankfully, the contact wasn’t as jarring as the hits before. Brom, who stood on my right and had been doling out my punishment, was becoming a little halfhearted in his violence.

The four of us were alone in the former town square, which was no more than a large circle of broken, mossy cobblestones and the toppled remnants of a fountain. Faint sounds of rebels rousing from slumber drifted from the broken windows of the bordering buildings. We’d been out here long enough that myhair was soaked from the mist and plastered to my face, my tunic clinging to my skin, heavy and damp.

“Are we done here?” I complained. “Your lackeys seem to be tiring of this.”

The man on my left, Castor, threw a punch to my gut that had me spluttering.