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Run, I begged him.
The guard scrambled to a stand and ran.
Arms pumping, his armor clanged as he streaked down the throne room, heading for the open double doors. His fellow guards tensed, preparing to tackle him at the queen’s word, but my Walking power beat them to it.
I found myself blinking out of existence and reappearing in front of the double doorway, blocking the guard’s way out.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered out loud, even as I bellowed at him mind-to-mind, Use your magic! Whatever power you have, use it against me!
But it occurred to me, right as my hands shot forward of their own accord, that his power was probably moving through Queen Mydusia’s bloodstream right now with all the other hundreds she’d stolen.
I ripped off the guard’s helmet and grabbed him by the back of his head, wrapping my other arm around the front of his forehead. He fought, kicking and twisting, but the adrenaline and strength pumping through me hardly felt it.
My arms jerked.
One sharp crack later, the body fell in a heap at my feet.
Silence vibrated from floor to ceiling. The tattoo on my back ceased its squirming. My lungs burned and bile crawled up my throat.
God of the fucking Cosmos. What had I done?
A slow series of clapping snapped me back to reality. I turned to face Queen Mydusia as she brought her hands together again and again.
“Oh, bravo! Fate really knew what she was doing when she chose you.”
I said nothing, but I let my subconscious have a little fun—playing out a fantasy where I marched up to that throne, tore the crown off her head, and reenacted that scene with her neck instead. That guard had done nothing wrong. She’d only commanded me to kill him to remind me what kind of power she held over my head.
When I didn’t respond to her praise, Queen Mydusia’s smile faltered. Her claps died out. Again, silence dug into the air. I resisted the urge to fill it and give her any satisfaction.
“You may go, General Steeler,” she said finally.
I nodded once, forcing myself to look down at the life I had ended one more time. To face the consequences of what I had done.
For a moment, I blinked and saw Rayna’s corpse at my feet in his stead.
No, not Rayna. Anyone but Rayna.
Grasping onto my Walking power, I pulled myself away from that wretched throne room and into that dark, fathomless space between worlds.
Where I doubled over and retched all over the stars.
CHAPTER
4
RAYNA
An hour into our secret reading session, my eyes burned as I flipped the page and came across the dreaded sentence I’d read countless times before.
An oath lasts for life. Once it is accepted, it cannot be revoked.
“Maybe we should call it quits for the day?” Lander suggested, frowning down at his own book. “Mine’s basically just trying to convince something called vigates to make oaths with each other for…sexual pleasure? I’m not sure I’m reading this right. The translation seems really half-assed.”
“You probably are reading it right, actually,” I said with a reluctant laugh, thinking about what Barberro had claimed about vigates. Mates of the soul. Destined lovers for all eternity. Stitched together by Fate.
Not a bond that faerie couples possessed automatically, apparently, but something they had to ask Fate permission for.
“If you go down a few paragraphs, it sounds a lot more romantic,” Emelle said, leaning over Lander’s shoulder to read a passage out loud. “The bond between vigates is the most powerful known magic in the world, only to be defeated by death itself. Oh, well, I guess that’s a bit morbid, actually.”
