Page 26 of Fate's Wicked Oath

Pete stared at the pouch in his hands, his prominent brow creasing. He had a scruff of silver and brown stubble on his jaw, and he absentmindedly reached up to scratch his cheek. Beside her husband, Orna was staring into her tea; the skin around her nose was red and her eyes were ringed with dark circles.

“I’m afraid the feed isn’t my only concern, Sir,” Pete said at last.

“Faren, please,” Faren insisted.

“We’ve had a…troubling incident,” Pete continued, “and I’m afraid I can’t assure your horses’ safety.”

The broken fence. The trampled garden. The livestock contained inside the barn despite the daylight. I already knew what Pete would say next.

He leaned forward, speaking low. “Two nights’ past, creatures came from the Western Wood and attacked our flock. We—”

Orna let out a strangled sob and clapped a hand over her mouth. Pete rested a palm on her back and rubbed up and down. My heart clenched like a fist.

“They are our livelihood,” Pete explained, gesturing at the large loom in the corner. “And quite beloved.”

The shawl Orna wore must’ve been her own creation, woven from the wool of the sheep she’d lovingly tended. I knew what it was like to be devastated by a loss like that, the way sorrow tangled with fear in the gut. The punishing reality of poverty.

Across the table, I met Faren’s gaze.This, I wanted to say,is the reality of the realm you claim to love.

His returning glance was controlled but compassionate. “Creatures?” Faren prompted.

“A pack of five, at least,” Pete said.

Faren frowned. “Wolves, you mean?”

Pete shook his head. There was terror in his eyes.

Orna trembled and whimpered. When she lowered her hands from her face, her expression was hollow—traumatized. “Not wolves,” she warbled. “They were too huge, with long fangs and—”

“Rabid wolves,” I cut in firmly. “More frightening after dark.”

“I have sight magic,” Orna countered. “I know what I saw, and they were not mere wolves. They had strange protrusions out of their heads, appendages along their ribs, and red eyes that glowed.”

The magic of my Oath tingled at the back of my throat—a warning, an urging. I’d taken my Oath twenty-four years ago, and yet the binding words were as fresh in my mind as the dayI’d recited them:I, Mariana Bellkeep, hereby take the Oath of the Order of the Valiant, pledging my life to the protection of the realm and the safe keeping of its secrets.

The safe keeping of itslies.

It was my duty that determined the cruel, undermining words I said next: “No such creatures exist.” I kept my tone flat and reached for a piece of bread, feigning dismissiveness. “Fear and superstition often warp the perception of what can easily be explained.”

“My wife is not being hysterical,” Pete said—firm, but respectful of the knights seated in his kitchen.

His defense of his wife’s words, the way he continued to rub her back comfortingly, his deeply felt concern… My fingernails bit into my palms. It was said that hunting monsters was what the Valiant deserved, but my true punishment was being forced to uphold a duty with which I held no allegiance. Lying to good people to cover up a bad man’s scheme.

Seated in Pete and Orna’s home, drinking their tea, eating bread they’d made from scratch, with butter they’d probably churned themselves—it wasn’tfair. I did not want to twist and dismiss their words. I did not want to be unkind. I did not want to be here at all. They were toopurefor the likes of me and being confronted with that fact made me feel brittle and wretched.

“What you have described,” I said slowly, tightly, “does not exist.”

“I believe her,” Faren piped up magnanimously, like the glorious knight he claimed to be. “In fact, we are traveling these parts to—” He made a face and coughed, as if he were choking on a bit of bread. When his eyes darted to mine, he appeared as if he’d been struck.

Was he that much of a brown-nosing do-gooder that he’d never felt the warning of his Oath magic before? I almost laughed at his privilege. But then I saw Orna’s expression—tearful, afraid, searching—and I could not bear to diminish her further.

Instead, I did something I never allowed myself to do: I reached out and placed my hand over her wrist. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d comforted someone, and my touch was stiff. Forced. Her arm tensed beneath my grasp—then relaxed. When she looked at me, she seemed appreciative.

“Do not speak or think of what you saw,” I told her, carefully navigating the tenets of my Oath. “Think, instead, of why two knights would travel this far into the countryside.”

Orna’s lips pressed into a wan, bemused frown.

From across the table, Faren watched me with a peculiar expression, as if he knew that in past instances, I’d threatened and evenkilledto keep the monsters a secret. As if he could see that something about these innocent folk reminded me of a part of myself I’d been forced to give up long ago.