Page 102 of Fate's Wicked Oath

“The Valiant rebellion,” Anya supplied.

Faren blinked at her candor. “You know?”

“Very little,” she replied. “Mariana warned us that something is coming, but you know her. She isn’t exactly forthright.”

Hattie leaned her hands on the bar counter. “Why does she trust you?” she asked Faren pointedly. “Do you know about the Lord?”

Faren swallowed—hard. The revelation about Morta being former knights and the implication of the Lord’s involvement weighed heavily on him, sinking him further into the muck of his own uncertainty.

“He’s a Mighty Knight,” Noble said. “He can’t answer that.”

“Secrecy is such an inconvenience,” Hattie complained.

“He must know,” Anya said, eyeing Faren. “Why else would he be here?”

Idris came closer, clapping Faren on the shoulder. “I see why Oderin chose you.”

“Wait.” For a moment, Faren felt like he’d been struck. “Does he…know? And he still…”

“Oderin is loyal to the realm,” Idris said carefully. “He is nuanced in his viewpoints.”

“That’s Idris-speak for, ‘Oderin is aware that Lord Haron accidentally created the abominations in a generations-long attempt to build an army capable of overthrowing Marona, and is investigating the problem from the inside,’” Hattie said helpfully. “There. Are we done with the tediously cryptic speak?”

He’d already suspected it, but… Faren staggered backward, feeling sick. “How did you possibly learn—”

“It’s a long story,” Hattie said with a shrug.

Faren scrubbed a hand over his face. It was one thing to wonder at such a disastrous conclusion; it was another thing to have it expressed so plainly. To wonder left room for the possibility that he was wrong about the Lord, but Hattie’s explanation confirmed his worst imaginings.

Faren had served a would-be tyrant forten years.

No wonder Mariana had been so vicious toward him, in the beginning.

“Breathe,” Idris urged, shaking Faren’s shoulder as if to jostle him out of his shock.

Faren hauled in a breath, his mind racing.

“If it helps, everyone in this room knows how you’re feeling,” Hattie added.

Perhaps that was true of his outrage, but not his guilt, nor the unanswered questions stampeding through his head.

Why hadn’t Oderin told him about Lord Haron? Had the Mighty Oath kept the Major from being honest? Would Faren’s own Oath bar him from warning his fellows when he returned to Castle Might? His Order was not without its proponents of Fenriran independence, knights who blamed Marona for the territory’s scarcity. Regardless of Lord Haron’s vile means, Faren imagined the Mighty would be split on who supported the Lord’s ambitions and who didn’t.

This was a scandal waiting to happen.Thiscould fell a territory. And with the Valiant poised to strike…

Faren had to get back to Fenrir City.

But first, he needed to understand: “Why supply the Valiant with potions?” Faren asked Hattie. “Are they not using them with nefarious intent?”

Hattie’s nose scrunched, as if she had asked herself that question numerous times. She reached across the counter and rested her hand atop Noble’s. “The Morta were knights, once. Somewhere inside their monstrous bodies are souls who are suffering.” Her blue eyes landed on Noble. “Who am I to withhold their cure?” she asked softly.

Noble squeezed Hattie’s hand, and Faren thought of the collapsing tent. If the Valiant were amassing an army of former knights who possessed inhuman strength like Noble’s…this wouldn’t just be an ambush. It would be a war between two corrupt powers.

And Mariana was caught in the middle of it.

Did she really believe that unseating the Lord was worth the chaos and destruction of a Valiant uprising?

“Heris promised Mariana freedom,” Faren said. “Do you know how he plans to deliver that promise?”