Page 153 of Fate's Wicked Oath

Relief was a landslide in my chest, knocking me off balance. I slumped over him, fingers curling in his shirt, my nose pressing against freckle under his jaw—that safe place I’d found all the way back in Waldron. “Fates, Faren,” I muttered into his neck.

A shaky hand found the back of my head and held me against him. “You scared me,” he said hoarsely.

Despite myself, I chuckled, pulling back to look at him. Through tears, I noticed something different about his neck—his tattoo. There was a new gap in the black ring.

“You broke your Oath,” I realized.

He huffed. “For you.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “No, you did all you could for the realm. You fought that Morta, and—”

“I did it for you,” he insisted. “I broke my Oath for you.”

There was nothing that mattered more to Faren than his duty. I couldn’t stand the thought of him giving up his principles and purpose just for me. Fenrir’s next sovereign was yet to be determined, but the Order of the Mighty remained. They’d need him in the coming transition.

I began to shake my head, to protest, but Faren’s fingers curled against the back of my neck, steadying me as he looked into my eyes. Even as he did, I noticed his Oath tattoo beginning to fade, disappearing into his tan skin as his color returned.

Hattie had been right. It wasn’t a potion that dissolved Oaths—it was the water from the Well of Fate, along with the alchemy of love. A sacred combination that was maddeningly simple.

“But the realm…” I murmured.

“You are my realm,” he said, shaking me just a little, just for emphasis. “Mariana, you are my realm.”

His words were everything I wanted and far more than I deserved.

Overwhelmed and overstimulated, I dropped my head to Faren’s chest, sagging with relief, gratitude, exhaustion.

As I did, one of the knights grumbled. Then I heard the flick of a coin, and the distinct smack of it being caught in someone else’s palm.

“Told you he’d fall for her,” Warner said smugly.

56

The Fate of Fenrir

Faren

Ipromise you, I’mfine,” Faren insisted.

He was in the infirmary again. Mariana stood at the head of his bed like a sentinel, snarling at anyone who came near, her hand resting on his shoulder while a litany of Adepts and healers poked and prodded at him like a science experiment. Though he and Mariana had yet to have a moment alone together, there had only been a handful of minutes within the last twenty-four hours in which she hadnotbeen in some kind of contact with his body. Holding his hand. Pushing the hair off his forehead. At present, her hand squeezed protectively, lighting up his magic.

It was…sweet. He couldn’t wait to get her alone and tease her for the flagrant show of feeling—then treat her to an attack of squeezes in return.

Unfortunately, any semblance of privacy still seemed like a far-off fantasy.

“You mayfeelfine, but we don’t yet understand the ramifications of your miraculous recovery,” Phina argued.

In the aftermath of his rapid healing, Faren had been moved to the infirmary for monitoring. He’d slept on and off for the better part of a day, always waking to find Mariana by his side, along with a handful of alchemists and arcane magicians.

Phina’s subordinates had already recorded his heart rate, tested his reflexes, and collected his blood for study. They’d opened a small wound on his forearm and treated it with numerous samples of water, to no effect (other than his annoyance). Mariana had been thoroughly questioned about Hattie’s theory and the sequence of events (much toherannoyance), with Phina going so far as to imply that Mariana had performed a form of alchemy, which Mariana vehemently denied and refused to attempt again. And Faren’s stomach wound—his Fated Death, now no more than a silvery streak of scar tissue—had been thoroughly inspected.

“What else could you possibly record?” Faren complained.

Phina—who had been scribbling something in a leather-bound notebook—paused and arched an eyebrow. “Have somewhere else to be, Captain Hayward?”

Faren grimaced. He would, if he were still a captain. “I would like to be leftalone,” he enunciated, glancing up at Mariana, “with my rescuer. Please.”

Phina snapped her notebook shut. “Fine. I have a letter to write to Waldron, anyhow.” The alchemist pinned Mariana with a hard stare. “But he is not to leave this bed. Understood?”