Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, Book 2)

Hawk Shire wasn’t what Iris was expecting. Although to be honest, she wasn’t sure what she had thought it would be like.

All through the night ride, she had leaned back and let the motorcar hum through her bones, her eyes on the sky. The stars had glimmered overhead like devoted guardians, the western constellations guiding them onward like an arrow set to a bowstring. Iris, too electrified to sleep, had tried to envision what was to come. To prepare her statement and set a plan of action, Roman’s letter tucked away in her pocket alongside Marisol’s bird volume. A few times, she had let her fingertip trace the sharp corner of the folded paper, Roman’s words a brilliant seam in the darkness.

I don’t know how to prepare for this, Mum, Iris caught herself thinking, studying the stars. They continued to gleam, cold pinpricks of fire. I don’t know what I’m doing.

The sun was rising like a bloody yolk on the horizon when Tobias geared down the roadster. Hawk Shire came into view through a veil of fog, a town spun from tall shadows in the distance. There was a patrol on the road with a crudely made barricade. Tobias brought the motorcar to a stop when a soldier lifted his hand.

“This town is closed to civilians,” the soldier said in a curt tone, studying the three of them with a suspicious eye. “You should return to where you came from.”

Iris sat up straighter, removing her goggles. Gods only knew what she looked like, wind-snarled hair, cheeks and shoulders freckled with mud. A desperate gleam in her eyes.

“I have an important message for Captain Keegan Torres,” she said. “It’s very urgent. Please let us pass.”

The soldier merely stared at her, but his gaze dropped to the white badge on her jumpsuit, stitched over her heart. INKRIDDEN TRIBUNE PRESS.

“If you’re here to report, I’m sorry to say that’s prohibited. This is an active war zone, closed to civilians, and you—”

“We aren’t here to report,” Iris interrupted, her voice sharper than she intended. She made herself draw a deep breath, made her shoulders relax. “Like I said, I am carrying an extremely important message for Captain—”

“Yes, you mentioned that. What is the message?”

Iris hesitated. She could feel both Attie and Tobias watching her, waiting. The air suddenly felt tense. Many things had crossed her mind in the dark, but not once had she thought that they would be barred from Hawk Shire.

“It must be hand-delivered to the captain,” she replied firmly. “By me.”

A second soldier joined the first, drawn to the motorcar. Iris watched as the two of them spoke in low tones, glancing their way with arched brows. Sweat prickled along Iris’s palms as she waited; she was tempted to touch Roman’s letter but resisted, tracing her wedding band instead. She inhaled draughts of air, tasting the exhaust from the car, the redolent mist, the smoke from a campfire. The sun continued to rise; the fog was melting quickly now, like snow in spring. Hawk Shire looked dark and dismal, a chain of circular stone buildings reminiscent of the points of a crown.

“All right,” said the private who had first spoken to them. “Only one of you can come. I’ll escort you now.”

Iris’s heart leapt into her throat. But she looked at Attie, who nodded solemnly in encouragement, and then Tobias, who cut the engine.

“We’ll wait here for you,” he said, and by the tone of his voice Iris knew nothing would make him break his word.

It gave her the confidence to step out of the roadster, chin lifted high. Her legs felt weak from hours of sitting, but she followed the private around the barricade and up the road. They passed a sea of linen tents. Rings of soldiers sitting around campfires as they fried links of sausage and eggs in cast iron skillets. A line of parked lorries splattered with mud, the sunrise limning their cracked windshields and bullet-sprayed fenders. The air was solemn and silent and still, as if Enva’s forces had been defeated, and it made the hair stand up on Iris’s arms.

Wordlessly, she followed the private into town, gazing up at the buildings of Hawk Shire. One in the center of town caught her eye. It was very tall and wide—four stories high with several sets of chimneys—and built from red brick and shining glass windows. A factory, Iris realized, with modest houses strung around it like dew on a cobweb.

The private led her through a wide city market, and Iris stopped abruptly. Over the cobblestones, cots and makeshifts beds were set up in rows, wounded soldiers lying on tattered blankets. The soldiers far outnumbered the doctors and nurses, who seemed to be in constant motion, moving from cot to cot, carrying bedpans, bloodied bandages, and cups of water. Not even the gray-tinged sunshine could hide the exhaustion and concern etched onto their faces.

The staggering number of wounded stole Iris’s breath; it made her think of Forest. Of Roman. She forced herself to continue following the private into the factory, although her thoughts bent to one horrible question: how would Enva’s forces evacuate all the wounded before Dacre arrived?

The private led her up flights of metal stairs to the uppermost level, passing a few long-faced soldiers along the way. Again, Iris was surprised by how quiet it was, as if no one had the heart to speak. As if they were simply holding their breath and waiting for Dacre to come and crush them, one last time.

“In here,” the private said, opening a squeaky door. “The brigadier will meet with you soon.”

Iris stepped into the room, jolted by his words. “The brigadier? I asked to speak with Captain Keegan Torres.”

The private only sighed and shook his head. He closed the door, leaving her alone in the chamber, which Iris turned to take in. It was a long and narrow room, with a threadbare rug along the hardwood floor, a stained walnut desk covered in papers and wax-dribbled candelabras, and one wall full of windows. It was to these windows that Iris was drawn, realizing the glass afforded her a bird’s-eye view of Hawk Shire, as well as the deep blue horizon of the west.

She watched as the fog continued to recoil. She could see the market square once more, her heart aching as she studied the rows of wounded soldiers. A doctor strode from one building to another, blood on her clothes. Nurses carried a stretcher, the body draped in a white sheet.

Iris’s eyes eventually settled on a pair of vultures, perched on a nearby roof.

She stared at the birds as they sunned their wings, wondering if they had followed her from River Down. With an anxious twitch of her hands, Iris reached into her pocket and retrieved Marisol’s book. She sifted through the worn pages, admiring the intricate illustrations, until she came to the page devoted to nightingales. There her eyes remained, reading through the fine-print description:

A small and secretive bird that is rather plain to behold, the Nightingale is difficult to spot. They keep to thick cover, and while their feathers might be unexciting, they have a repertoire of more than two hundred different phrases that they can sing.

The door creaked open.

Iris closed the book, her mouth suddenly dry. All the words seemed to scatter from her thoughts as she turned away from the windows, preparing to ask for Keegan again. But Iris stopped short, her breath catching.

It was Keegan. Marisol’s wife stood tall and proud in her green uniform, three golden stars pinned over her breast. Her blond hair was slicked back and her jaw was set, as if she too had come to this meeting with preconceptions. Her dark eyes were keen but red-rimmed, as if she hadn’t slept a full night in weeks, and her expression was inscrutable. Her mouth was set in a line that looked chiseled from stone.

“Cap—Brigadier Torres,” Iris said. “I know you probably don’t remember me, but I’m—”

“Iris Winnow,” Keegan said, shutting the door behind her. “Of course I remember you. Didn’t I oversee your vows in the garden? My wife is very fond of you and Attie, as well as your Kitt. But what in all the gods’ names are you doing here?”

Iris drew a deep breath. “I have a message I think you should see.”

“A message?”

“Yes. I…” How much to say? Iris reached into her pocket again, withdrawing Roman’s letter. “Please read this.”

She gave the letter to Keegan, watching as the brigadier read Roman’s words. Keegan’s expression didn’t change; indeed, Iris was beginning to believe that the brigadier might doubt it all, and Iris didn’t know what she would do if that happened. But then Keegan exhaled sharply and met Iris’s gaze. Her eyes glittered as if she had just been shaken from a dream.

“How did you get this, Iris?”

“I have a magical connection to Roman through our typewriters,” Iris began. She shared everything with Keegan, from the beginning in Oath when they were mere rivals at the paper to where she stood now, writing to her husband even though he was Dacre’s prisoner and couldn’t even remember her name.

“I know it sounds impossible, but Roman wouldn’t lie to me,” she finished, surprised by the hoarseness in her tone. She swallowed the lump in her throat, but it only wedged in her chest, and she knew it was the grief she hadn’t allowed herself to process. Grief over Roman being a captive, his mind scrambled by Dacre’s magic. Grief that whatever they once had might not ever be recovered.

She was very good at burying things like that, her anguish and her sorrow and sometimes even the reality of what she faced. But she didn’t quite know how to let them go without losing vital pieces of herself.

Keegan was silent, staring down at Roman’s typed words again. “When did you receive this letter?”

“Yesterday morning. I came as soon as I read it. We drove all night from Bitteryne.”

“Which means we only have another day or so before Dacre attacks, if what Roman says is true.” Keegan rolled her lips together but then glanced at Iris. “Who is we? You said you drove here with someone?”

“Attie and Tobias Bexley.”

“Where are they now?”

“At the barricade in the motorcar, waiting for me to return.”

“Then the three of you must be exhausted and hungry. I’ll send breakfast for you, as well as find you all a quiet room to rest.” Keegan strode to the door and opened it, murmuring to a soldier waiting in the hallway.

Iris hesitated, her eyes drifting to Roman’s letter, still in Keegan’s hand.

“Go with Private Shepherd. He’s going to take you to a room on the lower floor to rest and eat,” Keegan said, glancing back at Iris. But she must have seen the stricken light in Iris’s eyes. The brigadier softened her tone, adding, “Don’t worry. I need to speak to my officers, but I’ll come find you in a little bit, after you’ve rested.”

“Of course,” Iris whispered with a half smile. “Thank you, Brigadier Torres.”

But despite her relief at having delivered the news in time, Iris still found it hard to quit the room, to follow another stranger, leaving Roman’s letter—burn my words—behind to an unknown fate.

None of them planned to sleep for more than an hour, but after a warm fare of eggs and buttered toast, accompanied by watered-down chicory with no sugar and only a splash of cream, Iris, Attie, and Tobias fell into a deep slumber on the cots Keegan had provided. They had been given an inner room in the factory, one with no windows, and the darkness felt like a balm until Iris was woken by the distant sound of a violin.

It was playing a poignant, lovely song, one that filled Iris with nostalgia, and she rose from her cot and followed the music out of the dark room.

She walked down the hallway, the violin’s melody growing louder, as if she was on the cusp of finding it. She turned a corner and nearly ran into her mother.

Aster was leaning against the wall, wrapped in her purple coat with a cigarette smoldering in her fingers.

“There you are, darling,” she said brightly. “Have you come to enjoy the music with me?”

Iris frowned, unsettled. “Who is playing the violin?”

“Does it matter? Listen, Iris. Listen to the notes. Tell me if you know them.”

Iris fell quiet. She listened to the violin, and while the music curled through her like sun-warmed vines, there was no recognition. She had never heard this song before.

“I don’t know it, Mum,” she confessed, watching a furrow form in Aster’s brow. “And why are you here?”

Aster opened her mouth, but her voice was robbed as the colors began to melt together. Iris felt a prick of fear, watching the features of her mother’s face begin to smudge, until she raised her own hands and saw they were also fading, breaking into hundreds of stars.

“This is a dream,” she panted. “Why do you keep appearing to me, Mum?”

The floor shook and cracked beneath her boots. Iris was about to fall through the widening crevice when she gasped and sat forward, blinking into the peaceful dark. It took her a moment to gain her bearings, but she remembered where she was. She could hear Attie, her breathing heavy with dreams, in the cot next to her, and Tobias’s soft snores on the other side of the room. There was no way to tell the time, and Iris ran her fingers through her tangled hair as she set her feet on the floor. There, she felt it again. A steady rumbling.

Iris slipped from the room and moved down the hallway, searching for someone to tell her what was happening, but she soon found the answer herself when she passed a set of windows. She paused, watching the doctor she had seen earlier help load a line of wounded patients into the back of a lorry. Another truck was passing by on the road, brimming with soldiers.

It was Keegan’s forces, Iris realized. They must be retreating from Hawk Shire.

They believed Roman’s words.

Iris rushed down the long hallway, through amber squares of sunlight. It looked to be midafternoon, and every minute suddenly felt dire. She slipped out the door and approached one of the nurses in the market square.

“What can I do?” Iris asked.

The nurse glanced her over, sweat beading on her face. “If you want, you can help us load the wounded into that lorry.”

Iris nodded and hurried to the closest cot, where a young man with bandages on his face was struggling to sit forward.

“Here,” Iris said. “Take my hand.” She eased him to his feet and offered him balance, walking him toward the truck. The lorry was nearly full, the wounded packed in close together. As Iris helped the soldier up the ramp and into the back, worry flooded her lungs.

They couldn’t leave any of the wounded behind. Not with Dacre’s imminent arrival. He would heal these soldiers only to use them for his own gains.

“Iris!”

She turned to see Attie and Tobias hurrying through the chaos. Iris wove her way to them, heart drumming in her ears.

“They believed Roman’s warning?” Attie said in a low but hopeful tone.

“Yes.” Iris tucked a tangle of hair behind her ear. She realized there was blood on her hands. “They’re loading all the wounded, but I’m not sure where—” She cut herself off when she caught sight of Keegan approaching them. “Brigadier Torres.”

“I was just coming to wake you,” Keegan said. “Evacuations have commenced, and the three of you should depart as swiftly as you arrived.”

“Where are you evacuating to?” Attie asked.

“To Oath,” Keegan replied. “We are the last of Enva’s forces. And we will make our final stand in the city.”

Those words went through Iris as a shiver. She studied Keegan’s face. “You are the last?”

“Our battalions holding the southern front have fallen. Dacre has killed and taken a great number of our soldiers. And I will not let him capture and turn this final brigade.”

“Then let us help you with the wounded,” Tobias offered. “We can stay and get them safely loaded.”

Keegan shook her head. “You should leave immediately. I couldn’t bear it should something happen to you three.”

“But nor can we leave you and the wounded behind,” Iris insisted. “Please, Brigadier.”

Keegan hesitated but held Iris’s gaze. Maybe she saw it in Iris’s eyes: a glimmer of the past. That fateful day in the bluff when Keegan had delivered a letter to Iris. Words that had conveyed that Forest wasn’t dead but wounded. And how that message had strengthened Iris’s resolve to stay behind rather than evacuate with the rest of the town residents.

“If I let you stay and help,” Keegan began, “then you’ll be at the back of a slow line of lorries. You’ll be in a very vulnerable position if Dacre decides to pursue us.”

“I know a shortcut,” Tobias countered. “From my early post-running days. Your troops will be taking the high road to Oath, Brigadier?”

“Yes. Why?”

“We’re in my roadster, and I can drive us down the narrow but faster Hawthorne Route, which will have us meeting up with your brigade in River Down in no time.”

Iris held her breath as she waited for Keegan’s response. Her fingers instinctively went to the locket hanging from her neck.

“All right,” Keegan relented. “The three of you can stay and assist. But when I say it’s time for you to go, you take Hawthorne Route and you don’t look back. Agreed?”

“Yes,” Iris answered in unison with Tobias and Attie.

The brigadier withdrew a crinkled sheet of paper from her pocket. Roman’s letter, Iris realized, and a sigh escaped her when Keegan gave it back to her.

“Thank you for delivering this message,” Keegan said. “For driving through the night to reach us in time. I will always be indebted to you three.”

Iris’s throat went narrow. She only nodded, tucking the paper into her pocket. But as she began to guide soldiers to the lorry, she couldn’t help but think of Roman, deep in the earth. Walking ever closer through those tangled ley lines, somewhere just beneath her feet.