Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, Book 2)

Roman was still dreaming when he felt the ground slide beneath him. There was the clink of iron, a hiss of steam. A painful throb around his wrists. A man’s voice, cursing through the static.

“Wake up!”

A hand shook him and, when that failed to rouse him, slapped his cheek. Roman stirred, his eyes heavy-lidded and full of grit. It took a moment for the colors to return to his sight, for all the blurred edges to turn crisp and defined.

To his immense shock, he was staring up at Lieutenant Shane.

“What are you doing?” Roman asked.

“What does it look like? I’m getting you out of here.” Shane took hold of his arms, dragging him up. “Can you stand?”

Roman found his feet but wobbled. “Give me a moment.”

Shane supported Roman’s weight but huffed in impatience. “We don’t have a moment. We need to hurry. Things are evolving in ways I didn’t expect, and we need to return above.”

“What do you mean?” Roman took a step forward. With each passing moment, he felt steadier, although his head viciously throbbed. He flexed his hands, realizing they were free from the chains. “How did you…?”

Shane withdrew a key from his inner pocket. It was still stained with Captain Landis’s blood. The key that had gone missing, or, Roman realized, that Dacre had set out as bait on the table, to see which of his soldiers would swipe it.

“Why did you steal it?” Roman asked. “Are you part of the Graveyard?”

“Yes. And we need its power,” Shane said, hurrying him along the path. He kicked a small skull out of the way. “We can lock or unlock any of Dacre’s doorways. We can glean the resources from the under realm now.”

“What about the other four keys?”

“Val is presumed dead. He never fetched Iris, if you were worried about that. We don’t know where he is, but he failed to return after he brought you here. His key is unaccounted for, although I can imagine who has it.”

Roman drew in a slow, shaky breath. But his bones ached when he wondered where Iris was.

“Dacre is also dead,” Shane said simply. As if he were announcing a weather forecast, and not the end of a god. “But I haven’t heard where his key is.”

Roman tripped. “Dead?”

“Your girl Iris cut off his head. Brought it up to a café not long ago. Or so the rumors are spreading. Here, we need to hurry.”

Roman didn’t have time to process it, although when he blinked, he saw a flash of Iris, dragging Dacre’s severed head by his golden hair.

He shivered at the vision.

“You left Oath to enlist for Dacre,” Roman said next, slowly piecing together Shane’s past. “But you never had the intention to serve him. You’ve been fooling him this entire time, gathering information for the Graveyard. How to kill a god. Finding a key for the underworld. Memorizing the ley lines.”

“Does that shock you, Roman? Were you not doing the same?”

“He wounded me and then took me into his service against my own volition. I didn’t choose him.”

The men’s conversation stalled when they reached the door, lined with citrine crystals and vines. Roman tried to keep pace with Shane, but his breath began to heave. His throat felt constricted, his lungs small. He paused to cough into his sleeve, numb when he saw a constellation of blood spotting the fabric.

Shane noticed through the gloam.

“You’ll need to see a doctor soon,” he said. “In fact, there are about to be many sick soldiers, now that his spell has broken.”

Roman said nothing. He dropped his arm and continued onward with Shane, even as the incline made his chest burn. He didn’t recognize the passages they wove through, but when they reached the foot of a stairwell, he stopped Shane.

“Why did you give me up to him?” Roman asked. “Why did you betray me?”

“Why didn’t you deliver the message as I asked you to? Dacre would have been dead days ago, and the bombing would have never happened,” Shane countered. But then he sighed, his posture softening. “Listen. When I stole the key, Dacre began to search us all, hell-bent on discovering which one of us was the mole. I gave him your account to save myself, as selfish as that may sound. And I wouldn’t have cared what happened to you, save for the fact that you refused to give me up in turn. So here I am now, risking myself to pay back my debt.”

“There are no debts,” Roman rasped.

“In war,” Shane said, “there are always debts. Now come on. We’re almost to the safe house.”

Iris stood on Broad Street, staring at the Oath Gazette.The building had been struck and torn open. Bricks, glass, twisted pieces of metal, and personal possessions sat in heaps, glittering in the afternoon light. She could see a few typewriters, half-buried in the rubble.

The Gazette was gone.

The fifth floor had been blown away, its remnants scattered like chaff. She knew she should be feeling something, but her chest was numb.

Forest had come here first, for Sarah. Chances were, they had gone to her place, to be with her father.

Iris turned, her eyes sweeping the street and the jagged new skyline of buildings that had collapsed or had disintegrating walls. It was unrecognizable; it felt like she had never stood in this spot before, where the tram tracks cut grooves into the cobblestones.

Where did Sarah live? Iris didn’t know for certain, although she’d heard Sarah mention a neighborhood in the southern reaches of Oath. Remembering, Iris had to bite down her panic.

I’ll find them. They’re safe. They’re fine.

She began to walk, climbing over debris. The slices on her palms began to bleed again. She could hardly feel their sting as she picked a path through the rubble.

Should I head north, to the Kitt estate?

She paused, torn between venturing farther south for Forest and Sarah, or pressing north for Roman. A few young men ran past her, wielding guns, their excited voices carrying on the warm breeze. The sight should have scared her, but Iris could only blink in their wake. She was overwhelmed by the wreckage. How would they ever rebuild this? It would never be the same, feel the same.

More people were beginning to venture out into the streets. In the distance—the way she had come from—voices were cheering and shouting. She knew it was at Gould’s Café, which had stood unscathed during the bombing, suffering only two cracked windows, ceiling tiles that had been knocked loose, and multiple broken dishes. That was where she had left Dacre’s head. Champagne was popped and passed around, as well as more biscuits and cake in celebration, but Iris had slipped away through the crowd after she had ensured Attie was safely reunited with her family and Tobias.

Iris began to wander, hardly knowing where she was going.

She didn’t know why she felt so hollow. Why she didn’t feel like celebrating Dacre’s death. Surely, the war had now come to an end. But then why did she sense that something else was brewing? Like another shoe was bound to drop.

“Stop it, Iris,” she scolded herself, shaking away her pessimism. “Where are you going?”

She finally realized where she was. She walked through more wreckage, only stopping when three young men approached her. They bore guns, but they looked at her in awe.

“Are you the woman who cut off Dacre’s head?” one asked.

Iris was silent. But she couldn’t hide the ichor that was splattered over her trousers, staining her clothes. Dacre had bled and bled after his head had rolled away. It had made her gag, retch.

She walked past the men, felt them stare at her as she kept walking. Soon, she reached the place she both longed and dreaded to see, uncertain if it had survived.

The building with the Inkridden Tribune.

It still stood, although most of the windows had blown out, and a portion of the walls from the uppermost floor had crumbled. Iris was gazing up at it when she heard a familiar voice.

“What are you doing here, kid? I thought I gave you the day off.”

Iris turned to see Helena on the other side of the street, smoking a cigarette. Her heart leapt to see her boss, hale and alive albeit rumpled and bleary-eyed, and she hurried to embrace her.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Helena said, awkwardly patting her back. “And before you ask … the Tribune pulled through, also. What about Attie?”

Iris nodded, tears welling in her throat. “She’s okay.”

“Good. Now what in Enva’s name are you doing out here, alone and—” Helena was interrupted by a sudden peal of gunfire.

Iris jumped, pulse quickening as she crouched down. Helena took hold of her arm, rushing her toward a pile of rubble for cover.

“Listen, kid,” Helena said, stomping on her cigarette. “You need to get home or stay with people you trust. The streets aren’t safe, and they won’t be that way for a while. Not with the Graveyard emerging from their dens.”

“The Graveyard?” Iris repeated. “Why would they be coming out and firing at people? At a time like this, after what we just survived?”

Helena raked her fingers through her hair. “Because the chancellor’s dead. A god is also dead, if the rumors are true.” She noticed the ichor stains on Iris’s clothes. “They’re rounding up Dacre’s soldiers. To execute them.”

Roman and Shane passed over the threshold to the realm above.

The light was dim, but as Shane locked the door behind them, Roman could see they were standing in a decadent bedroom. Floor-to-ceiling curtains were drawn over the windows, but a slice of sunlight limned a four-poster bed and a massive mirror, ornately trimmed in gold. The carpet beneath Roman’s grimy boots was plush and soft.

It was the sort of bedroom his parents would have, which meant they must have emerged somewhere north of the river, in one of the wealthier neighborhoods.

“Where are we?” Roman asked, his voice hoarse.

Shane didn’t reply. He moved to the bedroom door and opened it, slipping out into the corridor.

Roman followed, but when they reached the foyer, Shane came to a startled halt.

Soldiers rushed back and forth from one room to the next, overturning parlor tables and chairs, taking shelter behind anything they could find, including a grand piano. Their guns were ready, their faces tense, like they were about to engage in a skirmish.

“We need to get out of here,” Shane murmured as he spun, taking hold of Roman’s upper arm. “Quickly. Back to the bedroom door. This place isn’t safe.”

Roman didn’t understand what was happening, but he could sense the pressure that was building, like he had swum down to the darkest, coldest depths of a pond.

It reminded him of the trenches. The moment before the barrage.

A line of Dacre’s soldiers jostled past him, hissing orders at each other. Confusion, bewilderment, and desperation hung in the air, and Roman was as eager as Shane to get away from it when he saw a soldier slumped against the wall, coughing into his sleeve.

Blood dripped from his chin. Pain glazed his eyes. His face was remarkably pale.

Roman stopped.

He knew the sound of that wet cough. He could taste it at the back of his mouth, and he knelt before the soldier.

This wasn’t someone who had willingly fought for Dacre, despite the uniform he wore and the forces he was among. This was someone who had been wounded and nearly killed by the gas, and then healed just enough to serve, his mind scrambled by Dacre’s magic. Someone just like Roman.

“Leave him,” Shane said, panic clipping the words. “We don’t have time!”

Roman was not about to abandon this person. He eased the man’s arm over his shoulders and helped him rise.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

“You should … leave me,” the soldier said, coughing up more blood. “The Graveyard … is coming to kill us…”

“We need to get you to a doctor.” Roman glanced down the hallway, but Shane had vanished. Shane had left him behind, and while Roman was grateful he had saved him from the prison below, he couldn’t help but think how cowardly the lieutenant was now. To run and hide when the end was nearing. “Let’s try to leave out the back.”

The two of them limped down the corridor, arriving at a sunroom. Through the glass walls Roman could see figures crouched low, running through the gardens. Individuals who wore masks to hide their faces, rifles in hand, coming closer.

Before Roman could turn around, a rock sailed through the glass wall. No, not a rock, but something round and metal, ticking as it came to a stop on the floor.

His eyes widened.

“Run,” he whispered. He turned and dragged the soldier with him, back down the corridor. Run, and yet he felt like his legs were knee-deep in honey. Like he was in a nightmare, and everything was slow and resistant.

He counted five pulses, five beats in his ears, before the grenade exploded.

It blew out the walls.

Roman and the soldier went down, where they both remained dazed, sprawled over the floor. Pieces of the house were scattered around them. Dust coated their clothes, snuck down their throats, making them both cough.

Roman lay on his back, stunned. He stared up at the crystal chandelier that dangled crooked on the ceiling above him. Glittering through the smoke.

His ears were ringing, but he could hear the crack of gunshots.

We need to get out.

A shadow rippled over him, blocking the view of the chandelier. Roman wheezed as he felt someone take hold of his shirt, pulling him up from the rubble.

“Round up any survivors,” the stranger said, tightening his grip. There was a bright red anemone pinned to his waistcoat. “It’s time the people of Oath witness justice.”

Iris was almost to her flat when she heard footsteps echoing off the piles of rubble. It sounded like someone was running after her. She stiffened, glancing over her shoulder to scan the growing shadows.

The sun was setting, and Iris had decided to return home, hoping to find it still standing and her brother safe within its walls. After parting ways with Helena, she had witnessed firsthand the unpredictability of the streets. She had seen valiant recovery efforts as people drew survivors from collapsed buildings as well as chaos as the Graveyard ran rampant with their guns.

“Forest?” she called.

The footsteps grew louder. She could see someone sprinting down a side street, heading in her direction. When they finally emerged into the clearing, the light spilled over them.

Iris’s breath snagged.

The person was wearing a mask. A member of the Graveyard. They had a broad set of shoulders beneath their dark clothes, betraying a strong build. And they were running directly at her.

Iris spun and dashed toward the closest rubble pile. She could feel the distance closing between them, and her heart was frantic as she ripped a piece of pipe from the debris, pivoting to face her attacker.

“Miss Winnow!” the man cried in a rough voice as she threatened to strike him with the pipe. He held up his hands and came to a stop. “Miss Winnow, it’s me.”

She gaped at the stranger. She had no idea who he was, and she kept the pipe between them.

He relented to pull off his mask.

It was Mr. Kitt’s associate. The man who had once followed and threatened her. Handed her money to null her vows to Roman.

“Get away from me!” She swung the pipe again.

He easily dodged it. “Listen!” he shouted. “We don’t have time. I need your help.”

Iris didn’t trust him. She began to bolt again, slipping past him, until his words chased after her.

“It’s Roman! They’re about to kill him on the firing line.”

Iris halted. Her blood went cold as she turned on her heel. “Who is about to kill him?”

The associate stepped closer. “The Graveyard. He was captured among Dacre’s soldiers, and they are taking no prisoners. I couldn’t convince my comrades to let him go. They want proof of his innocence. Do you have anything? Anything at all that could keep him alive?”

Iris’s thoughts reeled at this revelation, but she bit her tongue, focusing. She had all his letters that he had written to her from Dacre’s side. She still had the Hawk Shire letter, even though Roman had once beseeched her to burn my words.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I have a letter. In my flat, if it survived.”

Mr. Kitt’s associate broke into motion, taking her hand and pulling her through the rubble. He was strong, kicking debris out of their way, cutting through the remains of a collapsed house to get them to their destination faster. Iris didn’t know if she should be thankful or afraid that this man knew exactly where she lived, but when they finally reached her street, every thought and feeling melted away.

Her apartment building still stood.

She dashed tears from her eyes as she raced up the stairs. The front door hung open; it was dark inside, the electricity still out.

“Forest?” she cried, ragged. But there was no sign of her brother. Only Val’s dead body lay on the living room floor, and she leapt over the corpse to rush into her room.

Mr. Kitt’s associate lingered just outside the door, but she could hear his labored breaths.

“Hurry, Miss Winnow,” he said.

She fell to her knees and reached beneath her bed, yanking the hat box out from the shadows. She threw off the lid and began to sort through all the letters, her hands shaking. But there it was, creased and smudged, but very much legible.

Burn my words.

“I have it,” she said.

Roman thought he was dreaming when he saw Iris in the crowd.

His hands were bound, and he stood against a brick wall. He was in a line with fifty-one other soldiers; prisoners of war who the Graveyard was about to execute without trial.

Beyond the firing line, a group of onlookers had gathered. Some were cheering, others looked troubled. Roman felt dizzy, overcome by the jeers, the noise, the sight of people pleased to see his death.

His knees trembled.

He thought he was about to faint until he saw her. Iris was pushing her way to the front. Her face was scratched and smeared with dirt, speckled with luminous gold. She was holding up a piece of paper and shouting but her voice was lost amongst the roar.

That was when her eyes locked with Roman’s.

“Ready?” a voice called.

The line of rifles lowered.

Roman couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t stop Iris from moving forward. He couldn’t stop her from coming between him and the bullet.

“Iris,” he pleaded, but only he could hear her name. A whisper in the chaos. “Iris, no.”

She moved through the crowd like the world would bend to her. Her gaze remained fastened to his as if nothing could come between them. No gods or war. Not even the sting of a mortal wound.

“Aim!”

Let our breaths twine and our blood become one, until our bones return to dust.

A sob broke his breath.

Even then, may I find your soul still sworn to mine.

Iris passed the firing line, hair tangling across her face, her boots pounding over the blood-soaked cobblestones.

“Fire!”

She came between Roman and the rifle just as gunshots cracked through the air.