“I’m going in,” I announced. “Don’t follow me.”

“I’m coming with you,” the kid who’d claimed to be a powerful oathholder said. “You said you were from Seb’s group, right?”

“I did,” I said. “Why?”

I didn’t need another person to join me. According to Jasmine, Orchid had been our enemy last night, even if he had seemed rather reluctant to play his part. Whether or not he truly held animosity for us, he would be an important person to connect with. I wasn’t about to let this bunch of weirdly organized commoners get away with murdering my prisoner.

“Seb’s group is weak,” the oathholder kid spat. “No offense to you, miss, but you need someone on your side. Who knows what they’ll do to you if you don’t have a guard?”

It took all I had to keep myself from breaking out in laughter at his words. He was right, I knew, given the fact that Seb’s group had included zero oathholders—with the possible exception of the man himself—and had largely been reduced to using improvised weapons composed of hunting and farming tools when they’d stormed the Alzaq manor. Still, the idea of me being weak, especially in comparison to this foundling of an oathholder?

I couldn’t stop a little chuckle from escaping my throat, but the voices of the other two drowned it out.

“I’m coming too,” the other man said, the woman in their group assenting a moment later.

“You find this funny?” the oathholder asked, half in disbelief. “Do you understand how serious this is? How close you could come to death or worse?”

Behind us, another pair of people had arrived. Without asking us anything or even pausing to assess the situation, the two cloaked figures sprinted into the house.

“Death won’t be a problem,” I assured him.

As if to contradict my statement, the sound of something striking the inside of the building—a sound that remarkably resembled a human body collapsing onto wooden flooring—reached us, accompanied by another pulse of Orchid’s oath.

“I’m going,” the kid said. “Please, miss. It wouldn’t be right to let you go in there alone.”

I looked at him again, taking in his features. Still a teenager yet. Much older than I had been when I had gone through my first trial by fire, but still much too young to take the battlefield. A bit of a shame, honestly. He was so earnest, already trying to ensure my safety and win my favor when I had been a stranger not three minutes ago. I was surprised enough that he had let me run with his group after accepting my admittedly dubious story, and that surprise held doubly true now that he had revealed himself to be… actually a quite decent person, if you discounted the fact that he wanted to rid the world of nobles. Not that that last bit wasn’t something I couldn’t relate to.

I wouldn’t take pleasure in killing him. When he inevitably got in my way, he was going to have to go, and I was already half-dreading the moment in which the light in his eyes would fade out into nothing, his body destroyed by my unforgiving ruin.

“Fine,” I relented, knowing I was going to regret it. “Lead the way. Or don’t.”

“Thank you for seeing reason,” the boy said. “Name’s Nek, by the by. These are Olivia and Kassle”

“Lily,” I introduced myself, already walking towards the building. “What god do you have an oath to?”

Probably not important information to have, given his apparent weakness, but arrogance had been the downfall of many Byrons. I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to gain information if I could find one.

“Caël,” he boasted, puffing up his chest. “God of, uh…”

“The skies, Nek,” the woman named Olivia said, shaking her head. “How many times do I need to remind you?”

“Right, right,” he said. “I can hit way harder and faster than anyone else I know can. Maybe some other groups have people even stronger than me, but I’m damn strong, miss.”

“I believe you,” I said, forcing sincerity into my voice.

What was he, class one? There was no way he was anything higher than that, right? I hadn’t heard of any other noble deaths recently, so I doubted he would’ve gained class through that. Unless he somehow had a deep connection to his oath without even knowing what Caël’s domain was, which was rather unlikely, I was fairly sure his power level was as low as it could get. Maybe just a tiny bit higher, if he’d been physically training himself.

I’d been far stronger when I was only class two, and I’d long since grown stronger than that.

I let him take the lead. Even if it was growing increasingly apparent that it was going to be trivially easy to dispatch the group I was with, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t missing something. It was possible—extremely unlikely, but possible—that he was a significantly more powerful oathholder whose oath signature simply did not give off much magic. I didn’t want to take this venture too riskily, especially after I’d just spent an entire night recounting how rushing in without a plan had led to my family’s downfall.

“Allow me,” the boy said, his intonation stiff and forced as if he’d been practicing the line inside his head.

He led the way forward, his stride confident and quick. I watched him closely as our little group approached one of the entrances that had been broken open. His oath was exerting its influence on the world as he walked, just a little bit. The boy—Nek—didn’t even look like he had noticed that he was using his oath to power up his steps. There was untapped potential there, potential that would be utterly wasted because he would never have a teacher that could bring it out.

Not for the first time, I found myself questioning why genuinely useful knowledge about oaths was restricted to nobles and the select few that had the resources to pass entrance exams. I had more immediate concerns, so it was a thought that was going to be filed away in the back of my thoughts somewhere, but I knew it was going to nag at me.

The building was a solidly built house. Two stories tall with a decent coat of cream-colored paint, cute little windows at even intervals throughout the house, and a foyer that looked like it could’ve been a moderately wealthy man’s recreation of a noble hall—it had all the markings of being the property of a well-off commoner. A bit of a shame, really, that the front door has been kicked open. The cheap wooden door lay in shreds at our feet, shards of mediocre spruce scattered across the foyer.

Even just a step or two into the room, the aftereffects of Orchid’s presence here were clearly present. This foyer had been a passibly decent one at some point, I was sure, with a nice long rug in Tayan purple and a few sets of tables lining the walls.

Now, though, bodies littered the hall. They weren’t moving, but I was pretty sure they weren’t dead yet either. No blood on the ground, at the very least, and I could see at least one of the downed commoners’ chests rising and falling.

Non-lethal, huh. Even if Jasmine and Orchid had been on two opposite sides last night, there were certain aspects in which they were very much the same.

There had to be half a dozen in the foyer alone, and their numbers didn’t decrease as we went in. The house wasn’t quite cramped, but it wasn’t incredibly spacious either. The trail of nearly a dozen unconscious bodies led through the house, gathered in clumps. Where clustered groups had run through and been defeated, presumably. They hadn’t gone silently, though—where there had once been well-organized tables and neat paintings, there was now shattered furniture and the wall was damaged in places where a stray bullet or melee weapon had hit it.

At the end of the hallway, one particular commoner lay prone at the base of a spiral staircase. Our destination.

Now that we were inside, the sounds of effort Orchid was making were growing more apparent and more obviously originating from the Alzaq noble. There was still an outside possibility it was some other oathholder who could use the oathtongue, but that wasn’t very likely.

“Upstairs,” Nek said.

“Yeah,” Olivia agreed. “We rush him?”

“He has to be tired by now,” Nek said, his head tracking across the frankly ridiculous number of downed bodies. “I reckon a charge will do it.”

“On three?” Kassle, who had stayed largely quiet up to this point, suggested. “Nek first, then us?”

“Works,” Nek said. “Weapons ready?”

As they spoke, we ascended the spiral stairs. The three commoners in front of me seemed to possess some level of respect for their fallen comrades. Not enough to stop and go out of their way to get them out of harm’s way, but enough to gingerly step over their unconscious bodies. I did the same.

We were getting closer. I could hear Orchid panting now, though his exact location was unclear.

“We’re coming for you, noble scum,” Nek shouted.

“Could you not?” Orchid replied. He sounded tired.

It was him. There was no mistaking that voice.

“He’s in one of the side rooms, I think,” Olivia said. “Be ready for him to surprise you from any direction.”

“Heard,” Kassle replied.

I drew my own knife, a pace or two behind the others. Doubt flashed through me as I turned the blade over, examining it. Was this really what I wanted to do? They weren’t that much younger than me, but I couldn’t help but see them as kids.

I didn’t imbue my blade with magic like I would normally. It didn’t feel right to subject them to a death by ruin.

One night with a noble and you’re going soft already, Lily. I snorted silently at my own thoughts. This was, if anything, a minor and temporary distraction. Of course anyone reflecting on the mistakes of their past would grow sentimental for a while. I wouldn’t let it cloud my judgment too much, and that was that.

“One,” Nek said. He was almost at the top of the staircase, Olivia and Kassle flanking him.

I was right behind them. The spiral stairs lead to a long, straight hallway with doors to rooms at sporadic points along the walls. Here, there were even more bodies. These had been knocked out more recently, and they were all over the place. Slumped against walls, thrown through doors, laying on the ground… it was almost comical, the number of fallen combatants here.

“Two,” Nek said. “Just follow me.”

How the hell had Orchid managed all of this? When I’d seen him fight nearly a week ago, he’d been struggling after using just one or two simple commands, but now there were a veritable stream of enemies felled by his oathtongue.

The weaknesses of the mundane, I suppose.

“Three!” Nek shouted.

He charged forward, and I could feel the disturbance in the air as his oath gathered together energy. His first stride took him as far as three of mine, and his second was even faster.

Shit.

I threw my knife. Wholly unenchanted, but it was still a knife.

Nek never saw it coming. Even when sprinting far faster than I could ever manage, he wasn’t at the level of speed where he could outpace a knife thrown by me. Maybe if he’d seen me throw it, he could’ve dodged, but he wasn’t facing me and the blade caught him square in the back. The nascent Caël oath tumbled to the ground, rolling over once, twice, thrice before coming to a sudden stop as he slammed into a door.

“Never show your back to a Byron,” I whispered. It was a bitter joke, one infused with decade-old pain and regret, and it felt more true for its bitterness.

“What the—“ Olivia was closer to me, so I cut her sentence off with a solid punch to the back of her knee. When her leg bent instinctively, I took advantage of her temporary instability, running up a couple of steps to reposition myself at her level.

I braced myself against the railing of the staircase and kicked out, jumping off the ground while keeping myself close to the railing to increase its power. It was an awkward angle and an even more awkward windup, but it got the job done. My boot connected solidly with flesh, and the blow was enough to send Olivia falling down the staircase before she could even get a cry of pain out.

“Traitor!” Kassle shouted, brandishing a dagger. He’d made it all the way into the hallway, leaving him three or four steps above me. “I’ll make you—“

“Stop,” Orchid’s voice interrupted, and Kassle obeyed.

I cocked my head, tilting it so I could see past the now-frozen commoner.

Orchid Alzaq was limping into the hallway, clutching his throat, and he looked like a proper mess.

First things first. I finished walking up the steps, getting uncomfortably close to Kassle’s outstretched knife, and I slunk my way under his arm to get behind him.

“Sorry,” I found myself saying.

I kicked him in the back, and he fell forward. Unlike Olivia and Nek, who’d tumbled over their sides, he fell head-first. Nothing inside him cracked as he fell—not noticeably, at least—but it looked like he would be feeling the aftereffects of that blow for a while.

“Hello, Lily,” Orchid said from behind me.

I turned to match his gaze, meeting him with a sardonic curtsy.

“At your service, Orchid,” I said, any warmth that had been in my voice draining away. “Or is it Lord Alzaq now?”

Orchid’s uniform was ripped to hell and back. If I’d seen him without the context of the situation, I would’ve believed it if he’d told me that an Altered bear had gone to town on him for a few minutes. What had once been a perfectly preppy and formal dress uniform had been reduced to little more than rags.

The fact that there was so much blood wasn’t helping. Orchid’s mouth was leaking blood, drops of it dribbling down his chin onto his uniform jacket and ensuring that if the rags were ever sewn back together, they would be stained. Overuse of oathtongue, most likely. He’d had the same symptom to a lesser extent when he had used it on… what was her name? Strike Team Leader Faye, that was it.

“It’s not,” Orchid said. He looked like he wanted to say more, but something stuck in his throat and he coughed. It was a wet cough, one that made him sound like he’d caught sick, and when he leaned over to spit I saw blood leave his mouth.

“You look like shit,” I said, closing the distance between us. He’d appeared just short of where Nek had rolled to a stop at.

I walked past him. In this state, he couldn’t pose a threat to me.

“Feel like it too, believe me,” Orchid said.

I knelt down next to Nek, ignoring Orchid’s words. As much as he’d not been on my side, he’d been a nice kid, and he had potential.

The kid was still breathing. Not squandered yet, at least.

“It was necessary,” I told Nek, and I wasn’t sure if I was talking to him or myself. “I’m sorry. It had to be this way.”

“…was weak...” I couldn’t catch the beginning or end of his sentence, but either he was wounded enough that either he wasn’t able to muster up any hatred towards me or he hadn’t even noticed it was me that had betrayed him.

“The kid has potential,” I said out loud. “He’ll live.”

I’d placed the knife non-lethally. Why? I knew that by all rights, I should’ve been killing him. He was scarily in touch with his oath for a commoner, especially given that he had clearly had no more education than the average villager. Potential to be a great warrior, if trained right, or even one of the Church’s Chosen. Neither of those would benefit me if Nek lived to play the role. There was nothing but losses for me if I let him live.

And yet I had ensured that he wouldn’t bleed out. I wasn’t finishing him. I knew that my oath fed off of killing things, especially those that I had built trust with, but I wasn’t doing it.

“Good,” Orchid said after a bit. His voice sounded pained, like every word was scratching him up from the inside as it came out. “I’m glad.”

“You don’t want anyone to die, huh?” I asked, my voice frosty again. “Sure didn’t seem that way last night.”

“I… it was not my choice,” Orchid said. “My father…”

Maybe it was the close proximity to the retelling of my own past, or maybe it was just the fact that I would never stop reacting harshly to reminders of Lord Wilson Byron, but that drew a reaction out of me.

The freshness of the reopening of the old wound doubled the intensity of that reaction. A thousand emotions passed through me in an instant, very few of them good, and it left me dizzy and confused. I didn’t know what to think of him, this man who had mirrored my childhood over a decade after the fact.

“Your father,” I prompted him. “What of him?”

“He had a plan,” Orchid said, pausing to wince in pain. “To take the Crown. Or to increase his prestige, I still don’t know. And I never will.”

“I wish I could say I was sorry,” I lied.

“You don’t, and you don’t have to,” Orchid said. “It was fucked up. I failed everyone.”

“Did you now,” I said. That was promising. I didn’t want to forgive him for anything, given that he’d been part of the family that had kickstarted the worst night of my life in the past five or so years and had at least partially outed me as a Byron, but if he was apologizing for his actions, it might be easier to squeeze information out of him.

“It was never supposed to get that bloody,” Orchid said. “Wish… wish I could’ve done more to stop it.”

Hearing those words brought back painful parallels to a situation that I was all too familiar with. Was this what it would’ve been like, all those years ago, if I had never had the opportunity or the guts to turn my back on House Byron?

Would I have forgiven myself if I hadn’t?

A question best saved for another day, but I had an inkling of what the answer would have been.

I stared Orchid dead in the eyes. He looked like he’d been through hell and back, his hair unkempt and his brow creased with exhaustion.

“What happened?” I asked. “Why are you not with House Alzaq?”

“Cast me out,” he said. “They would not accept that I wished… no conflict…”

So he’d stood up. He’d done it far too late and he hadn’t succeeded, but he’d done it.

Was that something I could forgive? When I had been a Byron, I had allowed and even participated in months upon months of plans that had been far worse.

But I hadn’t ever forgiven myself for that, not when I was still the cold-blooded killer that Lord Byron had shaped. I didn’t know if that extended to Orchid or not.

More footsteps were coming from the first floor. At the sound, Orchid turned towards the stairs, grabbing at his throat again. Preparing to use oathtongue.

“No,” I said. “You’ll kill yourself like this.”

“A life wasted,” Orchid said, choking out something that might’ve been a laugh. “What’s one more?”

I made my choice. Forgiveness or not, Orchid still had a role to play.

I channeled magic into my hands.

“Fuck that,” I said. “You’re getting out of here alive, like it or not.”