Fated to Die together

The Blood Oath

Guards had my arms before I even understood we'd been caught.

They dragged me back through the same trees we'd just run through, my feet barely touching the ground, The man a few paces ahead with two men gripping him just as hard. Neither of us spoke. There was nothing left to say that wouldn't make it worse.

By the time we reached the hall again, the sky had gone fully light, and it felt cruel that the sun had chosen today to be bright.

The King was already waiting, seated the same way he had been the first time.

"Well," he said, watching us dragged in. "That didn't take long."

Nobody answered him. Nobody ever did.

His eyes moved past me to the man"Trying to run, brother? After everything I did to make this easy for you?" He tilted his head. "Xavier. Even now, still causing me trouble."

I turned my head toward him without meaning to.

Xavier.

I never asked for his name, not like it mattered.

"You shouldn't have run," the King said, standing, unhurried. "Somebody has to pay for that." His eyes came back to me. "It won't be him. He's already dying — what would be the point. But you." He smiled. "You tried to steal my brother's last act of obedience. I think that deserves your head."

The hall went still.

I looked at Xavier. He didn't move.

"You're bluffing," he said finally.

"Am I?" The King motioned to his men without looking away from him. "Bring the block."

Even then, Xavier said nothing. I watched him and understood, with a cold drop in my chest, that he genuinely believed this was still a game — that his brother wouldn't actually do it, that this was just one more way to make him suffer without following through.

They forced me to my knees in front of the crowd, again, the same floor, the same faces, except this time an executioner stepped forward with an axe resting against his shoulder like it was nothing.

"Any objections?" the King asked, glancing at his brother one more time, giving him one more chance to break first.

Xavier's jaw was tight. He said nothing.

I looked at the King instead, because if this was really happening, I wasn't going to spend my last moments looking at the man who let it.

"If you're going to kill me," I said, "stop talking and do it."

Something flickered across the King's face — surprise, maybe, that I hadn't begged. He recovered fast, smiling again. "Interesting," he said, and nodded to the executioner.

They forced my head down. I heard the axe lift.

"Stop."

Xavier's voice cracked across the hall like something breaking.

The executioner froze.

"I'll marry her," Xavier said. "Right now. Just stop all these dirty games."

The King's smile spread slow, satisfied, like he'd known all along this was exactly how it would end. "There it is," he said. He walked toward us, savoring every step. "But I've changed my mind about the ceremony. Rings and vows are so, ordinary. I think we'll do something more fitting for a marriage born out of a beheading."

He turned to his priest. "Prepare the blood oath."

I didn't know what that meant. I looked at Xavier, and whatever was on his face wasn't relief.

They pulled me up from the floor and forced us both to kneel across from each other. The priest approached with a blade.

"Give me your wrist," the priest said to me.

I did, because I didn't have a choice, and because some part of me had already decided that if I was going to survive today, I wasn't going to flinch doing it.

The blade opened my skin. It hurt less than I expected. A thin line of blood welled up almost instantly, warm against the cool air. I stared at it, wondering how my life would end after this.

They did the same to Xavier.

The priest pressed our wrists together, blood mixing between us, and for one second, nothing happened at all. The King let out a short, disappointed laugh, already turning to say something to the crowd.

Then something inside me tore open.

That was the only way I could describe it, not pain exactly, but pressure, like something had been sealed shut inside me my whole life and had just been forced apart. The floor tilted. My own wrist felt like it belonged to someone else. Beside me, Xavier made a sound I'd never heard a person make, and some small, terrified part of me understood, before I understood anything else, that whatever was happening was happening because of me.

I heard gasps somewhere far away, My vision blurred at the edges. I wanted to pull my hand back and couldn't, my own fingers wouldn't listen to me, like something else had decided they weren't mine to move anymore.

What is happening to me.

I didn't know if I said it out loud or only thought it. Everything in me was screaming the same question and getting no answer, only more of that tearing-open feeling, spreading up through my arm, into my chest, until I couldn't tell anymore if I was going to be sick or pass out or simply stop existing where I knelt.

Through the ringing in my ears, I heard the priest's voice crack.

"Impossible."

I wanted to ask him what was impossible. I wanted to ask someone, anyone, whether this was going to kill me right here in front of everyone who'd already decided my death would be a favor to the world. But my mouth wouldn't work, and the last thing I registered clearly was the King's voice, sharp now, demanding an answer I couldn't give him either —

"Explain."

I fought to keep my eyes open, but the faces around me dissolved into shadows. The last thing I saw was Xavier reaching toward me, his expression no longer guarded but filled with unmistakable fear. Then the darkness swallowed everything.