Page 129 of Divine Oaths

But he was too late.

“You will die,” I whispered, in a voice that was not my own. “And the blood debt shall be fulfilled. His will be done. Or we all will pay the price.”

And with the essence of General Winhall compelling me, I twisted the ring onto my middle finger.

Everything went dark. In that moment, I knew that the future I had witnessed all those months ago in the alleyway was not as it had seemed.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Death will have his day

THE WIND HOWLED ABOVE US, churning in the lightning-cast sky, framing the terrible and imposing form of my statue.

No, his statue. Not mine. Never.

Yet even as I tried to hold on to the thought, it was fleeting. In my mind, his voice was a whisper that slipped through the cracks and filled my consciousness. With his thoughts came his memories too—the day his statue was erected, how he’d watched from other vessels for centuries as all the evil he’d wrought onto the world was swept beneath the rungs of history. He reveled in lies and falsities. He created a board of trustees to peddle these untruths of his greatness and wipe the stains of his iniquity from their memories of him. From their smiles to their open hearts, he bled poison into their souls, and they thanked him for it. Praised him, even, as he made relics of their bodies and wraiths of their souls.

But here was the truth. Here was the reality even he could not escape: Duncan, the white abolitionist who had killed him, and Duncan’s half brother, Kent, a Black man of African lineage and a Union soldier, would inherit the estate. Even as his remains desiccated beneath their feet, that truth would never change.

And so he cursed them both. All of them. And his curse would be that within each, his hauntings would lead to the ruin of Westfield University, the institution they’d built. So when the abolitionist kept his blade as a trophy, he slit his throat, trapping his soul in the relic, and took Duncan’s body as his own. But he couldn’t stay in Duncan’s body for long, not as his corpse deteriorated.

After Reconstruction ended and the board of trustees was established, the general began his collection of Westfield presidents whom he could make puppets out of; first the oldest son of Duncan, who’d been given the role of president after Kent’s natural death, and then his son after that. With part of his soul bound to the blade, General Winhall tethered himself to the family ring and took over the new president’s weakened body and spirit.

With each generation of new presidents at Westfield, he took a new body and trapped a part of their souls in his blade so they would never completely be reunited with their spirit, while tethering his own soul into new relics, settling at last on their family ring. The white side of the Saint James lineage, the side that had descended from abolitionists, would be separated from their origins, and instead he would make them his puppets, forever trapped by his curse even as they denied its existence.

As for the Black side of the Saint James family, he would never allow them to inherit what was owed to them, not as long as his ghost haunted both sides of their family.

And so the curse was wrought onto both lines of the Saint Jameses. The debt would never be repaid and they would be trapped in an eternal cycle of bloodshed.

Kasem tried to pull the ring from my finger, but I clawed at his hands, pulling the general’s blade from my satchel and taking it to my own throat.

“Take it off and I’ll kill her,” I said.

Kasem didn’t let go of me, but he froze as I pressed the blade against my throat in warning. A trickle of blood fell from my neck as the sharp metal nicked my flesh.

“What do you want?” he said, his eyes flicking between me and the blade as a plan churned in his mind. He was foolish to think he could defeat the general.

“I want your body,” I said. “Two souls residing in one vessel is torture, and I have been existing this way for hundreds of years. When your body dies at midnight and you exist as a wraith separated from your relic, I will take your body as my own. You will be mine, and I will inherit Westfield.”

For a moment, Kasem’s eyes darkened, specks of silver and gold churning in his vision.

And then Kasem’s wraith form surged from his body, grabbing my hand and slowly tearing the general’s hold on me. Inch by inch, he tried to pry Winhall’s wraith from my consciousness.

Kasem himself wrapped one arm around me, his wraith form encasing us as it melded with his body. His strength dwarfed my smaller frame, and he grabbed my wrist with his other hand, desperate to regain the knife.

Pain jolted through my body and soul as Kasem and I wrestled for the blade, while his wraith and the general fought for control.

Just as Kasem managed to draw the weapon from my throat, I felt my arm rush forward. There came a violent sound of metal tearing through flesh. My head jolted backward. My eyes circled to the back of my head. I saw nothing but white and darkness as we stumbled forward, both of us holding each other, still embracing, even as a void consumed the world.

CHAPTER SIXTY

He that dies pays all debts

WHEN THE CLOUDINESS IN MY vision dissipated, rain fell. I blinked back to my present, taking in the misty world around me. My body, my mind, were back in my full control. Kasem lay beneath me, his arms wrapped around my waist, holding me. But his grip was slack, his eyes wide, his lips caught in a gasp.

In his hand, Kasem held General Winhall’s bloodied ring.

“Kasem,” I whispered, reaching for him. He didn’t move. And when my hand brushed his cheek, my palms were covered in blood.