Page 130 of Divine Oaths

His blood.

I glanced down at where my other hand rested on the hilt of General Winhall’s switchblade.

Winhall had plunged it into Kasem’s heart.

“Kasem,” I whispered again, watching his lashes flutter, his gaze dimming.

“It’s okay,” Kasem whispered. “It’s okay.”

In the distance, Honey screamed, her sobs racked with pain.

The general’s wraith hovered above us, ready to take Kasem’s body, but Jojo was faster. He swiftly grabbed the ring and lit it and the box of remains on fire.

There was a horrific scream from the general as his ring and remains burned, and soon, Vivian and Angelica emerged in the dark, not chanting a song of last rites, but an incantation to banish a vengeful spirit. Even Honey, as weak as she was, channeled her affinity for the banishment.

But Jojo’s eyes filled with tears as he watched his younger brother dying in my arms.

“Sianna, you can save him. You have to try.”

I could barely see past my own tears, but for him, for both of them, I would try. I would fix this.

I grabbed the heel of the blade and pulled, screaming as metal cut through my palm. Time churned in my fingertips from where the blade and Kasem’s flesh met. With my free hand, I pulled the bracelet off my wrist and strung it onto Kasem’s.

I heard the general’s blade, heard the voices whispering in it. There were the spirits from Alaster’s side of the family that the general had trapped, as well as the fragment of Jojo’s soul, tethered to it through the disinheritance ritual. All around us, their cries built against the general’s screams as the spirits of the president and his grandfather, and all the lines between them and Duncan, were freed and the general’s soul was torn into oblivion.

Reams of silver and gold light enshrouded us, threading between the realms of the living and the dead, and a flurry of moths led the souls to the realm of the dead.

The general’s spirit was gone.

My tears blinded me, but I channeled, focusing on the power of protection imbued in the bracelet on Kasem’s wrist. That protection existed in the cowrie shells and in the ring dangling from it. There was something woven into the thread too, something from his lineage that remained bound to the curse—a lock of hair, like one might leave in a locket. It was Yara’s, as well as a child’s. Yara had twisted it between the beads as a token for Kent to remember his wife and infant son during the war.

I focused on Kasem’s heart and where the blade had pierced it. Slowly, I pulled the blade out, and with every centimeter it retreated, I rewound time, stitching together blood vessels and nerves, pulling and weaving at the very threads of time in my lifeline, in the lifelines of our distant yet shared ancestors still alive in the bracelet. I leaned on them, called to them, prayed, cried, hummed, channeled all my love and fear and hope and joy and pain.

When finally the blade was free from Kasem’s body, he pressed his hand to his chest. The scar there and the one on his abdomen glowed a vibrant gold. In the distance, the clock struck the second digit of midnight.

December 7, 12:01 AM.

The curse had been broken.

“Happy birthday,” I whispered.

Blood trickled from my nose. And then it spilled from my mouth.

“Sianna,” he whispered. “Sianna, no.”

My body seized. The world became a melding of color and time, unbound and broken because of what I’d done. Kasem pulled me to him, holding me in his arms even as the last of my strength faded.

“Why would you do that?”

It was painful to speak. But I managed.

“To break the curse. To lift our bond. We promised each other we would.”

He wiped the blood from my nose and mouth, kissing me over and over again, his lips soft, his touch tender. I loved him. And I smiled knowing that what I’d felt for him, and what he’d shown he felt for me, was real.

“Then promise me you’ll live too. Promise me you’ll let me hear you play again.”

I promise. Though the words did not leave my lips, they burned in my soul. I promise.