Chapter 40 · The Oath Bearer

"Don't say it." Dax's hand closed around my wrist before I could answer the ledger.

His grip was weak. That scared me more than the red blade hanging over his chest.

The judgment table had pulled him halfway to his knees. Red chains cut into his coat and burned through the fabric beneath it. Black vow-marks crawled from his collar to his jaw, pulsing every time the table dragged another breath out of him.

The ledger lay open between us.

My name had been written across the last page in wet, shining ink.

MARA VENN.

Under it, one sentence kept forming and erasing itself.

DAX ROURKE LIED TO SAVE HER.

The table wanted me to confirm it. Dax wanted me silent. The red blade wanted both of us dead.

"You heard it," the judgment voice said. It came from under the stone, flat and hungry. "State the crime. Confirm the lie. Release the weapon."

"He's not a weapon," I snapped.

Dax's fingers tightened around my wrist. "Mara. Don't."

"Let go."

"No."

"You can barely hold your head up. Don't start pretending you can order me around."

His gray eyes lifted to mine.