Chapter 152: An oath so absolute

BRADLEY

I dialed the sentinel driving the Blossom witch Madeline out and put the phone to my ear before it finished its first ring, my boots already carrying me back toward the ruined infirmary hall.

"Give the phone to Miss Blossom," I said the moment he picked up. "I need a word with her."

A pause followed, some muffled shuffling, the sentinel’s voice barely audible as he handed it over. Then hers came through, calm and unbothered by the sudden interruption to whatever quiet she might have been enjoying on the drive out.

"High Beta." Her tone carried the faint edge of someone already anticipating a request she wouldn’t particularly enjoy.

"I need another favor, kind witch," I said, cutting straight past whatever pleasantries the moment usually called for.

"That’s a bold opening. What could it possibly be, at this hour, after everything you’ve already asked of me today?"

I laid it out for her plainly, the way I laid out most things I needed cooperation on. The soul kiss, applied to everyone that had been present in that infirmary hall. A binding placed on their tongues before rumor had the chance to spread past this estate’s walls and land in the wrong ears before we’d finished cleaning up the mess entirely.

"I can do that," she said, though I heard the frown shaping her voice before she finished the sentence. "But why? On the matter of what happened with the healer and the witch specifically? Bonnie, I mean."

"Yes."

"I saw the girl," Madeline said, slower now, more deliberate, "in the exact moment the witch was begging for her own life. There was no infallible hatred sitting in Bonnie’s chest. Nothing cold enough, nothing calculated enough, to have carried out what happened to that witch’s skull afterward. I don’t believe it was her hand that finished it."

"That may well be the case," I said, glancing down the corridor where the last of the blood was still being scrubbed from the tile by two exhausted Omegas. "But some bad actors wouldn’t care whether it was genuinely her fault or not. They’d use the story regardless of its accuracy, and stories like that spread faster than any of us could hope to contain once they’ve left this wing. Better safe than sorry tonight, given everything else already stacked against us."

"I do hear something close to bloodlust in your own voice, High Beta," she said, a dry note of amusement threading through the words despite the gravity of the subject. "Did you consider ending them outright, before deciding against it?"

I let the silence stretch a beat longer than it needed to, because the honest answer cost me something to admit out loud.

"I can be a myopic man," I said finally, "when it comes to protecting the people I care about. I love my sentinels. I have watched most of them grow from raw recruits into men and women I’d trust with my own back in a fight. And still, I would have carried out something far worse than a binding today without a second thought, if left entirely to my own judgment. Quiet, efficient, permanent. I had already begun composing the order in my head before I’d even finished walking away from that room."

"And yet you haven’t done it."

"It was His Majesty who stopped me," I said. "Kind enough, or perhaps simply stubborn enough, to insist there was another road through this that didn’t require burying half a dozen loyal sentinels along the way. I see the wisdom in it now, even if I resisted it in the moment it was offered to me."

"That’s a rather large admission, coming from you."

"I’m aware," I said, and I meant it, the words sitting uncomfortably in my chest the way honest things often did when I wasn’t accustomed to saying them aloud. "Which is precisely why I’d like this handled properly instead, through you, rather than through whatever darker instinct I was entertaining some minutes ago. If it turns out it truly wasn’t the healer who lost control tonight, and I suspect strongly now that it wasn’t, then a soul kiss serves every one of us far better regardless of where the fault actually lies. Bind every sentinel and healer present at the time today with an overarching demand. Their silence about the events in that hall, and continued, unshakable loyalty to the crown moving forward."

"And if there’s still a traitor hiding somewhere among them," Madeline said, following the thread to its natural conclusion without needing me to spell it out further, "one who agrees to the binding anyway, believing they can find some way around it..."

"Then the binding itself ends them," I finished, "the moment they attempt to break it. That’s rather the elegant part of your particular craft, isn’t it? It doesn’t require me to guess who’s guilty ahead of time. It simply waits, patient as stone, until guilt reveals itself on its own terms."

She was quiet a moment, weighing the shape of what I’d asked against whatever private calculations witches like her ran before committing to anything involving this much blood already spilled in one night.

"Gather them," she said finally. "All of them, in one place, before I lose the light I’ll need for a working this size. We will be heading back."

"Thank you," I said, something close to relief loosening the tight coil that had been sitting in my chest since the moment Willow’s head had come apart in front of half my staff.

I ended the call before she could add anything further, and turned back toward the corridor, already composing in my head exactly how I’d explain this new arrangement to Lysander.

I found Lysander pacing near the alcove where I’d left him, and I didn’t waste time on preamble once he looked up.

"Thankfully, we do not have to go far," I said. "The witch, Miss Blossom, is capable of working right here on the grounds. She’ll be back within the hour."

He nodded, some tension easing from his shoulders at the confirmation.

"There’s an added benefit worth mentioning," I continued. "If one of them present tonight has some talent, or some hidden knowledge tied to what happened to that witch, the soul kiss will expose it the moment it takes hold. Should the binding harm them, or take their life outright, that in itself confirms exactly who among them was never loyal to begin with."

"You’re certain of that," Lysander said.

"I am. I’ll ensure the severity of the working is set at its absolute maximum. No half measures today. Whoever walks away from it clean, walks away clean for good reason."

He was quiet for a moment, his gaze drifting somewhere past me, some thought clearly turning itself over behind his eyes.

"That reminds me of something," he said slowly.

"What could that be, Your Majesty?"

"The oaths."

I waited, uncertain where he intended to take that single word.

"My goddess," he said, something close to disbelief creeping into his voice now, his eyes widening slightly as the shape of it clearly assembled itself in real time. "How has this never once crossed my mind before now?"

"You’ll have to be considerably clearer than that," I said.

"When, and if, I eventually take the Alpha King’s throne properly," he said, "I want the Spiritual Elder present. Prepared to use her talents the same way Madeline is about to use hers today. Every person who stands in that hall for my coronation swears their oath directly to the Alpha King’s seat. Not to me personally, not to whatever charm or persuasion got them into that room, but to the throne itself, binding and absolute."

Something settled in my chest at the sheer simplicity of it, the kind of idea that felt obvious only once someone else had already spoken it aloud.

"That would remove any question of loyalty going forward," I said slowly, working through the implications myself. "No more wondering who might be quietly working against you while smiling to your face in the same breath. Clear our right suspicions about my cousin and his mother."

"Exactly," he said.

"I’ll begin arrangements immediately," I said. "With the Spiritual Elder, confirming her availability, ensuring she understands the scope of what you’re asking of her and the goddess."

"Good," he said, something steadier settling into his posture now, the shape of a plan finally taking hold where only chaos had been sitting moments before. "Let’s make certain this particular nightmare doesn’t repeat itself the moment I actually sit in that chair."