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Chapter 2
# Chapter 2: The Iron Bridge Handover
Damien Blackthorn's mocking gaze pinned her where she stood on the fog-shrouded Iron Bridge, the chill mist curling like spectral fingers around the blood-red sigil freshly etched on her palm from the Peace Vow. The metal beneath her silk slippers felt less like a bridge and more like an altar—a cold, rusted transition between the world she knew and the predatory shadows of the Blackthorn Coven.
Damien Blackthorn’s lips curled into a predator’s smile as he stepped closer across the fog-shrouded Iron Bridge, his eyes gleaming with the promise of games yet to begin. The mist, thick with the scent of rusted metal and damp earth, clung to his leather coat like a second skin. He moved with a predatory grace that made the stone beneath his boots seem to yield, a stark contrast to the rigid, iron-wrought stillness of the bridge itself.
Behind her, the Nightbloom guards stood like statues carved from obsidian, their presence a suffocating reminder of Lord Reginald Thorne’s impatience. They were here to witness the transaction, not to protect her. To them, she was a signed scroll, a tithe paid in flesh to forestall a war that had already bled their coffers dry.
Isabella Voss stood her ground, though the heavy velvet of her traveling cloak felt suddenly like leaden armor. She kept her chin tilted at an angle that whispered of courtly balls and ancient lineages, masking the frantic pulse thrumming in her throat. Beneath the lace of her cuffs, her fingers found the familiar, jagged ridges of the scars on her left wrist. She traced them with a rhythmic, desperate pressure, the sharp edge of a fingernail coaxing a tiny, hot bead of crimson from the silver-etched skin.
"You look as though you're waiting for a funeral, Isabella," Damien said, his voice a silken rasp that cut through the damp air. He stepped forward into the radius of the carriage lamps, his black leather duster swirling about his boots like living ink. "Or perhaps you're simply mourning the loss of your precious, stifling Spire? It is a bit drab, is it not?"
"You are late, Isabella," Damien said, his voice a low drawl that scraped against the silence. "I began to think Lord Thorne had decided to keep his prettiest bird in its cage for one more night. Or perhaps you simply lost your nerve?"
Isabella felt the familiar, frantic itch beneath her lace sleeves. Her fingers moved of their own accord, tracing the raised, jagged lines of the scars on her left wrist. She could feel the faint, warm dampness of blood beads forming—a small, private sacrifice to the anxiety that threatened to unravel her regal mask.
"Pray, do not flatter yourself with such imaginings," Isabella replied, her voice cooling the humid air between them. "The Nightbloom Coven does not suffer from nerves; we suffer from obligations. My arrival is exactly as the scroll dictated. Punctuality is a virtue of the disciplined, though I imagine the concept is foreign to a Blackthorn."
"Pray, do spare me your theatrics, Lord Blackthorn," she replied, her voice steady and edged with the crystalline cold of a winter morning. "The bridge is drafty, the hour is late, and I find your attempts at wit to be... a touch inconvenient."
Damien laughed, a dry sound that didn't reach his eyes. Those eyes—darker than the river churning below—scanned her face, lingering on the way her hand remained tucked against her torso. "Virtue. Is that what we’re calling this? You look like a funeral march disguised as a wedding party."
Damien let out a low, dangerous chuckle. He moved with a predator’s grace, closing the distance until the scent of cedar and old parchment—and the metallic tang of his own latent magic—enveloped her. He reached out, not to take her hand, but to catch a stray lock of her dark hair that had escaped her coif.
He bridged the final distance, the wards of the Iron Bridge humming into life. The air vibrated with a low, bone-deep frequency, the magical threshold recognizing the two bloodlines meeting at the center. The ancient stones began to glow with a faint, bruised purple light—the color of a fading welt.
"Inconvenient," he mused, testing the word as if it were a vintage wine. "A daughter of Nightbloom, traded like a prize mare to settle a debt of blood. And you call it inconvenient? You are either the most stoic creature I have ever encountered, or you are hollowed out completely."
"The terms of the Peace Vow were clear," Isabella said, her sentences measured and elegant, though her heart hammered against her ribs. "I am to be delivered to the Blackthorn representative. The custody transition must be formalized. Is it not the way of your people to demand blood for every breath of peace?"
"I am a Voss," she said, pulling back just enough to break his touch. "We do not leak our emotions like cracked vials. We endure. Is that not what your coven requires? An endurance?"
"Demanding blood is our specialty," Damien murmured. He reached out, his gloved hand hovering just inches from her face before dropping to the heavy, iron-bound ledger held by the silent Blackthorn guards behind him. "But I prefer it when it’s given freely. Or, at the very least, with a bit more... spirit than you’re currently offering."
Damien’s eyes darkened, caught in the flickering amber light of the torches. "We require a bride. What we get... well, that remains to be seen."
Isabella felt a flicker of something beneath her icy facade—not fear, but a sharp, jagged irritation. He was baiting her, testing the structural integrity of her composure. She sensed an intensity in his gaze that went beyond mere mockery. He wasn't just looking at her; he was reading her, searching for the crack in the stone.
He turned his head slightly toward the Nightbloom escorts. "Go," he commanded, the word vibrating with a low-frequency power that made the iron beneath them groan. "Tell Thorne his debt is acknowledged. The girl is mine now."
"Spirit is a luxury for those who are not being traded like livestock to ensure a harvest," she said.
The Nightbloom captain didn't hesitate. With a curt, wordless bow that felt like a final slap to Isabella’s dignity, the guards retreated. The sound of their boots retreating into the fog was the sound of a door locking. She was alone. Isolated. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic lapping of the river far below.
"A touch inconvenient, being a pawn?" Damien’s eyes flashed with a brief, sharp light. "Or is it intolerable? Tell me, Isabella, do you even know why you’re here, or are you just following the ghost of your mother’s mistakes?"
"He didn't even say goodbye," Damien remarked, his tone mocking but his eyes intensely observant. "Reginald is a man of singular focus. One wonders if he’ll even remember your name by dawn, provided the borders remain quiet."
Isabella stiffened. The mention of her mother was a physical blow, a cold blade slid between her ribs. She thought of Elara, of the way the crimson light had drained from her eyes when the coven’s judgment was passed. Fear, cold and paralyzing, threatened to unravel her. *Blood blood everywhere,* her mind whispered, a frantic mantra she had to fight to suppress.
Isabella’s throat tightened. The image of her mother, Elara, flashed behind her eyes—the way she had looked on the pyre, silent and regal even as the flames of the broken vow consumed her. Disloyalty was a contagion. Compliance was the only cure.
"My mother has nothing to do with this ritual," she snapped, the fragment of a sentence betraying her control. "Proceed. The Nightbloom carriage is waiting for my signal of release. Secure your prize, Blackthorn, and let us be done with the theater."
"Lord Thorne’s sentiments are irrelevant," Isabella said, though the words felt like ash. "The vow is signed. My presence here is the fulfillment of my duty. Nothing more is required."
Damien’s expression shifted. The mockery remained, but there was a sudden, focused gravity to him. He stepped into her personal space, the scent of cedar and something metallic—sorcery and old earth—enveloping her.
"Duty," Damien spat, the word sounding like a curse. "A lovely cage you've built for yourself. Let us see how the bars hold up in the Blackthorn winds."
"Very well. The ritual of the Handover."
He gestured toward a massive, black-maned stallion held by a silent groom in the shadows, and a carriage that looked more like a hearse, draped in heavy velvet. "The horse for the bold, the carriage for the fragile. Which are you today, Isabella?"
He reached out, and this time he did not falter. He took her left hand, turning it palm-up. With a swift, practiced motion, he pushed back the lace of her sleeve. Isabella flinched as her scars were exposed to the moonlight—the history of every vow she had ever kept etched in crimson silk across her skin.
"I shall take the carriage," she said, her chin lifting. "I have no desire to arrive at your outpost smelling of wet fur and common exertion."
Damien didn’t recoil. Instead, he traced the most recent scar with a thumb that was surprisingly gentle. "A heavy price for such a small wrist," he remarked.
"As you wish, my lady of ice," Damien said. He didn't offer his hand to help her in. Instead, he watched her climb the steps, his gaze lingering on the way her hand gripped the doorframe—white-knuckled and trembling, despite her poise.
"Duty is never light," she replied, her voice trembling slightly.
The interior of the carriage was a cavern of dark silk and the scent of crushed violets. Isabella sank into the cushions, her breath coming in shallow hitches the moment the door clicked shut. *Vow,* she whispered to herself, the word a mantra. *Vow. Vow. Vow.* If she said it enough, perhaps it would become a shield.
"Then let's add one more stone to the pile."
The carriage lurched forward. Moments later, the opposite door opened and Damien slid inside with the practiced ease of a shadow. The space, which had felt vast a second ago, suddenly felt perilously small.
Damien produced a ceremonial bodkin of Blackthorn iron. The air grew heavy. The hemomancy of his house was different from hers—predatory, rooted in the extraction of promises rather than the preservation of them. He pricked the tip of his own finger, then hers.
"You're bleeding," he said abruptly.
"By the blood of the Blackthorn coven, I claim the bride provided by the Nightbloom," he intoned, his voice losing its mocking edge and gaining a resonant power. "I bind your steps to my shadow and your safety to my steel. Do you accept the protection and the prison of this house?"
Isabella pulled her sleeve down lower, covering her wrist. "It is nothing. A scratch from a pin."
Isabella looked back toward the carriage. Lord Thorne sat behind the frosted glass, a silhouette of impatient power. He had sold her for a decade of quiet borders. She looked back at Damien. In the depths of his arrogant eyes, she saw something she hadn't expected—a flash of recognition. It was the look of one prisoner recognizing another, despite the gilded nature of the bars.
"Do not lie to a Blackthorn about the scent of blood, Isabella. It’s gauche." He reached across the small space and caught her wrist before she could recoil. His grip was firm, his skin surprisingly warm against her chilling flesh. He shoved the lace back, exposing the silver-white lines of her old scars and the fresh, crimson beads blooming over them.
"I accept," she whispered.
His thumb brushed the edge of a scar. "These aren't from today. Nor yesterday." He looked up, his eyes searching hers with a terrifying intensity. "They say your mother went to the flames with a smile on her lips. They say she broke her oath for a piece of silk and a lie. Is that why you do this? To bleed out the parts of her that still live in you?"
As their blood mingled, a searing heat flared at her wrist. A new line of crimson fire began to etch itself into her skin, spiraling upward from the existing scars. It was an agonizing, intimate sensation, the magic of the Blackthorns weaving itself into her very essence. She gasped, her knees narrowing failing her, but Damien’s hand on her arm was a sudden, firm anchor. He held her upright, his grip possessive yet strangely supportive as the ritual’s weight settled.
The mention of her mother was a physical blow. Isabella’s composure shattered into jagged shards. "You know nothing of my mother. You know nothing of the Nightbloom. Pray, release me before I forget that we are currently at peace."
The hum of the bridge reached a crescendo, then snapped into a heavy silence. The handover was complete.
"Peace is a fragile thing, little bird," Damien whispered, his face inches from hers. He didn't let go. Instead, he pressed his thumb into the center of the fresh blood, smearing it across her skin in a slow, deliberate circle. The intimacy of the gesture was a violation and a provocation all at once. "I see you, Isabella. I see the terror behind the 'prays' and the 'is it nots.' You are a masterpiece of repression. But blood... blood always tells the truth."
Across the bridge, the Nightbloom carriage lurched into motion. Lord Thorne didn't look back. The pragmatic withdrawal was complete; the asset had been transferred. Isabella watched the flickering lamps of the carriage vanish into the fog, leaving her alone in the dark with her enemy.
Isabella felt a surge of heat—red, hot, and violent—rising from her chest. Her magic, the hemomancy that lived in her very marrow, thrummed in response to his touch. She could feel his pulse beneath her fingers, a steady, arrogant beat.
"There they go," Damien said, his voice returning to its usual drawl, though he didn't release her arm. "Your people. So eager to wash their hands of the 'Voss girl.' It’s almost pathetic, is it not?"
"My blood is my own," she hissed, her elegant sentences fragmenting. "My soul... bound. By ink. By law. You are a gaoler, Damien. Nothing more."
Isabella pulled her arm back, adjusting her cloak to hide the new, stinging mark. "They are pragmatists. I am a detail in a larger ledger. Pray, do not pretend you are any different. You are here to collect a trophy."
"A gaoler?" He smiled, and for the first time, the mockery reached his eyes, turning them into something softer, something almost protective—though he masked it well with a sneer. "I am the only one in this carriage who isn't a slave to a piece of parchment. You think you’re honoring her by being a doll for Thorne? You’re just letting him kill you slower than the fire killed her."
"Is that what I'm doing?" Damien turned, gesturing toward the dark, jagged peaks of the Blackthorn territory that loomed ahead like the teeth of a beast. "I have many trophies, Isabella. None of them take as much effort to transport as you do. Most of them don't stare at me as if they're weighing the pros and cons of my assassination."
The carriage slowed, the wheels crunching over heavier gravel. Outside, the sounds of baying hounds and the low, guttural chants of the Blackthorn Coven began to rise. They had reached the outpost.
"The weight leans heavily toward the former," she retorted, though the fire she’d felt during the ritual still simmered in her blood. She felt unsettled—not just by the magic, but by the way Damien looked at her. He didn't look at her with the cold calculation Thorne used. He looked at her with a terrifying, hungry curiosity.
Damien let go of her wrist, but as he did, he pulled a small, antique locket from his vest. It was sealed with a drop of black wax. He held it out to her, his gaze unwavering.
He began to walk, expecting her to follow. The transition across the threshold was a physical sensation, a change in the very taste of the air. Where Nightbloom land smelled of blooming nightshade and stagnant water, Blackthorn territory was sharp with the scent of pine, ozone, and ancient stone.
"A gift," he said. "Or a warning. Inside is a secret your mother left behind in our lands years ago. You can open it and see the truth, or you can keep it as a talisman of your precious duty."
"You’ll find my home is quite different from the Crimson Spire," Damien said, casting a glance over his shoulder. "We don't spend our nights composing poems about our sorrows. We keep our sorrows in the cellar where they belong."
Isabella stared at the locket. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. "Why give this to me now?"
"How charming," Isabella said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I shall look forward to the damp."
"Because," Damien said, standing as the carriage came to a full halt. He leaned down, his voice dropping to a silken threat that made the hair on her neck stand up. "I find I prefer my prizes with a bit of fire in them. And you, Isabella, are currently a very cold, very beautiful corpse."
**SCENE A**
The door was flung open by a Blackthorn soldier, his face scarred and his eyes yellowed with age and hunger. The air that rushed in was thick with the smell of woodsmoke and old magic. The coven was waiting, a sea of dark cloaks and expectant, predatory faces.
As they stepped deeper into the shadow of the Blackthorn pines, Isabella’s focus retreated inward, anchoring itself to the rhythmic sting of the new vow-mark. It pulse-burned, a living coal beneath the ivory skin of her forearm. She could almost feel the phantom weight of her mother standing just behind her shoulder—an icy breeze, a smell of wilted lilies. Elara Voss had once held her head just as high, until the day the coven’s elders found the hidden letters, the proof of an oath frayed by human longing.
Damien stepped out first, then turned to offer his hand. This time, it wasn't a suggestion. It was a command.
Isabella remembered the execution ground: the way the crimson light from the broken vow had not just killed her mother, but unmade her, turning her life’s blood into a spectacle of failure. *Blood blood everywhere,* the child-voice in her head whispered, a ghost that refused to be laid to rest. That memory was the iron in Isabella’s spine. It was why she had signed Thorne’s scroll without a single tear. To break an oath was to invite the void; to keep one, no matter how hateful, was the only way to remain whole.
Isabella took a breath, smoothing her skirts and drawing her regal mask back over her features, though it felt thinner than before. She stepped out into the den of her enemies, her hand trembling as it rested in his.
She looked at Damien’s retreating back. He walked with a loose, dangerous arrogance, yet he never moved so fast that she had to struggle to keep pace. Every few steps, he glanced back, his eyes narrowing as they flicked to the high collar of her dress and then to her hidden wrists. Isabella tightened her grip on her skirts. He was searching for weakness, she decided. He wanted to see the moment the "Voss girl" finally shattered under the weight of her heritage.
The transition was complete. She was no longer a daughter of Nightbloom; she was a guest of the Blackthorns, a polite term for a prisoner of war. As they walked toward the looming stone gates of the outpost, Damien pulled her closer, his shoulder brushing hers.
Is it not a strange thing, she wondered, to transition from being a prisoner of one’s own family to being a prisoner of their greatest rival? The chains felt remarkably similar, though the hands that held them were younger and far more calloused.
He stopped just before the threshold, leaning in as if to whisper a lover's confidence, but his words were a jagged blade.
**SCENE B**
SCENE A
"You are being remarkably quiet, Isabella," Damien said, his voice breaking through her reverie. He stopped near a fallen stone pillar, ruins of some forgotten age that marked the entrance to the Blackthorn valley. "I was told the Voss women were famous for their sharp tongues. Did Lord Thorne include a muzzle in your dowry, or are you simply saving your breath for the steep climb?"
The interior of the Blackthorn outpost was a stark contrast to the opulence of the Crimson Spire. Where the Nightbloom favored marble and gold, the Blackthorns lived in a world of rough-hewn stone and flickering shadows. Isabella’s boots clicked against the uneven floorboards as Damien led her through an entry hall lined with the mounted heads of beasts that had long since been driven to extinction. Each one seemed to watch her with glassy, judgmental eyes.
Isabella stopped, her breath misting in the cold northern air. "Pray, do not mistake my silence for submission, Damien. I am merely observing my new surroundings. One must know the layout of their cage if they are to avoid the sharper bars."
Her mind was a tempest. The locket Damien had pressed into her hand felt impossibly heavy in her pocket, a cold weight that seemed to pulse in time with her frantic heartbeat. *A secret your mother left behind.* The words were a poison, seeping into the cracks of her resolve. She had spent a decade refining her loyalty, pruning away every impulse that resembled the woman who had burned on the pyre. To seek the truth now felt like a second execution.
"The bars here are all sharp," Damien replied, stepping toward her. He reached out, flicking a stray lock of dark hair away from her face with the tip of his gloved finger. Isabella didn't flinch, though her skin prickled at the proximity. "But they are also honest. Unlike the Crimson Spire, where everyone smiles while they slide a needle between your ribs, we Blackthorns prefer to let you see the blade coming."
She watched the back of Damien’s head, the way his dark hair brushed the collar of his coat. He moved with an infuriating confidence, as if he owned the very air he breathed. He had not looked back since they left the carriage, yet she could feel his awareness of her like a physical pressure. It was the same way he had sensed the blood on her wrist. He was a hunter, and he had spent our encounter marking her weaknesses as if they were coordinates on a map.
"And that is meant to be a comfort?" she asked, her voice dipping into a sharp, fragment-like edge. "Honest cruelty is still cruelty. You talk of blades and blood as if they are playthings, yet you bound me to your shadow with a ritual that smells of old graves."
"The guest quarters are in the North Wing," Damien said, his voice echoing off the damp walls. "They are secure. For your protection, of course."
Damien’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes darkened, a flash of that intense observation she had noted on the bridge. "The ritual is old because the peace is fragile. You are the glue, Isabella. If you break, the war starts again. Is that what you want? To see your Nightbloom gardens salted with the blood of your remaining kin?"
"Pray, do not dress up a cage in the finery of concern," Isabella replied, her voice regaining its sharp edge. "I am well aware that a 'guest' of the Blackthorn Coven is merely a hostage with better linens. Is that not the nature of our arrangement?"
"I want what I have always wanted," she whispered, her gaze moving past him to the fortress on the horizon. "To be the one who finally pays the debt. To be the last Voss whose name is whispered in judgment."
Damien stopped and turned, a half-smile playing on his lips. "You Nightblooms have a charmingly dismal view of the world. Perhaps you’re right. Or perhaps you’re simply afraid that if I leave the door unlocked, you might actually find a reason to stay."
Damien was silent for a long moment, the mocking mask slipping just enough to reveal a flicker of something raw. "A noble goal. Pity it’s such a lonely one."
SCENE B
**SCENE C**
He came to a stop before a set of double doors carved from dark oak. The wood was etched with the same thorny motifs that decorated the gate—vines that seemed to writhe and coil under the flickering torchlight. Damien didn't open them immediately. He turned back to her, leaning one shoulder against the frame, closing the distance between them until she was forced to look up at him.
The journey continued in a more subdued tension as a sleek Blackthorn carriage, carved from dark oak and reinforced with cold iron, emerged from the tree-line to meet them. The horses were massive things, their eyes reflecting the pale moon with an eerie, intelligent light.
"You speak of duty as if it is a holy thing, Isabella. But I have seen what Thorne does with duty. He uses it to sharpen his knives." Damien's gaze dropped to the high collar of her dress, where the faint silver line of a scar peeked through the lace. "He hasn't just bound your hands. He’s bound your breath."
Damien opened the door himself, a mocking bow accompanying the gesture. "Your new carriage, My Lady. It lacks the silk cushions of your previous life, but it is reinforced against the things that howl in the night."
"Lord Thorne is my elder," Isabella said, her voice dropping to a fragment of its former strength. "He ensures the survival of our bloodline. Without the vows, we are nothing but ghosts. My mother... my mother forgot that."
Isabella climbed inside, her movements fluid and regal despite the exhaustion dragging at her limbs. The interior smelled of leather and old parchment—a scent that seemed to permeate everything associated with the Blackthorn name. As Damien settled into the seat opposite her, the carriage lurched forward, beginning the ascent toward the mountain strongholds.
"Your mother lived," Damien countered, his tone losing its mockery for a brief, startling second. "There is a difference between surviving and living. You’ve become a master of the former. I’m curious to see if you even remember how to do the latter."
She watched the Iron Bridge disappear into the fog behind them. The physical border was gone, and with it, the last tie to her home. She was now truly an outlier, a political pawn in the heart of enemy territory. She felt Damien’s gaze on her, heavy and unyielding, a reminder that the handover was only the beginning of her trial.
"And you think a secret in a locket will teach me?" she spat, her fingers twitching toward the pocket where the metal sat. "You think you can dismantle my life with a few taunts and an antique?"
He leaned in close, his breath warm against her ear, his hand lingering on hers with a possessiveness that made her skin prickle. The contact was a taunt, a reminder of the blood that now bound them. The memory of her mother’s execution—the price of a broken oath—flickered in her mind, a haunting legacy she could never escape.
"I think your life was dismantled the second you set foot on that bridge," he said, stepping away and throwing the doors open. "Welcome home, little bride. Try not to let the silence drive you mad."
He didn't wait for a response. He turned and strode back down the hall, his silhouette swallowed by the shadows of the corridor before she could even think of a retort. Isabella stood in the doorway of her new world, the silence of the room rushing out to meet her.
SCENE C
The room was vast, dominated by a four-poster bed draped in charcoal velvet, but it felt like a tomb. A fire crackled in the hearth, though it offered little warmth to the chill that had settled in Isabella’s marrow. She moved to the window, looking out over the Blackthorn lands. In the distance, the jagged peaks of the mountains tore at the moon, and the wind howled through the canyons like a chorus of the damned.
She didn't sleep. She spent the better part of the night sitting in a high-backed chair, the locket clutched in her hand. She traced the black wax seal over and over, her thumb raw from the friction. Part of her wanted to cast it into the fire, to watch the secret burn before it could ever take root. But her mother’s face—the serene look she had worn in her final moments—kept appearing in the embers.
Was it possible that the execution hadn't been a tragedy, but a choice? The thought was heresy. It was the kind of thinking that broke covens and started wars. Isabella stood and walked to the mirror, pulling down the lace of her collar. The scars there were a map of her obedience, a history written in pain and crimson. She looked at her reflection, seeing the hollowed-out creature Damien had described.
Morning arrived not with a sunrise, but with a dull, grey sharpening of the fog. A servant brought a tray of bitter tea and bread, leaving without a word. Isabella ignored the food. She dressed in a fresh gown of midnight blue, the high collar feeling like a noose. She needed to see him. She needed to know why he was so intent on sowing doubt where there should only be blood and iron.
As she stepped out into the hallway to find the main chamber, she found Damien already waiting, leaning against the far wall as if he had never left. He was watching the doorway with a fierce, possessive authority.
"They want to see you break, Isabella," he murmured, his eyes scanning the crowd with a fierce, possessive authority. "They want to see the Nightbloom wilt. Don't let them."
Isabella looked up at him, her intuition screaming that there was a game within a game here—that his arrogance was a shield for something far more dangerous.
"And what do you want, Lord Blackthorn?" she whispered back.
As Damien's fingers brushed the crimson scar blooming fresh on her wrist, his voice dropped to a silken threat: "Break me, little Nightbloom, and see how the blood sings both our names."
"Welcome to your cage of thorns, little vow-keeper," Damien murmured, his breath warm against her ear as the Blackthorn shadows swallowed them whole—"where oaths break as easily as they bind."