Page 92 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

“Wake.” She planted her palms on my chest and pushed, but I didn’t yield. With a sigh, she managed to climb up my body until we were eye level, my arm now around her waist. “You’ve been sleeping for over twelve hours, love.”

I snapped awake and sat up, the blanket falling to my hips. “What?”

She sat with her knees tucked beneath her. “I didn’t want to wake you if I could help it, but the sun just came up, and the others will be arriving soon. Everyone but Doran. He’ll be a little later.”

One day.

Tomorrow.

If it was just after sunrise, we had roughly thirty-six hours before the moon rose on Winter Solstice.

Is that right? Thirty-six hours?

I pulled her into a hug and dropped my face to the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent: rain and wildflowers, mixed with the scent of us .

“I’ll have to let them in,” I said without releasing her.

She nodded. “And you need to eat. You need food.”

As if on cue, my stomach growled. She stood and pulled me to my feet.

Not an hour later, we waited at the border of the encampment and greeted a very confused and confus ing group. Lee led the way with Iaso and Ewan at his side and Drakyth on his heels, followed by Edana, Calypso, Delphia, and Thana.

Two more figures brought up the rear, emerging from the tree line, Godrick and?—

“Mother?” Ara asked, horrified. “Why would you come here?”

Elora straightened. “I spent a decade in the nurses’ tent. I can assist Iaso.”

Iaso dipped her chin to Elora. Her golden armor glinted in the early morning sun and matched the shimmering wyvern behind her. Aurum sat on his haunches, snout lifted to the sky as he scented the other wyverns nearby.

Hello, Aurum.

His head whipped in my direction. Good morning, my King. Why are we here?

To end a war, hopefully.

He cocked his head curiously.

Guardian skimmed my mind. Precisely. A war will end tomorrow, and you will rise victorious.

Aurum shuffled his wings and took to the sky.

“Iaso told us you found Severance,” Drakyth asked, a hopeful lilt in his voice. “Is that true?”

Ara unsheathed the blade, blinked a few times, and gave a small shake of her head before holding it out for them to see. I could’ve sworn I heard a collective breath of relief as Iaso and Calypso stepped in to inspect it more closely.

“Not just Severance, though,” I said, drawing the second dagger from beneath my cloak.

“That’s… impossible,” Calypso said, disbelief heavy in her voice. She glanced at Ara. “I thought you said Adonis had Sacrifice?”

“I thought he did,” Ara replied. “ He thinks he does.”

Iaso stepped forward, and I gently handed her the dagger. She tilted the bloodstone toward the sun, a beam of red light spilling over her brown skin. The others closed in around her, eyes fixed on the blade.

“Ara pulled this one from the maelstrom, too,” I said.

Drakyth stared at the dagger as Iaso returned it to me. “Then, what does Adonis have?”

Iaso shook her head. “It must be an impostor.”

“That’s what we assumed as well,” I said, hoping this wasn’t simply blind optimism.

A stunned silence fell over the group before Elora exhaled sharply and let out a short laugh—half disbelief, half relief. “You have them… You actually have them.”

Ara nodded, stifling a smile. “Something went in our favor for once.”

For a moment, the air felt lighter—hopeful, even—but there was no time to linger. Clearing my throat, I slipped Sacrifice into its sheath and straightened.

“I’m sure most of you already know, but while I was searching for Ara, I created a blood oath.

” I tugged my shirt down to reveal the six-pointed sun branded into my chest. “This mark is tied to the army I’ve gathered over the last three months.

With Lee’s help, I established what we call the Bloodsworn. ”

Lee grinned ear to ear.

“Crafting the oath was tediously complicated. The wyverns helped in that regard, and we managed to tie many oaths to this mark, one being a protection spell similar to Canyon’s.”

They had each sworn Canyon’s oath at some point in their lives, so this wasn’t new to them, but I still expected their eyes to bulge when they realized the vast size of the spell.

“To enter the camp, you’ll all have to swear an oath of loyalty, at the expense of your life. I don’t know how Adonis’s interference will affect it, or if losing your autonomy would void the oath somehow, but I can’t make exceptions without dismantling the?—”

Delphia swiped a dagger against her palm. “Tell me what to recite.”

My brows knitted together as I regarded her, the woman I’d viscerally hated the past few months—the woman who’d been my sister just months before that. She flinched and tensed when I strode toward her, but I didn’t slow. I threw an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a hug.

Ara’s emotion poured into my chest, warm and sweet like sunlit honey.

With a shuddering breath, Delphia relaxed and wrapped her non-injured hand around my torso. “I’m sorry…for everything.”

“Me too.” I stepped back and held her by the shoulders. “Are you sure?”

“I want to prove you can trust me, and this is, by far, the best way.”

I pulled my shirt off, thankful we were outside of the spell border, so my magic could keep me from freezing to death—literally. Ice crusted over the world, including our lashes.

“No magic can be used within the spell’s borders. It’s exactly like the Marsh.” I scanned their faces, and each of them nodded.

As everyone pulled out their weapons, I glanced at Ara with a lopsided grin and recited the oath she had tried to swear. “By blade or lie, if betrayal comes, the betrayer will die. With this blood, the bond is sworn, and by this pact, death is born.”

Delphia didn’t hesitate. She repeated it back to me and blew on the blood pooled in her palm. It turned to dust and painted the six-pointed sun in red before it sank in.

Iaso and Ewan followed suit and swore the oath together, splitting their skin with Iaso’s pendant. Iaso’s hand flew to her mouth when the camp was revealed to them, and Ewan tugged her out of the way.

Drakyth and Edana stepped up next.

He clapped a hand on my shoulder, his gaze heavy with an emotion I couldn’t pinpoint.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t save you sooner. We tried, and I…

” He cleared his throat and squeezed my shoulder.

“Well, I spent a very long time hating the Draki name and everything I thought it meant: bloodshed, greed, cruelty. A family of tyrants.” He dragged his blade across his palm. “Thank you for proving me wrong.”

With that, he swore the oath, but I was left at a loss for words. My heart thumped in my throat, and I sucked in a deep breath to dispel it.

He didn’t perceive me as any of those things he associated with the Draki name—with my father. After a lifetime of being forced to live in his shadow, sharing his face and blood, that felt damned good to hear.

“I wish I could’ve been there,” Edana said. She sniffed and roughly wiped her face. “You were able to restore my past life, because I loved you in my past life. I never thought of you as his baby. You were mine, my silver lining to the hell I’d been locked away in.”

I clenched my jaw, my throat tight, suddenly uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry I missed…everything, but I plan to be there for the rest. No matter what, you and Ara will make it out the other side alive, and you will live.”

A tear escaped her eye, and she wiped it with the shoulder of her sleeve as she stuck a pin in her finger.

When she joined the others, Ara slipped her hand in mine and kissed each of my fingers one at a time. “Can the rest of you swear the oath at once? Breakfast is getting cold.”

Goddess be damned, I love this woman.

The last four swore at once with no confessions or extra sentiments. I couldn’t handle any more, not right now, not here.

Ara and I led them through the camp, directing them to the cooks’ areas, sparring rings, supply tents, latrines, and finally, the spare tents erected specifically for them. Once they dropped their bags off, we grabbed our breakfast rations and settled around a fire alongside Godrick and Lee.

Edana… loved me?

I shook my head and shoved the thought down, tucking it away for another day—one beyond tomorrow, when we had nothing but time.

I scanned the faces sitting around us as they ate and chatted, even laughed.

As unconventional as it was, we’d built a family together, and it was more than I ever dreamed of.

I couldn’t let Adonis take it all away now.

I’d spent too many decades begging for a friend, a brother, someone, anyone to care.

Now, I had an entire family willing to travel across the realm to fight with me and the woman I love.

They came to fight for us, for them, for every wrongdoing at the hands of Adonis, and every life lost.

Ravaryn had never been in safer hands—hands held together not by blood or obligation, political gain or power, but loyalty and love.

Two things Adonis knew nothing of, and the exact reasons why he would fail spectacularly. Someone who’d forgotten what family felt like could never understand, and that lack of understanding would doom him to underestimation.

Underestimating anyone in this group was a life-ending mistake, and tomorrow, it’d be the last mistake Adonis ever made.