Copyright 2025 by Cassie Swindon
All rights reserved.
No part of this story may be produced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This work is fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, cities, or events are entirely fictional.
Please keep in mind this short story by Cassie Swindon is not officially edited by a professional or formatted, but for recreational use only.
Read short stories in this order:
- Scarlett’s Pledge
- Ryker’s Promise
- Ruby’s Vow
- Crimson Oath (full standalone novel) releasing in 2026
Ruby’s Vow
My lungs burn, but I’ll never stop running until I find my sister, Scarlett, and bring her home.
“Scarlett!” My other sister, Ruby, yells in the distance.
The hunter’s tire tracks disappear into sloshes of endless puddles. Heart pounding, veins pumping, I pant even harder. My muscles need the refreshing raindrops dripping down from the branches that add to my already soaked hair.
Time ticks too fast. Once the sun fully rises, we’ll be so much more visible to any threats lurking in Astoria’s forest.
The panic of Ruby’s voice startles me. Usually, her voice is soft and low, singing one of her own songs in front of the piano; but now her voice scrapes against my spine with each frantic yell. Neither of us is thinking clearly anymore. Too much time has passed to be cautious. Despite my wishes, the sky shifts from cherry to rose as the sun gradually takes her throne atop Astoria’s highest summit.
“Scarlett!” My throat scratches from overuse.
My bare feet sink into the cold, squishy mud with each desperate step forward. Have we already checked this area? I circle around and scan the trees. For some reason, they all look the same now. Each pine, maple, oak, and hickory laughs at my useless attempts.
Behind a row of trees, Ruby mumbles to herself, “… idea to go … forest hunt without me …” Sarcasm lines her mouth like lipstick. “… ridiculous fairy tale … treasure? Seriously? That Crimson will never learn.”
Tura screeches above and snaps me out of my mental spiral. I squint into the bright sky in search of my falcon. She soars, then dives to the right.
“Ruby! Follow me!” I shout, “This way!” I keep making sounds so she can follow my voice. “Over here!”
I follow my falcon’s calls. She lands and squawks again.
“She’s here!” I scream to Ruby, close by. “Over here!”
Scarlett wears a man’s oversized black hoodie that hangs like a dress on her thin frame. She teeters, then leans against a tree trunk. Black eyeliner smears into her gold eyeshadow which forms abstract art created from nightmares.
“Are you okay?” I gasp and hold her up. “What did he do to you?”
She swallows and slowly eases down the trunk to sit in a pile of mud. Ugly scratches decorate her wrists and the skin around her mouth looks dry and red. Fury engulfs my entire being and every fuckin’ one of my muscles tense.
Ruby finally appears and drops to her knees too. Her hands hover over Scarlett’s injuries and her eyes bulge wide. Neither of us have ever had to take control in an emergency like this. Scarlett has always been in charge, even when we argued against her in our youth.
As the next in line, Ruby’s jaw sets firm as she says, “Okay, you’re okay. We’ve got you.”
Scarlett’s eyes close and she rests her head against the trunk gently. How long had she been running for? Why doesn’t she look younger after draining him?
Ruby scans our sister’s bare legs and exchanges a terrified glance with me. We gesture wildly in silence, asking unspoken questions of what to do next.
“Scarlett, babe, you can’t fall sleep here.” Ruby bites her lip. “Let’s get you home.”
She nods but doesn’t make any effort to move.
“Tura,” I stroke her feathers. “Can you keep an eye out above for any threats?”
Her fierce eyes blink once then she flies to a higher branch on patrol. Scarlett needs a few minutes to process. At least Tura will give us a warning and for a head start in case we need to run again. I pat my pockets for water or a snack for my sister, already knowing they’re empty.
“He’s horrifying,” Scarlett mumbles.
Ruby strokes Scarlett’s wrist in mini circles and asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Completely appalling. He wants to know how to kill a Slynik.”
I hold back a gasp for her sake.
“Repulsive.” Scarlett clutches her stomach and shudders. “This one has two colored eyes.”
“Did he have a name?” I ask carefully.
Scarlett finally opens her eyes and black eyes that mirror mine look up. “Of course he does. All mortals have names … I think.”
“What was his name?” Ruby leans forward. “We can kill his entire kin.”
Scarlett shakes her head. “I don’t remember. I was a bit too busy trying to escape. But he’s our age, maybe thirty-five and probably six feet, white skin. Oh, and he has insane tattoos crawling up his back. I couldn’t read any. They are in a language I’ve never seen.” She traces a shape in the air with a finger. “Some are intricate symbols repeated again and again.”
I shake my head. “Scar, why are you using the present tense still?”
Scarlett stands on unsteady legs. “We need to leave the forest before he finds us.”
“What?” I freeze. “You let him live?”
Scarlett groans weakly. “Luna Above, Crimson, I thought you didn’t want to drain mortals anymore, now you’ve changed your mind?”
“I meant innocent mortals! This hunter took you, Scarlett. That’s never happened before. What if he had tortured you? What if we never found you?” I pause, trying to ease my racing heart, then whisper, “What if he learned about Noire venom?”
“He definitely didn’t know about the spiders, since he kept asking me how to kill one of us.”
I wrap my arms around my body and drop my chin. I’ll kill him for what he did to Scarlett. Her captor will be the last soul I drain, and I’ll enjoy it.
Scarlett turns so we can’t see her face. “But something about this hunter is different.”
Ruby slides her hand into Scarlett’s and I stare at their interlaced fingers. “How?”
“I did try to drain him. It didn’t work.”
My knees almost give out. Scarlett must be mistaken. Why would her powers not work?
“Hey, it’ll be okay,” Ruby whispers. “Let’s get home and talk about this later.”
Scarlett slowly turns and tears slide down her porcelain cheeks. “I don’t know what happened. Maybe I’ve lost my powers. When I reached for his forehead, the hunter had no cruxel. It’ like he doesn’t have a spirit at all. There were no witty comments floating in his aura, no first cuss word, no essays from school covered in red ink, no emails filled with typos, no arguments from his past bouncing in his mind. The man is empty of words. A shell.”
Ruby drops Scarlett’s hand and slumps onto a rock. Maybe he invented some sort of armor to keep us from sensing his aura.
“That’s not all.” Scarlett’s voice lowers.
I brace myself for worse news, though I can’t even imagine what else she might reveal.
“The way the hunter looked at me and the way he said my name, it was almost like he believed me to be … human. It was unnatural.” She rubs the back of her neck and starts pacing. “I know it sounds crazy, but even though he abducted me, when he said my name, like there was something he knew. It wasn’t right. That man had a chance to capture me again, but he let me go. He told me to run.”
“Are you trying to defend him?” My hands shake and a tickling like spider legs creeping on my forearms makes me shiver. Tura flies down and massages her feathery face against mine, instantly calming me.
“No, I’m just —” Scarlett trips and almost falls, but Ruby steadies her.
“Come on, we don’t need to talk about this anymore.” Ruby pulls her softly. “Let’s go home. I vow to you, here and now, that we will kill that hunter for what he did to you.”
Scarlett sighs and I sandwich her on the other side. Three sister-hips line up in a row as we walk hand in hand. Autumn leaves flatten under my weight and my bare toes smush into the fresh mud as Tura scouts above for any signs of danger.
No breeze tickles my skin. It’s as if the forest is holding its breath. Every other minute, I glance over my shoulder, or check ahead, waiting for the hunter to jump out from behind a tree. Ruby’s soft humming hypnotizes me into a daydream.
Storybook fairytales write cliffhangers on the flowers to our right and mythical heroines cast spells on the vines winding around the trees. Each branch looks like the shape of a letter, forming words and endless possibilities right in front of us. If only we didn’t have to rush home, the forest could open a whimsical door to another land and welcome me in. My next book could be about …
“Uh, Crimson, hello?” Someone’s fingers snap in front of my face. “We’re home.” Ruby nods ahead to the towering dark structure.
We step as one unit out of the shade and into the sunlight. Warmth immediately blankets my cheeks, and the morning breeze tousles my hair now that we’re out of the forest. From a distance, our obsidian house blends into the cliffside rock of Astoria’s most dangerous overhang. We picked this location because no mortal is foolish enough to climb this terrain.
I inhale the fresh scent of saltwater. Even though my sisters become nauseous from the waves, I love dipping my toes in the water or diving into the depths for pearls—almost as much as visiting the bookshop. Sunken treasure has forever called out to me since I was a child. My favorite finds have always been remnants of storybooks from long ago, maps with exotic lands written in foreign handwriting or love letter exchanges. The words that form each page are the source of my beating heart.
Our large metal door moans in protest as all three of us push with our shoulders. Tura flies in between the crack before we shut it again. She lands on her perch by the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook Jarrigan Sea. The open living space overflows with all our favorite belongings: Ruby’s guitar, Scarlett’s chess board, and my books with bent bindings and dog-eared pages.
“I’ll be right back.” Ruby glares at me, a look I’m not used to, then turns away. “Let’s get you into bed, Scarlett.”
Her expression completely catches me off guard. Ruby’s known as the chill sister who goes with the flow, but today it seems as though I’ve finally cracked her. How can I make amends with them? Tura squawks in response and shakes her head. My falcon is right; I did nothing wrong. Searching for the ancient maps in the forest wasn’t supposed to be a selfish act because I must find the legendary elixir among Slynik’s treasure. It’s the only way to stop feeding on mortal souls. From now on, it’ll be a secret mission and I’ll do it alone. If my sisters can keep thoughts and feelings from me, then I can too.
The neon digital clock on our wall flashes the wrong time. I guess the power went out last night during the storm. It continually blinks, reminding me that time and aging has been inconsequential to me—until now. In our black, sleek kitchen I pour myself a glass of water and chug the whole thing like a crazed animal. Droplets leak out and dribble down my chin. I spot Ruby’s girlfriend’s headphones laying on the counter. Soft skuttle sounds make me turn around to catch Tura hopping after me.
Despite everything, I can’t help but smile. “Where do you think you’re going?”
She ruffles her feathers, then skips past me into my room.
Once I click my door shut, she flies high, her wings accidentally rippling the hundreds of letters I have hung as wallpaper. Tura lands on the twelfth level of my massive bookshelf and curls into her nest of blankets. I ignore my romance novels and stare at the texts holding Astoria’s history, some legendary, some not. There must be information in there about the hunter’s tattoos that I didn’t notice the first five times I devoured its words.
My door opens. Dark shadows linger below Ruby’s eyes and she shakes her head at me.
“Is Scarlett doing okay?” I wring my hands together.
“Yeah, I called Eve. She’s on her way now, but Crims … listen, Eve is pissed as fuck at you.”
Ever since my sisters’ relationships have turned more serious, I’ve become the fifth wheel. For a few months, it hasn’t been us three against the world, but Scarlett tucked away in her bedroom with Eve, and Ruby writing songs all night with Dionne. I don’t have any interest in trying to date a woman again– just one more detail about me that doesn’t fit with my sisters.
“What were you thinking dragging Scarlett to the forest, Crimson?” Ruby studies me intently and says my middle name with emphasis. “It’s dangerous.”
I slouch down into an old armchair, probably designed for princesses once upon a time. “Why are you blaming me? Scarlett was out there too.”
“Scarlett was abducted, of course I’m not going to yell at her.”
“No,” I whisper, “if I had been the one taken, there’s no chance you’d be reprimanding Scarlett right now. She’d be lecturing me before I even had the chance to recover and you’d stand in her shadow without sticking up for me.”
Ruby paces the room, between my collection of typewriters and mounds of bookmarks. “Come on, Crims, when can we rely on you to start using your brain?”
“So, now I’m stupid?”
“I love you, Crims.” She slides onto my four-poster bed, knocking over a stack of my notebooks. “You’re creative and curious but it’s time to see reality. It’s not safe to go into the forest without all three of us together.”
“But Scarlett agreed to—”
“Of course she agreed to hunt with you. She’d do anything to keep you happy. Don’t you see that? No, you’re lost in your wonderworld half the time. I bet she said no the first time you asked her to join you out there.”
I bolt up. “That’s not fair. A book once–”
Ruby stands too and closes the distance between us. “Stop it with your stupid books, Crims! They’re all fiction! Myths! There’s no treasure, no grand adventure. If you want to stay alive, stay home, with us.”
“But—”
“Stop!” Ruby takes both my hands. “You need to stop before it becomes more of a problem.”
“Why?” I yank my hands free. “Who is it hurting for me to learn more about our world?”
“Well, we almost lost Scarlett, so there’s that, unless you already conveniently forgot.”
“Stop chastising me.”
“Then act like an adult.” Ruby’s eyes flit to the door. “What you’re doing is foolish.” Her black eyes flash in warning. “Someone needs to knock sense into you.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Tura must sense my distress because she flies down and lands on my shoulder.
“You’re being careless,” Ruby continues, “and it’s not just about your reading. Stop trying to publish your book.”
My heart races. My breaths come faster and faster. She has never been so harsh like this in the past. I assumed my sisters supported my dreams of becoming a novelist, at least they acted like it at the time. Why would they lie?
“I’m not doing anything to harm our kind.”
“You’re exposing us. Don’t you understand? And what about that hunter? He has information on us now. He might lead a whole army to our door. Then what?”
Ruby’s porcelain skin shimmers when the sun streams through the window. She tucks a strand of her black hair behind her ear. All I’ve ever wanted was to be like my sisters, as beautiful as Scarlett and as confident as Ruby. Instead, I’ve let them both down. Maybe we’ve all changed.
My only strength is words, so how can I use them to find the answers?
I flip open a book by my side. “I’m going out.” Without meeting her eye, I march across the room and out my bedroom door. Tura’s claws dig into my shoulder a little.
Ruby stomps after. “No, it’s dangerous, Crims. Please don’t.”
“I can’t be here right now.”
“Then you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said. You don’t care about us.” She jumps in front of me. “You’re being foolish!”
Tears pool behind my eyes but I hold them back. “Maybe you’ve never understood me at all.”
Ruby crosses her arms. “Maybe you’re right.”
Words stored from cruxels I’ve stolen spark to life and whirl in my mind like a tornado. Anger. Stop. Bold. Regret. Cringe. Terror. Mistake. Alone. Finished. They seem to form hardened armor against her.
Without telling Ruby my plans, I decide to investigate further at Codex Underground. I don’t wait for my sister’s response as I charge out the door, towards certain danger.
**This concludes all three prequels to Crimson Oath**
Be sure to read the other short stories, in this order:
Stay tuned for Crimson Oath, a full standalone novel releasing in 2026
To read other short story prequels by Cassie Swindon, check her website at www.cassieswindon.com for the following:
Olivia’s Date
Lou’s Tulips
Rynn’s Crush
Piper’s Challenge
Mora’s Thorn
Eribelle’s Dream
Isaac’s Curse
Jadox’s Spell
Kyra’s Ruin
Raelyn’s Last Shot
Kody’s Secret
Phoenix’s Spies
Cali’s Escape
William’s Lies