2025-08-09 08:42:19Moonveil’s walls rose from the morning mist like the ribs of some ancient beast. Kael Ruan rode at the front of the small column, the Core Fragment’s weight in his pack a steady reminder of the fight in Ashen Hollow. Liara Fen kept pace at his side, her eyes scanning the gates ahead.
The guards on duty did not call out greetings. They watched in silence as the group passed through, their faces pale, eyes shadowed. Kael’s grip on his reins tightened.
“They look like they haven’t slept in days,” Joren murmured from behind.
“Or like they’ve been dreaming someone else’s dreams,” Liara said.
The Arms Hall courtyard was empty when they arrived, its flagstones slick from a night of rain. The training posts stood untouched, and even the sparring racks looked neglected. Inside, the council chamber was lit by only two braziers, their flames low and sullen.
Master Renji sat alone at the far table, his cane across his lap. He didn’t look up when Kael entered.
“You’re late,” Renji said. His voice was hoarse, the words too slow.
Kael stopped short. “We came as fast as we could. What’s happened?”
Renji’s gaze lifted and Kael’s stomach tightened. The old man’s eyes were rimmed in red, the whites shot through with faint golden threads.
Liara moved to Renji’s side. “When did this start?”
“A day after you left,” he murmured. “First the younger blades complained of headaches. Then the dreams began. The same for the council scribes, the gate sergeants… anyone who swore an oath under the Bureau’s seal.”
Kael’s jaw set. “He’s in the city.”
Renji’s hand tightened on the cane. “Not in the way you think. This is slower. He’s feeding from the oaths themselves. Twisting them.”
The sound of footsteps cut the air. Captain Morren stepped into the chamber, flanked by two guards in Bureau armor. His smile was thin, but it didn’t touch his eyes.
“Keeper Ruan,” he said, voice dripping with mock courtesy. “You return just in time. The magistrate has called for you to hand over the… artifact you retrieved.”
Kael met his gaze without flinching. “It’s evidence. And it stays with me.”
Morren’s smile widened by a fraction. “You think you have a choice?”
The Oath thrummed in Kael’s chest, a pulse of warning.
Liara shifted, stepping between Kael and Morren. “If the magistrate wants it, he can make that request himself. In writing.”
The captain’s eyes flicked to her, cold and calculating. “Careful, Lady Fen. You’re outside your father’s shadow here.”
Before Kael could speak, Renji’s cane struck the floor, the crack echoing through the chamber. “This hall does not bend to Syndicate orders,” the old master said.
Morren’s smile faltered but only for a heartbeat. He turned sharply and left, his guards trailing after him.
When the doors shut, Kael set his hands on the table. “He knows what the Fragment is. If the Emperor’s touched him”
Liara cut in. “He’s not the only one. Did you see the guards’ eyes? The same threads as Renji’s.”
Renji exhaled slowly. “The city’s oath-bound are already marked. That’s his way in. The stronger the oath, the deeper the thread.”
Kael’s mind turned over the truth. The Bureau was more than a headquarters; it was the spine of Moonveil’s law. If the Emperor broke it from within, the city wouldn’t just fall it would serve.
That night, Kael stood in the Arms Hall’s highest window, looking over the city. The rain had stopped, but a thin veil of mist clung to the rooftops.
The Oath’s voice came quiet, almost like a breath at his ear. “Every vow is a door, Oathbearer. You’ve opened more than you can close.”
Kael didn’t answer aloud. He thought instead of the Core Fragment in his pack, of the pulse he could feel when his hand rested near it. If it was a key, then somewhere in Moonveil was the lock it belonged to — and the Emperor would find it if he didn’t.
Liara joined him at the window, her steps light. “We can’t fight this in the open. Not yet. You saw Morren’s face. He’ll push to strip your badge before the week’s end.”
“Then we work in the dark,” Kael said.
Her eyes narrowed. “Where?”
“The Bureau vaults. If the Emperor’s threads are running through oath-bound men, there will be records — ceremonies, signings, witnesses. Somewhere in those ledgers, we’ll see the pattern.”
Liara’s mouth curved in a humorless smile. “Breaking into the place you swore to protect. I’d call that ironic if it wasn’t so necessary.”
They moved before dawn. Joren and Matsu took watch in the outer courtyard, leaving Kael and Liara to slip into the archive wing. The shelves smelled of ink and dust, row after row of oaken cases stacked with scrolls and ledgers.
Kael lit a single lamp, shielding its glow with his hand. “Start with the last two months. Look for anything that required an oath in the magistrate’s presence.”
They worked in silence, the only sounds the whisper of parchment and the occasional creak of wood. Then Liara froze.
“Kael.”
She laid a ledger on the table. Every page was normal until the last. There, inked in cramped, careful script, was a list of names. Every one belonged to a Bureau officer. Every one was marked with a small, gold-inked symbol Kael had never seen.
The Oath inside him flared hot. “Threaded.”
Kael’s pulse quickened. “These aren’t just records. They’re bindings.”
Liara’s gaze sharpened. “Which means if we break them—”
The air in the archive shifted, cold rushing in like a tide. From between the shelves, a thin line of black mist curled, then split into two, then four. Shapes began to form.
Kael drew his sword in a single motion. The Oath surged in his chest.
[Oath Energy: +10]
Liara backed toward the wall, daggers in hand. “We don’t have long.”
Kael’s eyes locked on the first shape fully formed a Bureau guard, but his face was hollow, eyes nothing but gold-threaded darkness.
The fight would bring half the Bureau down on them if they weren’t quick. But Kael knew one thing as the first blade met the first claw: the Emperor wasn’t waiting for the full moon.
He had already started the war.
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Broken Promises
The bell at the Arms Hall tolled at dawn, its deep chime echoing across Moonveil’s streets. Kael Ruan stood in the courtyard, cloak damp with mist, eyes fixed on the gates. Messengers had ridden through the night, their reports all the same: attacks in the outer districts, vanishing patrols, witnesses describing gold eyes glowing in the dark.The Hollow Emperor was no longer whispering from beneath the stones. He was moving through the city.Liara Fen joined him, her hair tied back, daggers at her belt. “The Dockside Quarter is burning. Families are fleeing toward the central square. If we don’t hold them there, the streets will choke on panic before nightfall.”Kael’s jaw tightened. “Then that’s where we go.”Inside the council chamber, Master Renji sat stiff-backed, his cane across his knees. The faint golden threads in his eyes had faded since the burning of the tether, but his voice was weaker than before.“You can’t be everywhere,” he said. “The Emperor knows that. He’ll strike w
Into the Undercity
The entrance to the undercity lay beneath the oldest part of Moonveil, hidden behind a rusted grate in an alley no one used. By daylight, it was nothing more than a scar in the stone wall. By night, it breathed cold air that smelled of damp earth and something faintly metallic, like blood long dried.Kael Ruan knelt to unbar the grate, the Core Fragment strapped to his chest under his cloak. The Oath burned faintly, as if it knew where they were going.Liara Fen stood watch at the alley’s mouth, her daggers already in hand. Joren and Matsu waited just behind Kael, their armor muffled in black wraps.“Once we’re inside,” Kael said quietly, “there’s no quick way out. Stay close. If the mist rises, keep your backs to the wall and your eyes open.”Liara glanced at him. “Eyes open I can manage. Breathing, maybe not.”The grate opened with a groan, and Kael dropped into the darkness first. His boots landed in shallow water, the chill biting through the leather. The tunnel ahead stretched in
Ground of Choosing
The valley was a scar between two ridges, the ground littered with pale stone and the skeletal remains of long-dead trees. A river once ran here, but now only a shallow channel cut through the rocks, its water dark and still.Kael Ruan stood at the center, the Core Fragment heavy in his palm. The Oath pulsed in time with his heartbeat, each throb a reminder that this was the place he had chosen.Joren and Matsu were already setting the outer perimeter, driving iron stakes into the ground where ropes strung with talismans would hang. Liara Fen crouched near a flat slab of stone, arranging clay jars in a precise pattern. Inside each jar was a mixture of ash, salt, and ground quartz — Renji’s design to slow the Emperor’s mist.Renji himself sat cross-legged on the slab, his cane resting across his knees. His eyes were half-closed, his breathing slow. “The ground remembers,” he said quietly. “Blood was spilled here long before you were born. It will be spilled again.”Kael glanced up at t
The Thread Beneath the Skin
The healer’s chamber smelled faintly of crushed herbs and oil, the air warm from the brazier burning in the corner. Liara sat on the low bench, her cloak discarded, her shoulder bare under the lamplight. The faint gold thread shimmered just beneath the skin, curling like a mark burned there from within.Kael stood at her side, the weight of the Core Fragment heavy in his pack on the floor. Joren and Matsu guarded the door, their shadows stretched long across the wall.Master Renji leaned over Liara, his lined face drawn tight in concentration. “It’s not a wound,” he said finally. “It’s a channel. He’s using it to listen… and to speak.”Liara’s jaw tightened. “Then cut it out.”Renji shook his head. “If it were that simple, you’d be bleeding already. This isn’t in the flesh alone. It’s in the oath you carry.”Kael’s eyes narrowed. “She’s not oath-bound to the Bureau.”“No,” Renji said, “but she’s bound herself to you, hasn’t she? That’s enough for him. The Oath doesn’t know the differe
The Threaded
The first guard moved with a speed that didn’t belong to him. His blade sang through the dim light, striking where Kael had been an instant earlier. The gold-threaded darkness in his eyes didn’t blink, didn’t flinch.Kael pivoted, letting the Oath guide his arm. His sword met the guard’s in a sharp ring, sparks scattering into the cold air. The second guard closed in from the left, the black mist coiling from his mouth with every exhale.Liara slid between two shelves, twin daggers flashing. Her first strike caught one guard across the arm — the flesh beneath split, but instead of blood, threads of gold spilled out, writhing like living things.“Not human anymore,” she said, voice tight.Kael drove his shoulder into the first guard, slamming him back into the shelf. Scrolls tumbled to the floor, parchment scattering across the cold stone. The guard’s head snapped forward, teeth bared, and the gold in his eyes flared.[Oath Energy: +5]Kael’s sword cut clean through the man’s chest. Th
Shadows in the Hall
Moonveil’s walls rose from the morning mist like the ribs of some ancient beast. Kael Ruan rode at the front of the small column, the Core Fragment’s weight in his pack a steady reminder of the fight in Ashen Hollow. Liara Fen kept pace at his side, her eyes scanning the gates ahead.The guards on duty did not call out greetings. They watched in silence as the group passed through, their faces pale, eyes shadowed. Kael’s grip on his reins tightened.“They look like they haven’t slept in days,” Joren murmured from behind.“Or like they’ve been dreaming someone else’s dreams,” Liara said.The Arms Hall courtyard was empty when they arrived, its flagstones slick from a night of rain. The training posts stood untouched, and even the sparring racks looked neglected. Inside, the council chamber was lit by only two braziers, their flames low and sullen.Master Renji sat alone at the far table, his cane across his lap. He didn’t look up when Kael entered.“You’re late,” Renji said. His voice
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