2025-08-09 08:29:16The Hall of Justice was more crowded than before. Word of Kael Ruan’s night in the Vaults had spread in whispers that no official report could explain. Merchants in embroidered robes rubbed shoulders with dockhands still smelling of the river. Guards stood in double lines along the walls, their hands too close to their hilts for comfort.
Kael stepped through the tall doors with Liara Fen at his side. She wore plain black today, her hair tied in a simple knot, yet her presence drew every eye as if she carried a crown.
Lord Magistrate Zhen sat higher than the rest, his pale gaze sweeping over the chamber. “The hearing will resume.”
At the prosecution’s table, Captain Morren smirked — but there was something tight in the set of his jaw that hadn’t been there before.
The first witness was a cooper named Jian, his left hand missing at the wrist. He bowed awkwardly and kept his eyes fixed on the floor.
“Tell the court what you saw,” Kael said.
Jian’s voice was rough. “I saw men load wagons at the east wharf. Crates, heavy. They had the mark of the Duskbane household. When I asked what they carried, one of them told me to mind my other hand.”
Murmurs rose in the gallery. Morren leaned forward. “Did you see the contents of these crates?”
“No, Captain.” Jian’s voice dropped further. “But I heard… a sound. Like a sigh, only… heavier. It made my teeth ache.”
The second witness never arrived. A runner slipped in, whispered to Morren, and the captain’s smirk returned.
Kael felt the coil of the noose tightening not on his neck, but around the truth itself.
Liara stepped forward. “If the court will allow, I have a record.” She produced a folded sheet bearing the Iron Guild’s seal. “This ledger lists two apprentices who went missing the night of the shipment. Their names match those on a document recovered from the Vaults.”
Morren’s eyes narrowed. “Recovered illegally.”
“Recovered,” Liara said, her tone like the edge of a blade.
Kael placed the document on the evidence table. The parchment was damp from the Vault’s air, but the ink was still clear: names, dates, and beside each one, a single line struck through in crimson.
“Every one of these is someone reported missing in the last three months,” Kael said. “And every one coincides with a Syndicate shipment.”
The magistrate’s fingers tapped once on the arm of his chair. “This is grave. Yet without direct proof of the goods’ nature, we tread the edge of supposition.”
“I can describe it,” Kael said. “Soulsteel, taken from the dead. It hums with their essence. I’ve seen it, and I’ve fought what guards it.”
A shiver passed through the crowd. Soulsteel was not spoken of in polite company; it was a thing from old wars, banned by imperial edict.
Morren rose slowly. “Your Honor, the Arms Keeper’s words are nothing more than unverified claims. No such material has been presented here today. And as the court well knows, superstition often walks hand in hand with fear.”
Kael met his gaze. “You’ll have your proof when you stop hiding it.”
Morren’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing.
The magistrate exhaled, as if weary of the dance. “This hearing will be adjourned until—”
The floor shuddered.
It was faint at first, like the roll of distant thunder. Then the tremor grew, rattling the iron sconces along the walls. Dust sifted from the ceiling.
Kael’s hand went to his sword without thought.
A crack split the marble tiles before the magistrate’s dais. Thin, black mist hissed upward, curling like smoke from a burning wick.
The crowd’s murmurs turned to screams. Guards rushed forward, only to recoil as the mist thickened and a shape began to form within it tall, broad-shouldered, its outline barely human.
When it spoke, the voice carried through every stone in the hall.
“Oathbearer…”
The mist peeled away to reveal Lord Thaven Duskbane, but his eyes were molten gold, his skin blackened as if charred from within. Veins of the same gold pulsed beneath the surface, each beat in time with the deep thrum that filled the chamber.
“Thaven,” Kael said, but the name felt wrong now.
The thing wearing Thaven’s shape smiled, lips stretching too far. “You’ve been busy. Breaking seals. Cutting threads.”
“What are you?” Kael demanded.
“The one who will see your blade in my hand.” The words rippled with a second voice beneath the first — older, heavier, resonating in the marrow.
Liara stepped closer to Kael, her daggers drawn. “It’s not bound here. Not anymore.”
The Hollow Emperor’s gaze slid to her, and for a moment the air itself grew colder. “You are nothing. Yet you follow him into the dark. How quaint.”
The mist surged outward, sweeping over the front rows. People vanished into it, their screams cut short. Kael lunged forward, his sword flashing but the mist recoiled before steel could touch it, drawing back into the form of Thaven.
“I will give you a gift, Oathbearer,” the Emperor said, gold eyes bright. “A race. You have until the next full moon to seal me away. Fail, and you will watch this city choke on my shadow.”
Kael felt the System’s pulse like a hammer against his ribs.
[Emergency Oath Quest: Seal the Hollow Emperor before the next full moon. Failure = Death.]
The chamber erupted into chaos. Guards fled, dragging the magistrate with them. Merchants tripped over benches in their scramble for the doors. Only Kael, Liara, and the two Bureau blades held their ground.
The mist collapsed in on itself, dragging Thaven’s form downward until it was gone entirely. In its place lay only the scent of cold ashes and the thin echo of laughter.
Silence fell hard after the noise. The Hall of Justice — the heart of Moonveil’s law — had been split down the center by a jagged crack, and Kael knew nothing in the Bureau’s records could explain it.
Liara sheathed her blades. “You just got your proof,” she said.
Kael looked at her, the weight of the Oath pressing like an iron collar. “Proof won’t be enough now.”
She met his gaze. “Then you’d better make sure you win that race.”
Outside, the rain had stopped, but the streets glistened as if they still remembered it. Word of what had happened in the Hall was already spreading — whispers in the market, murmurs in the taverns, shouts at the docks.
Somewhere beneath Moonveil, the Hollow Emperor moved through the dark, and every step made the city’s stones a little colder.
Kael Ruan tightened his grip on his sword hilt. The Oath burned against his chest, and for the first time, he wondered whether he’d sworn to save the city… or to be buried with it.
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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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