Blade of the Silent Oath

The Mouth of the Vault

The Hall of Justice was carved from pale granite, its high columns streaked with rain. Moonveil’s citizens swarmed the steps that morning, whispering as Kael Ruan climbed toward the doors. Word had traveled fast: the youngest Arms Keeper was on trial, and the charge carried more weight than most murders.

Inside, the air smelled of ink, wax, and old stone. The Council’s benches rose in tiers, filled with men and women whose silks did nothing to hide the greed in their eyes. At the center sat Lord Magistrate Zhen, his fingers drumming on the arm of his chair as if already impatient with the proceedings.

Captain Morren stood at the prosecution’s table, smiling like a man who thought the game already won.

Kael met his gaze and did not blink.

The opening arguments were little more than formalized lies. Morren painted Kael as a reckless officer who had overstepped his authority, “seizing private property” without due cause. When Kael’s turn came, he described what he had seen: the wagons, the grey-coated men, the Soulsteel.

Gasps rippled through the onlookers, but Zhen’s face remained carved from stone. “Do you have proof?” the magistrate asked.

Kael’s jaw tightened. “The proof was taken from me by the city guard.”

A murmur ran through the chamber  a dangerous one. Everyone here knew what that meant, but saying it aloud was another matter.

The magistrate tapped his fingers once more. “Until such proof is presented, this hearing will remain open.”

By the time Kael stepped into the street, the rain had begun again, fine and cold. Liara Fen waited in the shadow of a stone arch, her cloak drawn tight.

“They won’t close it,” she said. “Not yet. Thaven wants you to sweat.”

Kael adjusted his sword at his hip. “Then I’ll give him reason to.”

She glanced at him, eyes narrowing. “There’s a shipment tonight. The Sunken Vaults.”

The words landed like a blade point pressing into his back. The Vaults were older than Moonveil itself a warren of chambers beneath the old mint, sealed in places and forgotten in others. Rumor had it they were used by smugglers, slavers, and worse.

“How do you know?” Kael asked.

“I have my own informants,” she said. “And debts to pay.”

They moved through the Dockside Quarter after nightfall, keeping to narrow lanes where the lamplight could not reach. The smell of fish and river silt clung to the air. Somewhere ahead, water dripped in a slow, steady rhythm.

Liara led them to a rusted iron grate set into the cobbles. Two Bureau blades men Kael trusted  were already there, waiting.

“This is the entrance?” Kael asked.

Liara nodded. “Once we go in, there’s no turning back until we’re through.”

Kael dropped into the darkness first. The ladder was slick, the air damp. When his boots touched stone, the faint echo told him the chamber was wide. A single torch sputtered to life, casting long shadows over ancient brickwork.

They moved in silence. The corridors twisted like the burrows of some long-dead beast. Every so often, Kael caught the faint metallic scent of Soulsteel, as if the stone itself had absorbed it.

After what felt like an hour, they came to a heavy door bound in iron straps. Its hinges groaned when Kael pushed it open.

The chamber beyond was lit by a strange, cold glow. Crates were stacked against the walls, some cracked open to reveal ingots that pulsed faintly with pale veins. But it was the figure standing before them that froze Kael’s breath.

An empty suit of armor. At least, it should have been empty.

Its visor turned toward them, and in that narrow slit, Kael saw eyes human eyes, milky with death, fixed in unending fury. The armor raised its halberd and stepped forward, joints clicking like teeth.

The fight was brutal from the first blow. The sentinel’s strikes came heavy and fast, each swing carrying the memory of a warrior’s strength. Kael’s first parry jarred his arm to the shoulder.

The Bureau blades fanned out, trying to flank it, but the halberd swept in a low arc, forcing them back. Liara moved with the speed of a shadow, her twin daggers flashing, but the armor’s plates turned her strikes.

Kael centered himself. The Silent Oath burned against his chest.

 [Oath Energy: +5]

He drove forward, letting the sentinel’s halberd scrape past his ribs as his blade slashed across the visor. The sound was like steel tearing cloth. The armor staggered, then roared — a sound that should have been impossible from an empty shell.

Kael’s second strike came faster, a diagonal cut that split the helm. The glow in the ingots flared once, then dimmed, and the armor collapsed into a heap of lifeless steel.

The silence afterward was heavy. Then the System spoke.

 [Sword Recall Unlocked]

[Fragment of “The Hollow Emperor’s Lament” acquired]

Kael’s breath caught. The fragment was not words, not exactly  it was a whisper in the marrow, a presence colder than the deepest vault.

Oathbearer… you will open the gate.

He looked at Liara. Her expression told him she had felt it too, though she said nothing.

They didn’t linger. The crates of Soulsteel were marked, and a list of names lay atop one  all crossed out. Every one, Kael realized, belonged to someone reported missing in the last three months.

By the time they emerged from the grate, dawn was breaking, the sky streaked with pale gold. The city above still slept, unaware of what lay beneath its feet.

Kael knew the trial would resume soon, and Thaven would be ready. But so was he.

As they walked back toward the Arms Hall, Liara spoke without looking at him. “If that thing we fought was guarding the Vault, what do you think it was guarding it from?”

Kael didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The question hung between them, heavy as the unspent rain in the clouds.

Somewhere, deep under Moonveil, the Hollow Emperor stirred and smiled.