The high banners of Arathen swayed in the warm currents that flowed through the royal thronehall. Gold-threaded tapestries caught the light of crystal sconces, casting long shadows across the marble floor. At the far end, King Gravell sat stiffly upon his seat of carved oak and silver, fingers drumming on the armrest in a rhythm too precise to be idle.
Before him, the court was gathered in uneasy clusters—magisters robed in indigo, generals clad in steel, envoys whispering behind jeweled hands. Their voices carried low but tense, like the restless buzzing of hornets before a storm.
High Magus Selora stepped forward, her silver staff tapping once against the stone, silencing the chamber. “Word has reached us from Veyra,” she said. “The summoned heroes have disrupted a Shadowborn summoning within the city itself. The ritual was broken, the cult scattered, and their high priest slain.”
The hall stirred, voices breaking out in a dozen directions at once.
“Impossible—”
“Reckless children—”
“By the gods, within the city walls?”
“Shadowborn? That name has not been spoken in centuries—”
Selora raised a hand, her expression cool. “I have confirmed the reports through scrying. Ethan and Maya acted without support, as commanded. The governor of Veyra shelters them even now.”
One of the generals—a broad, scarred man with iron-gray hair—snorted. “And what of the collateral? A firestorm in a cellar? A half dozen dead? Survivors scattered into the night? If the cult was rooted there, now it burrows deeper, like vermin in the dark. They’ve only provoked them further.”
“They prevented the summoning,” Selora countered sharply. “Would you have preferred a Shadowborn rampaging through Veyra’s streets?”
The general’s mouth tightened, but he held his tongue.
From his throne, King Gravell finally spoke. His voice was quiet, but it carried with a weight that silenced even the harshest whisper. “Two strangers, untested and untrained, faced a threat even my best magi could not have anticipated. And they prevailed.”
The words did not sound like praise.
Selora bowed her head slightly. “They are adapting quickly. The Binding Oath grants them strength neither they nor we fully understand. They will become invaluable, if guided wisely.”
A murmur rippled through the court. Some nodding, some shaking their heads.
Lord Varic, who could not help his serpentine ways, stepped forward. “Or they will become dangerous. The Oath binds them to us, yes, but power breeds will. If they are not tempered, they could destabilize more than they protect. Two heroes who burn cities in their wake… do we dare unleash them further?”
The King’s fingers stilled on the throne. His gaze fixed on Selora. “You vouched for them. You will continue their training. But know this—if they turn, their fates will be yours to bear.”
Selora bowed deeply, though her eyes flashed. “I accept that burden, Your Majesty.”
As the court broke into restless discussion again, Gravell leaned back, expression unreadable. He spoke softly, almost to himself. “Two heroes who seal away shadows with lashes of fire and anomalies measured in time itself… or two weapons too sharp for the hand that wields them. Time will tell.”
The thronehall echoed with the weight of unspoken possibilities.
The thronehall emptied with the slow shuffle of silk and steel. One by one, lords and magisters departed in murmuring clusters, leaving only the echo of their voices clinging to the vaulted ceiling.
When the last envoy bowed his way out, the great doors of oak and bronze closed with a resonant thud. His Highness brought together High Magus Selora and Veylan, Lord Varic, and Sir Aldric in the thronehall to speak of the matter privately.
King Gravell decided to break the silence first. His voice was a rasp, like stone dragged across stone. “The heroes.”
The word hung.
Selora straightened. “They succeeded. Without them, Veyra would already be ash. Their bond is deepening. That is a strength we cannot squander.”
Aldric leaned forward, jaw tight. “And yet we cannot ignore the collateral. I’ve read the reports. A firestorm underground, three guards dead, a dozen civilians injured in the chaos. If that’s what they call success, what will their failure look like?” Despite Aldric being able to stand up for them before, this chaotic display of power worried him. Their progress was startling, to say the least. Deep down, his fear was egging at his consciousness, driving him to say these words.
“They prevented the summoning,” Selora shot back. “Your soldiers would have been slaughtered.”
Veylan’s lips curved faintly, his tone measured. “Both are true. The heroes are powerful, but untempered. They succeed because desperation sharpens them. That is not sustainable. Desperation breaks as easily as it hardens.”
Varic chuckled softly. “Indeed. And let us not forget: the Binding Oath was designed for an age long past. Ancient bindings have a way of… twisting. Are we certain it holds them to us—and not to each other?”
Gravell’s eyes flicked toward him. “Speak plainly.”
Varic’s smile thinned. “If one turns, the other will follow. We will not have two blades to wield, Your Majesty. We will have none.”
Selora’s hand tightened on her staff. “Or we will have two who fight with a strength no single soul could ever muster. Already their power is greater together than apart. Did you not read the scryings? Their fire, their rhythm—bound, they amplified each other. That was not chance. That was the Oath awakening.”
Aldric’s fist struck the table. “And if that bond drives them to defy us? Heroes who owe loyalty to each other before crown and country—that’s a threat. I’ve seen soldiers like that. They bleed for their brother, not their banner. And when banners clash, it’s their bond that breaks armies.”
The chamber grew heavy with silence.
At last, Gravell leaned back, his crown catching the meager firelight. “Then the path is clear. We sharpen them, as Selora says. But we never forget they are knives at our throat as much as at the Demon King’s. If they falter, we strike. If they rebel, we sever. If they triumph…” His mouth curved into something that might have been a smile. “…then we take the glory.”
The inn’s shutters rattled in the late-night wind, though the hearth inside had long since gone cold. Ethan sat on the edge of the narrow bed, elbows on his knees, staring at his hands. The faint glow of Oath-fire still lingered under his skin, like embers that refused to die.
They trembled.
Not from fear, exactly. Not anymore. But from the memory of it—that cellar filled with screaming cultists, the red spray of blood, the smell of burnt flesh when his flames had roared too far. He pressed his hands together, tried to still them, but they wouldn’t stop shaking.
Neither had spoken since they returned from the governor’s debriefing. The silence was thick.
Finally, Ethan broke it. His voice was hoarse. “We weren’t ready for that.”
Maya’s hand stilled, ink pressed deep in her journal. She didn’t look up. “No. We weren’t.”
“They threw us in blind,” he muttered, leaning back against the creaking bedframe. “No backup, no plan, no one watching our backs. Just… us. Like we were bait. Or expendable.”
Maya’s gaze flicked to him then, sharp and searching. “You think they wanted us to fail?”
“I don’t know.” He exhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But I keep thinking—if I hadn’t pushed the flames, if you hadn’t…” He gestured vaguely at her blades, not wanting to finish the thought. “…how close we came to dying in that cellar.”
Maya set her journal down, folded her arms, and slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. For a long moment she said nothing. Then, softly: “We killed him, Ethan.”
He looked at her, startled.
“The priest,” she said, her voice flat but eyes burning. “Not just fighting, not like training with Selora. We killed him. And I thought it would feel like justice. Like something out of the stories. But it didn’t. It just…” She closed her eyes. “…felt real.”
Ethan swallowed hard. He wanted to tell her it was different, that it was necessary, that it didn’t make either of them a monster. But the words caught in his throat. Because she wasn’t wrong.
He remembered the firestorm, the screams. The way some of those cultists had fled—not fighting, just running—and how his flames had swallowed them anyway.
They sat in silence for a while, the weight of it pressing in from all sides. Outside, Veyra’s night carried on—distant tavern laughter, the clop of horses, the faint toll of a temple bell. Life continued, oblivious to the shadows beneath it.
Finally, Ethan spoke again, his voice quieter. “We can’t keep doing this blind. If we’re going to survive… we have to get ahead of it. We need to learn why they sent us here. What they’re not telling us.”
Maya opened her eyes, met his gaze. For the first time since the cellar, there was a flicker of steel in her expression. “Then we start watching them as closely as they’re watching us.”
The oath-bond between them stirred faintly, as if responding to that unspoken promise.
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