Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Rosanna Silvering, Empress of the Accorded Realms, paced before the window of her private office. The morning sunlight piercing through the glass seemed to catch on her fair skin, and gave the anger in her emerald eyes a glint like green fire. She wore a blue dress threaded in silver and sashed with samite, and the gold-and-silver tiara on her brow seemed to burn like a halo where the morning light caught it.

I still wore the rain-and-blood soaked coat from the previous night. I hadn’t bathed, or slept. I stood in the shadows near the door, waiting for the Empress to speak.

Rosanna paced to one side of the huge window, brought her ring-burdened hand up to her lips as though to chew on her thumbnail, then caught herself before she could indulge in the old habit. She spun on me instead, her jaw tight.

“Explain.”

She said nothing else, and the ensuing silence hung in the room like the aftermath of a thunderbolt. I took a breath and began to speak in a calm tone, touched with a slight rasp from weariness.

“We knew the Priorguard had been investigating a dye maker in one of the guild quarters. They were chasing a lead on the materials some of the city's artists have been using, thinking they might be continental imports — potentially compromised. Cursed.”

Rosanna’s regal features shifted into a frown. “Were they?”

I shrugged. “We know the larger guilds in the continent use Devil Iron and other dangerous materials. Evil paint seemed a stretch, but something has been making members of the city’s renaissance movement go mad. It wasn’t a bad lead, once we knew what they were looking for.”

Infernal influence aside, I knew that the demon Yith’s personal mark very closely resembled a type of beetle used for red paint — hence the name Carmine Killer. And more artists had turned manic, even violent, in recent weeks the same way the lady Yselda of Mirrebel had.

Oraise was onto something. I just couldn’t shake the feeling he had more pieces to the puzzle than I did.

“After some digging,” I continued, pushing aside my private thoughts, “we found out that one of the larger dye makers had been struggling with theft. Turns out one of his apprentices had been stealing from him to conduct a private practice in his home. Kid was an aspiring Anselm.”

I paused and added, “It was Emma who found out. She met Kieran at one of the taverns. Stroke of luck, really. In any case, after investigating the apprentice’s home it became obvious he’d been afflicted by demonic influence.”

Rosanna frowned. “Obvious how?” She’d started pacing again, her long skirts trailing behind her with soft rustling sounds.

“He was painting scenes of the Abyss and Hell,” I said. “Just like Lady Yselda.”

Rosanna paused, absorbing that, then motioned for me to continue.

“Kieran had been seeing a noble in the Fountain Ward,” I said, naming the upper-class district I’d been in the previous night. “A young lady of House Greengood. We were going to question her after we talked to the boy, but then Kieran went and jumped off a bridge above one of the canals. I think the demon drove him to do it. He ended up reanimating. I had a suspicion where he would go. Bad luck the Priorguard chose that same night to raid the Greengood estate and take Laessa into custody. I assume they knew about her connection to Kieran, and that he’d been painting blasphemous things.”

“And no doubt they wanted to point the blame at the nobility,” Rosanna said, catching my thread. “The boy was just a patsy to them, and the Grand Prior knows House Greengood is my ally at present. I am quite certain I know where he intended to aim the muck of this little scandal.” Rosanna sighed and rubbed at her temple. “And you still don’t know where this apprentice is?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “He’s still out in the city somewhere, and I’ll figure what he knows if I can find him before the veils. So far, he’s the only one who was haunted by the Carmine Killer and can still tell us anything.”

Rosanna nodded, thoughtful. “Laessa is my guest, at present. Perhaps I can convince her to tell me where her paramour might be hiding.”

Then, her expression hardening, she met my eyes. “Now you will tell me why you left a trail of bodies across half the city.”

I kept my own gaze steady, refusing to show any contrition or doubt. It wouldn’t help me here. “The Priorguard moved to capture Laessa while I was tailing the apprentice. I'd call it ill luck, but he went into her room right as they arrived. I wasn’t going to let either one of them be captured. They would have scourged Kieran’s soul for reanimating as an unsanctioned undead, and tortured Laessa until she confessed to whatever they wanted her to say.”

“No doubt,” Rosanna agreed darkly, pressing her hands to the table. She winced, straightened, and half turned from me, pressing a hand to her belly. Her layered garments didn’t quite hide the growing signs of her third royal child.

“Are you alright?” I asked, concerned. I didn’t have much experience with children.

“Just some discomfort,” she said, her brow furrowed. “It’s not my first time enduring it.” She took a deep breath and readopted her austere pose. “So you fought the priorguard through the streets, trying to secure our two witnesses. What exactly happened after, with this… Monster? There are wild tales all throughout the city. Even the palace is abuzz with them. I need a firsthand account from someone who was there.”

“A storm ogre,” I said. “I think. I’d never seen one so close. I believe it was from the continent — I can’t tell you how I know.” I shrugged. “Intuition. It didn’t smell like Urn.”

Rosanna pressed her forefinger to her lips. “I asked one of the palace clericons about it, and she insisted no great spirit from Edaea could come over our shores. The Heir’s blessings protect us.”

“That,” I agreed, “and the Choir. There are Onsolain guarding the skies and mountains. It shouldn’t be possible.”

“And yet…” Rosanna trailed off, her gaze drifting back to mine.

“And yet,” I agreed. I hesitated then, and almost told her — about the Riven Order, about the potentially dire consequences of her husband breaking it.

For centuries, the Riven Order had protected Urn from certain dark elements in the wider world. In particular, it kept the infernal missionaries known as the Crowfriars, the monks of the Iron Hell, from entering the subcontinent and poaching souls with their contracts and devil’s bargains.

However, then the newly risen Emperor of the Accorded Realms had declared open trade between the Accord and the city-states of Edaea, and the great guilds which ruled them. Markham Forger was the first to hold the title of emperor in our corner of the world for the better part of half a millennium. As far as supernatural powers were concerned, he was the leader of all mankind in the subcontinent, and that placed him in a position with few precedents.

With the backing of the Empress and other monarchs, he had broken the ancient pact keeping the Crowfriars and their dark masters out of the God-Queen’s realm. He hadn’t done it intentionally, and he’d done it for good reasons, but it still had consequences. Were we just starting to see more dramatic effects of that change? Were other protections, such as those of the Choir, now rendered null?

A terrifying thought. Urn was, in many ways, an island surrounded by a tumultuous and hostile ocean. Inwardly, I shuddered at the thought of all those predatory waters crashing in on us.

“Alken?”

Rosanna had said something, and I’d been so lost in my own thoughts I’d missed it. “Sorry,” I mumbled, rubbing at my eyes. “What was that?”

Rosanna shook her head. “Just making sure you’re listening. So you believe this creature was unrelated to your battle with the Priory?”

I nodded. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the opposite.” I shrugged.

“The whole city is in a stir,” the Empress said grimly. “The nobility is in a clamor, calling for heightened guard and more auguries to determine if the threat persists. There’s even talk of this being a declaration of war, though everyone seems to have their own opinion about who from… The Fall is still very fresh for many. There’s talk that the war never truly ended, only put on hold.”

I folded my arms, chewing on that. “You mean Talsyn.”

Rosanna nodded. “Some of the rumor-mongering insists Hasur Vyke is behind this. You are certain the creature was from the continent?”

I closed my eyes. “Less certain now. But I might have a way to find out.”

I could practically feel Rosanna’s glare when I lapsed into silence rather than explaining. I was very used to being alone with my own thoughts. “The Choir has been silent a long time,” I said. “They…” I hesitated, knowing this to be a troubled topic. “I’m used to hearing from them on occasion, for my duties.”

Rosanna’s face went distant. “I see. You believe they may know something?”

I nodded. “I’ve been thinking about trying to commune with them, for other reasons too. Might be time to do that.” Another thought came to me then. “Do you think last night is going to cause more trouble with the Priory?”

Rosanna shook her head, looking strangely unconcerned. “The Grand Prior and his dog Oraise are going to have a very difficult time explaining why House Greengood found the bodies of Inquisition agents in their estate, all armed with implements of capture and torture. The Greengoods are a respected family in Reynwell, and they will make a fuss, with all the nobility behind them this time.”

Rosanna’s lips curled very slightly, and she continued in a satisfied tone. “I think the Grand Prior is going to be very cautious from now on. I wouldn’t expect any bold moves from him for a while, at least until he finds some angle to place himself back in favor.”

I nodded. At least some good had come from all this. “I’m going to check on Emma,” I said. “After that…” I sighed. “On to the next lead.”

“Keep me informed,” the Empress said, moving to her desk and sitting. “The summit begins in eight days. I would very much like some good news before then.”

Eight days. No pressure or anything.

***

I took the time to wash and put on clean clothes, then went to find my apprentice.

The Empress’s bastion was enormous, a labyrinth of corridors, chambers, and halls of varying purpose spanning more than a dozen levels. Even as only a single section of the mighty fortress-palace known as the Fulgurkeep, it could be difficult to navigate unless you knew your way around, which I did not.

Emma and I had been given quarters in a less frequented section of the castle, where our activities were less likely to be noticed by the servants and courtiers bustling about the halls. Old and less-often cleaned, the long hallways were often dusty and marked by the occasional cobweb. Despite the monthly efforts by royal clericons to keep the palace sanctified, ghosts flitted from shadow to shadow, disturbed by my passing.

I stopped at an innocuous door, knocked, waited a beat, then entered. I stepped into a humbly furnished room lit by alchemical lanterns, so popular in the north since the new trade had started to import them. They could burn for days, produced no odor or smoke, and came in a variety of colors. The one in the room was a soft yellow-white.

Emma lay on the room’s only bed, dressed in a woman’s night shift not unlike what the Lady Laessa had worn the night before, long legs crossed. She had a book propped on her stomach, looking up from its pages as I shut the door.

Her injuries hadn’t been nearly as bad as I’d feared, though the old cleric Rosanna had loaned to us had told me she might have a concussion, and should stay in bed for at least a week until he was certain. Other than that, she’d been badly scratched and bruised when the coach had fallen. It had been a miracle she hadn’t broken anything other than her pride.

“So?” Emma asked, raising a dark eyebrow. “Was she very wroth?”

“I think she’s just tired,” I said, leaning against the wall by the door and folding my arms. “Rose has a lot on her plate, between this feud with the Grand Prior, the summit, and now monsters literally falling out of the sky.”

Not to mention that she was the leader of a small, war-weary realm before she became Empress, that no one in this city trusts or likes her much, and she’s stuck here managing all these squabbling realms rather than the country she risked her life to win back. And she’s the mother of two, soon to be three.

I had no doubt that Rose was very tired. I felt a pang of sympathy, and worry, for the woman who’d once been my queen.

Emma studied me quietly for a moment before saying, "You should rest too. When did you last sleep?"

Too long. "No time, and I can go longer than most without it."

Absently, I ran a thumb along my right forefinger.

“Things are getting complicated,” I said, before she could press the issue. “More complicated. That boy we saved last night has vanished off somewhere, and his lady love is being tight lipped about where he might have gone. We’re no closer to finding Yith than we were when we came to this city. There’s a summit and tournament starting soon, and now Rose wants me looking into this matter with last night's monster.”

“Fun, fun.” Emma adjusted the curling locks of her shortly clipped hair, blowing out a weary breath.

I sighed, letting my head fall back against the cold stone of the wall. “How are you feeling?”

Emma considered the question a moment. “Like I fell off a coach moving at speed during a thunderstorm.” Her expression turned doubtful. “You’re going to use last night as an excuse to keep me out of danger, aren’t you?”

I studied her for a prolonged moment, saying nothing.

“Go ahead,” Emma said, suddenly bitter. She shut her book with an audible snap. “I failed last night. I made a fool of myself. Better for me to stay where it’s safe.”

She spat the last word, avoiding my gaze.

My eyes wandered the room. I saw her shirt of dwarven chainmail laid over the back of a chair. She’d been cleaning it, defying the healer’s order to stay in bed. Her beautiful Carreon saber, the crimson ruby atop its basket hilt glinting like dim fire, had been propped by her bedside.

“In battle," I said, "you can’t ever predict how things will go. There’s too much happening. Everyone’s trying to survive, to kill the enemy. Everyone is pouring their all into getting out alive, and making certain you don’t. Then there are factors like weather, sorcery, terrain…”

I counted off each item on my fingers, never taking my eyes off hers. I saw a frown touch the corners of the young woman’s mouth.

“I’ve been fighting almost regularly for more than twenty years now,” I told her. “Just a year ago, a novice adept and an old doctor got the jump on me, bound me to a tree, and drugged me. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, how skilled. War isn’t pretty, or fair. Master swordsmen get killed by raw recruits who got lucky all the time.”

I pushed off the wall and moved to Emma’s bedside. I waited, making certain she had time to absorb my words. “No time for sulking,” I told her. “I need you, Em.”

Emma tilted her head up to look at me, opened her mouth to speak, then sniffed and averted her gaze. “Very well then,” she muttered, hiding her surprise. “Then what’s next?”

A good question. I had so many fires to put out, and leads to track down. Atop it all, I needed to avoid attention. If anyone found out who I was, and that Rosanna had been sheltering me, it would come back on her.

“We need to find Kieran before the priorguard do,” I said. “This business with the storm spirit can wait. Time to go talk to the Lady Laessa.”

***

Laessa Greengood had been given a much nicer set of rooms than Emma and I. She had a chamber to herself in the upper parts of the bastion, not far from the Empress’s own private rooms, along with servants to tend to her needs. It had a window and everything.

Even still, there were guards at the door and was kept locked. Rosanna was taking no chances.

The guards nodded to me and let me through as I approached. I’d learned over the past several weeks that most of Rosanna’s staff had been brought with her from Karles. I even recognized some of the older guards from my time as First Sword, and they recognized me. I didn’t fear exposure from them — I’d fought with all of them, and they were loyal to the Empress, not the Emperor or any other interest in the city.

“Lord Hewer,” the older of the two guards muttered to me as he unlocked the door.

That gave me quiet pause. Was I still a lord? Rosanna had elevated me to the nobility in Karledale when she’d knighted me, granting me a House Name. I’d never held land, or started a family to carry on that moniker, but officially I had been a lord of Urn.

Did my excommunication change that? When the clerics had stripped me from the land’s canon, had it also killed the name Hewer in all formal sense?

I couldn’t be sure, and I had more important problems, so I just nodded to the guard and stepped inside the room.

The Lady Laessa looked very different than she had the previous night. For one thing, she was no longer rain-soaked and no longer dressed only in a night shift. She wore a rich dress of cream yellow and green now, and her hair formed a mane of shiny black curls around her ebony face.

When she saw me, her dark eyes flashed with anger. The guards closed the door behind me. I’d left Emma to prepare for whatever came next, and get enough rest to be able for it.

“You,” Laessa said flatly.

“Me,” I agreed, stepping out of the way of the door. Though it was locked anyway and blocking it didn’t matter, I wanted to send the right message — she wasn’t in danger from me.

“I have some questions,” I said.

“I don’t know where Kieran is,” the noblewoman said, turning back to the window. She’d been standing in front of it before I’d entered, I guessed. It gave us a view over the great bridge connecting the Fulgurkeep to the rest of the coastal islands upon which the city had been built.

I swallowed my frustration and kept my voice calm. “I don’t mean the boy any harm. I just want to find him before the Priory does.”

“I don’t even know who you are,” Laessa said, without turning to face me. “You walked into my life in the middle of the night, and now everything is…”

She bit off the rest of her words. I saw her shoulders tense, and suspected she’d balled the fists she had folded in front of her.

“I don’t know where he is,” she repeated, less heat in the words now. “I don’t even know what he is anymore.”

“He’s in a great deal of danger,” I told her. “Kieran has gotten himself caught in a very bad situation, milady. It’s not just about the Inquisition. He’s undead, and a darker force has touched him. He could end up unhallowed. Do you understand what that is?”

“Do not talk down to me,” the girl snapped, half turning to glare. “I am the eldest daughter of House Greengood’s main branch. I will rule it one day, and you…”

Her lip trembled. “I saw what you did last night, to all those people. You are a killer.”

I didn’t say anything. Why deny it? She was right.

Laessa Greengood took a moment to master herself, then spoke in the precise, authoritative voice trained into her by a highborn upbringing. “I know you serve Rosanna Silvering. I understand you saved my life last night, and that I would have received far less gentle accommodations from the Inquisition had they gotten there first. I am no fool.”

She turned fully then, facing me while framed in the daylight shining through the narrow window at her back. “Regardless of what happens to me, I have every reason to believe you represent a danger to Kieran. I know that he’s… Changed. Damaged.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “You said it yourself last night. Any right minded person would destroy him. How do I know you will not do the same, once you’ve found him and he’s told you what you want to know?”

I opened my mouth, probably to speak some heated words, to tell her she was being a fool. I stopped myself, and considered what I was actually looking at.

All her hostility and noble airs aside, Laessa was very young. Emma’s age, I thought, probably no older than eighteen. She had just experienced a very sharp, very cruel night. Her life had been threatened in her own home, and she was now away from her family, all but a prisoner in the sanctuary of one of Urn’s most powerful personages. She didn’t know what would happen to her, and she had to be very, very scared.

And she was in love. I knew well enough what that felt like, and how blinding it could be. So I calmed myself, and then spoke.

“I’m interested in Kieran for my own reasons,” I said, choosing honesty. “But I also have more than a little experience with what he’s dealing with. Do you know what an Abgrûdai is, my lady?”

Laessa frowned. “I… The word sounds familiar, but…”

“It’s a fancy way of saying demon,” I said. “A spirit of the Abyss.”

Laessa’s dark skin turned ashen.

“Kieran was haunted by one before he died,” I said. “I believe it’s what killed him, or drove him to kill himself.”

The girl paced to one corner of the room, folding her arms as though cold. “…I see,” she said, her voice hushed. “He was acting very strange the last several weeks.”

“Strange how?” I asked patiently.

“He didn’t sleep well,” Laessa said, not meeting my gaze. “He had night terrors, and acted manic… He showed me some of his newest paintings. I always loved his paintings. He was a strange boy, and put odd things to canvas, but those last pieces…”

She shivered. “They scared me. It was like the things in them could see me.”

I nodded. “He’s not the only one who’s fallen victim to this thing. I’m trying to find it, and stop it, and I believe Kieran can help me. I can’t do anything if I don’t know where he is, or help him.”

I stepped closer then. Laessa backed away from me, distrustful, but I showed her my palms.

“Death isn’t the end of it,” I told her. “He’s a dyghoul now, my lady. The longer he stays that way, the more attached he’ll get to his own corpse. It’s not a pretty thing, and there’s a chance this monster’s influence on him could make things even worse. He’s suffering.”

Laessa chewed on her lip, hesitant. Then, in a voice far meeker than she’d used before she said, “But he’s still him, right? We can… Help him. Fix him. There’s magic. My family is very wealthy, we could have a cleric raise him properly, or—”

“The Church only raises the dead to seek their council,” I said, cutting her off. “They never bring them fully back. Dead is dead. What you’re talking about is necromancy, and it’s heresy.”

I saw the anger return to Laessa’s face, the stubborn defiance. I spoke quickly, before she could work herself up again.

“You saw him. You saw how damaged he is. Do you really want him to stay like that? That isn’t love, Laessa.”

The girl blinked, and tears began to fall. She didn’t scream, or wail, or anything dramatic. She just bowed her head.

“It’s not fair,” she sobbed.

It wasn’t. “If you want to help him,” I said softly, “then help me. Tell me where he might have gone.”

She looked up then, meeting my eyes. Her own, dark as onyx, widened suddenly as though she’d only just then gotten a proper look at me.

“Your eyes,” she whispered. “They’re… Shining.”

I hid my frown. My eyes always had a soft glint to them, as though lit by a dim flame from within. They’d been that way ever since I’d sworn my oaths to the Alder Table, and had its magic fused with my own soul. I knew that sometimes, when I used my abilities, that light would grow more intense.

I hadn’t intended to use any aura in trying to convince the young noblewoman. I had the same preternatural charisma many elves and some members of the high nobility did, but I didn’t like using it unless in great need. It felt wrong to override people’s will that way.

Had I used aura? Or had something else happened?

“Who are you?” Laessa asked, breathless.

I wondered if I should tell her the truth. Would it convince her to answer honestly?

“I’m someone who can help the man you love,” I said. That was honest enough.

Laessa squeezed her eyes shut, and another loose tear fell. She turned, sniffed, then wiped at her face with the back of one hand.

“Promise me you will help him,” she said without turning back. “Swear it. I don’t care what a priest might say. He is not a monster. I spoke to him last night. He’s still him, and he deserves to be saved.”

I clenched my jaw in frustration. Had she been listening? Some people couldn’t be saved.

Does that include you? A quiet little voice in the back of my mind whispered. Does that include Emma? Or Donnelly, or Ser Maxim?

Taking a breath I said, “I will do everything in my power to help him. I won’t let the demon take him, or the Inquisition.”

A foolish oath. I felt it tie a knot in me. If I failed to uphold it, it would tarnish the light in me even further. My powers were already diminished enough.

Always making the same mistakes.

Several minutes passed before Laessa spoke again. When she did, she’d grown calm as winter.

“We met in a graveyard. One of the maids I’d been close to as a child had been buried there by her family, and I was leaving flowers. Kieran was looking for…” She let out a quiet sound, not quite a laugh. “Inspiration, I suppose. It’s a quiet place, secluded. We met there often.”

I nodded, though she still had her back to me. “Thank you.” I turned to go.

“What is your name?” Laessa asked as I put my hand on the door latch.

“It’s Alken.”

Then I left her to her grief.