"Some truths are buried.Some are burned.The worst ones are worshipped."
I. Veldrath — City of the Forgotten
No map could guide you to Veldrath.
It didn't exist above ground. It wasn't found on the royal charts, nor mentioned in any tribunal records. It was a whispered city, built from the bones of the old empire, stacked beneath the capital like a tumor made of ash, memory, and blood.
Eira led them through a broken aqueduct, past glyph-sealed tunnels that hadn't seen sunlight in centuries. Cael's breath caught when the first glimpse of Veldrath bloomed into view: a sprawling undercity pulsing with red lanterns and street magic, its sky an arch of black stone shot through with aether veins. Rooftop shrines hung upside-down. Spell-peddlers floated from stall to stall on discs of darklight. Everything reeked of secrecy and sin.
"Welcome to the gutter," Eira muttered. "Capital's most loyal weapon dump."
"Charming," Cael said, adjusting his illusion glyph. He now wore the face of a blond-haired merchant apprentice. Eira's features were blurred with distortion runes, giving her the appearance of a scarred bounty hunter from the northern tribes.
They didn't come to play nice.
They came to find the Black Vow.
II. Masks, Knives, and Market Blood
The Veldrath Night Market was a madness spiral.
Sellers hawked stolen magic relics, powdered demon marrow, soulglass rings, and cursed heirlooms from long-dead houses. One man sold dragon teeth by the pouch. Another sold "memories" bottled in obsidian flasks.
Cael passed a stall where a veiled child offered him a vial labeled "Guilt (Distilled)." He declined.
"What now?" he asked Eira.
"We follow the birds," she said cryptically.
Cael gave her a look, until she pointed to the rooftops.
There — perched like sentinels — were black crows with glowing red eyes. Not real birds. Familiars. And they only followed members of the Black Vow.
So they followed the watchers.
Across alleys, under bone bridges, past glyph-marked taverns. Deeper and deeper into the shadowcore of the city. Until they found the Doorless Hall.
It looked like a dead wall. Until Cael stepped forward.
The wall blinked.
No, not blinked — breathed.
A rippling shimmer passed across its surface, and a vertical slit appeared.
A voice whispered from the air:
"Blood. Truth. Silence. Offer one."
Cael didn't hesitate.
He bit into his thumb, smeared the blood on a silver coin, and pressed it to the wall.
The door opened.
III. The Vow
Inside, the Hall was a long corridor lit by a thousand floating candles — each one hovering above a symbol: a crown, a knife, an eye, a chained book, a black sun.
The deeper they walked, the colder it became. Until they entered the central chamber.
That's when Cael saw them.
The Black Vow.
Ten figures stood in a circle, each masked. No faces. No names. No words.
In the center: a pool of silver ink, pulsing like a heartbeat.
One of the masked Vow members stepped forward. Her mask was porcelain, cracked, with a black sun carved where the forehead should be.
"Scion Twelve," she said, nodding at Eira. "Returned, and not alone."
"I brought a ghost," Eira said. "You'll want to hear him out."
Cael stepped forward.
Removed his illusion glyph.
And for the first time in years — showed his true face.
"I am Caelum Ardent," he said. "The First Son of House Velren. Marked for death. Purged. Reborn."
Silence.
Then one of the masked Vow hissed, "Impossible."
"No," said another. "Necessary."
"You escaped the Tribunal's hand?" the porcelain mask asked.
"I died," Cael replied. "And now I'm back to break them."
A pause.
Then the Vow bowed — every one of them, slow and solemn.
Not to Cael.
To the revenant.
IV. Sarre
"You shouldn't have come."
The voice was ice.
Cael turned — and there she was.
Sarre.
Pale as ever, her hair now streaked with silver-black. Her eyes colder than before. Taller. Stronger. And wearing a half-mask made of molten bone.
"You're alive," Cael breathed.
She didn't smile.
"I was better off dead."
He stepped forward. "You joined the Vow?"
"I am the Vow."
That hit harder than he expected.
"They brainwashed you?"
"No," she said softly. "They listened to me when no one else did."
Cael felt a pang in his chest. The Tribunal had written her off as dangerous. The Academy had locked her away. Even he — back then — had been afraid of her magic.
But now? She was walking power.
"You came to bring me back?" she asked.
"No. I came to join you."
V. Trial of Knives
Nothing in the Vow came free.
If Cael wanted allegiance — he had to earn it. Not with words. With survival.
The Trial of Knives was ancient. Seven blades. Seven choices. One truth.
He was led to a room of floating weapons. Each one glowed faintly with its own aura.
"Choose a blade," Sarre said. "But only one leads forward. The others… will devour you."
Cael closed his eyes.
Felt the room.
The first blade pulsed with wrath. No. The second hummed with lies. No.
The fourth was silent.
But the fifth…
It whispered his name.
He grabbed it.
Pain exploded through his mind. Memories. Blood. Death. His first death.
Then clarity.
When he opened his eyes, the blade had fused to his wrist, etched like a tattoo. A soul-weapon. Living steel.
Sarre exhaled.
"You're not weak anymore," she said.
Cael smiled — a real one, bitter and sharp.
"I was never weak," he replied. "Just… sleeping."
VI. The Royal Spy
They were followed.
A glyph burst overhead the moment Cael left the Trial chamber. An assassin in Tribunal black — masked, armed, and glowing with suppression runes — leapt from the ceiling, aiming a poisoned spear at Cael's spine.
Eira moved first. Her blade met the spear mid-air. Sparks flew.
Sarre launched a glyph of rot — the air around the spy dissolved into acid mist.
But the spy was good.
Dodging. Countering. Moving like someone trained by the Royal Hand.
Then Cael activated his new blade.
One word. One strike.
The spy dropped — blade through the chest.
Before dying, he whispered:
"Velren awakens. The King already knows."
Then his body disintegrated into ash.
No blood. No trace. Just the mark left behind.
The Royal Seal.
VII. Plans Within Plans
Back in the Vow's chamber, Cael stood over a map of the capital — glyphs marking locations.
"The Tribunal has sleeper agents in the Academy," Sarre said. "And in the Noble Quarter."
Eira added, "They're planning a second purge. Quiet this time."
"Then we beat them to it," Cael said.
He pointed at the Royal Vault.
"That's where they keep the Scion Suppressor Stones. If we take them, we break their leash."
"And the Crown?" Sarre asked.
"We go through Derian first. Cut off the head of the Academy snake. Then we climb the rest of the ladder."
The room pulsed with tension.
Then agreement.
The Black Vow would rise.
Not as terrorists.
But as scars that refused to heal.
Echoes
Cael sat alone after the meeting, staring at the soul-blade on his wrist.
It pulsed with quiet rage.
He felt the weight of what he was building — not a rebellion.
A reckoning.
Eira sat beside him. No words. Just the presence of someone who had also burned and survived.
Sarre stood at the doorway, arms crossed.
"You think we'll win?" she asked softly.
Cael didn't look at her.
"I'm not here to win," he said.
"I'm here to make them remember."