The snow had not stopped since the battle.
It drifted across the damaged palisade, covering the remains of the battle in white.
Kael walked along the wall like a ghost, boots sinking into the white ground with a crunch. Villagers moved, carrying torches and working through the night. A child sobbed, calling for a brother who would not answer.
Kael's chest tightened. The sound cut deeper than claws.
The aftermath had always been worse than the fighting. The snow carried it too well; every cry seemed swallowed, every breath too loud. It was the same silence he remembered from years ago, after another storm, after another ruin.
He stopped, gloved hand resting on a damaged wall. His breath curled white into the night. And for a moment, the world blurred.
The snow had fallen the same way that night. Heavy. Persistent.
He remembered the smoke, the smell of burned wood. The smell still hung in the air, unnatural and sharp, remnants of mana. He had been younger—too young to bear what the world demanded. His hands were smaller then, scratched from clawing through the wreckage.
"Kael—"
Her voice. Elira's. Faint, trembling.
He saw her beneath the collapsed roof of their home, her leg pinned under the scorched beam. Her hair was matted with blood, but her eyes—gods, her eyes still held him.
He had dropped to his knees, trying to push the scorched beam off her. "Hold on, Elira, I'll get you out, I swear it."
But the beam hadn't moved. His arms had burned, lungs rasping smoke. He'd screamed until his throat tore.
And she had smiled at him through it all. A weak, fleeting smile.
"You're shaking," she'd whispered. "Don't… don't cry, Kael."
"I'm not crying," he had lied.
When the light from her eyes dimmed, he kept holding her hand. He held it until it went cold.
Kael blinked, the present rushing back like ice-water down his spine. His breath came ragged. Cyan sparks flickered uncontrolled around his fingers, hissing in the snow. Villagers nearby glanced uneasily at him, muttering, giving him space.
He didn't blame them. He would've stepped back, too.
The snow beneath his feet began to freeze; the section of the wall his hand was on froze.
He muttered, hoarse, bitter:
"I swore to protect her. That was my first vow. And I broke it."
Kael's fists clenched, cyan sparks crackling erratically around his fingers. The wall beneath him shivered under the magic, frost spreading like ink. His chest heaved, rage and grief colliding in a way that made his bones ache.
He didn't care about the villagers or anyone else. Not tonight. Not while the memory of Elira's face burned behind his eyes.
Without a second thought, he leapt from a crack in the palisade, boots crunching over snow and debris. The village receded behind him, torches flickering like dying stars, as he charged toward the edge of the forest.
The trees loomed, dark and jagged against the falling snow, and the smell of pine mixed with the stench lingering from the shadowfangs. He swallowed it like a bitter draught, letting it fuel him.
He ran, cursing under his breath—at the mages who had killed her, at himself for being too small and weak back then, at the world that demanded so much from those unprepared to bear it. Cyan sparks licked from his fingertips, leaving frozen patches on the trunks he passed.
Branches snapped under his boots, snow spraying into the night as he moved between the trees. His anger was a blade, carving out space for his grief, letting him feel something other than the heavy weight pressing at his chest.
The deeper he went, the quieter the world became. Only his ragged breathing, the crunch of snow, and the faint hissing of magic punctuated the night. And in that cold, still space, memories of that long-ago storm surged again—the smoke, the burned wood, the smell, Elira's hand slipping from his.
He skidded to a halt beside a tree, fists pounding the trunk, cyan sparks exploding outward in a jagged arc. "Damn you!" he shouted to the darkness, voice echoing in the silent forest.
The words choked him. The memory crashed over him, unrelenting, and for the first time, the grief and anger were no longer separate. They were one.
Kael sank to his knees in the snow, cyan sparks flaring erratically from his hands. The cold bit at his cheeks, but he barely noticed.
His voice broke the quiet, hoarse, bitter:
"I swore to protect her.... my first vow. And I broke it."
The thought burned hotter than any flame, searing through the haze of grief and rage that enveloped him.
His mana pulsed violently, snarling like a wounded beast. His knees buckled. He pressed his hands in the frozen snow, breath shaking. The Oath seared in his chest, not weakening but pressing harder, demanding something he had not yet given.
Honesty.
He had sworn to walk his path with unyielding honesty. And yet, for years, he had lived a lie, binding it tight around his heart.
For years, he had bound himself to a lie, wrapping it around his chest so tightly that every heartbeat ached. The memory pressed against him now—her small hand, slipping from his—and the magic in his fingers shuddered in response, cyan sparks jittering like frightened birds. Each pulse of energy seemed to whisper the accusation he had carried alone: it was his fault.
His oath had been broken before it began—not in the moment it was sworn, but long before, in the day he failed her. Years of guilt had built walls around his heart. The honesty he had promised himself a year ago now pressed against those walls, demanding what he had long avoided: the truth.
Something shifted in the shadows. Just at the edge of his vision, movement flickered—a rustle, a pair of glinting eyes catching the moonlight. Kael didn't turn. His chest still ached from memory, from grief, from the weight of the honesty pressing in on him.
Not now, he thought.
He pressed his hands harder into the snow, ice climbing up his wrists as if to bind him.
"It was my fault…" The words cut his throat raw. Sparks spat from his fingertips, as though the Oath itself rejected the lie.
But the truth pressed harder, merciless, searing. He had been twelve. A boy with no power, no magic, no strength to lift a burning beam. He couldn't save her.
For years, he had worn the guilt like armor, because punishing himself was easier than living with powerlessness. Because if it was his fault, at least it meant there was someone to punish.
His chest heaved, vision blurring as tears slid hot down his cheeks, only for the cold to claim them mid-fall. They hardened into crystals before they touched the earth, striking the frozen snow, shattering like fragile glass.
"I lied to myself…" His voice broke.
Something moved. A shadow broke loose from the treeline, padding low, its eyes glowing faintly in the dark. Kael didn't even raise his head.
The air around him snapped cold, and before the creature's snarl could tear through the silence, two jagged spears of ice erupted from the ground. They drove clean through its skull and chest, pinning the beast mid-lunge. It gave a strangled, wet sound before going limp, frozen blood spreading in black threads across the snow.
More rustling. From the opposite direction of the first beast.
Another set of eyes in the dark. A second shadowfang padded forward, lips peeled back to show black fangs, its growl low and hungry.
Kael's throat tightened. His fists clenched in the snow, the cold biting his skin even through his gloves. For a moment, the grief surged again, threatening to bury him the way the beam had buried Elira.
But this time, he did not turn away from it.
"It wasn't my fault," he whispered, the words tasting like blood in his mouth. He wanted to choke on them. He wanted to deny them. But he forced them out; each word came harder than the last.
The Oath surged in response, flaring like a heartbeat.
The shadowfang lunged.
Kael looked at it as it was running toward him. Anger blazed in his eyes.
What he did now was the hardest thing he had ever done. Letting go of the past, living through the memories he had buried, and the guilt he had carried for years.
He swiped his hand toward the beast, and with a flick of thought, a jagged spear of ice drove through its chest. It thrashed, but it was still alive.
He watched it helplessly struggle, bleed, and a flicker of satisfaction ignited within him.
The Oath pulsed in his chest. Not like before, constricting, demanding, punishing. Now it hummed, patient.
He breathed through the ache, through the memory of Elira's hand slipping from his. And for the first time, he said it not as a confession, not as an excuse, but as a statement, "I was powerless, but I am not powerless now."
Cyan sparks leapt along his arms, no longer erratic, no longer wild. They danced with purpose, casting light into the dark forest. The ground beneath him trembled, responding not to rage but to the resolution that now anchored his heart.
He felt it then, the Oath was complete.
Kael sank to one knee, fists pressing the snow, letting the pulse of the completed Oath run through him. It was not just power. It was liberation. Every heartbeat, every spark of mana, every icy breath of the night acknowledged it: he had finally honored what he had promised.
Kael's chest heaved, the pulse of the Oath thrumming through him like a living thing.
And then… clarity.