What happened after that night is told in a hundred different ways. Some say the Elder was overthrown and Ashmoor freed. Others claim Kaelen vanished into the wilds, leaving the people to shape their own fate.
But every tale agrees on one thing: the Outcast's Oath lived on.
It was whispered in chains and shouted on battlefields. It was carved into stones by nameless hands and sung by rebels before the gallows. It became not a curse, but a crown—not of gold, but of freedom.
And somewhere, in the borderlands where the brambles grow thick, travelers still find the mark of a dagger etched into old wood, with the words beneath:
To live free, though the world call us cursed