Ezra watched the rain carve rivulets down the outer walls of the Rhime estate, the sound a constant whisper behind the stone. The others had gone to sleep—or at least, retreated behind locked doors and whispered fears. But Ezra couldn't rest. He hadn't rested in years.
He stood at the edge of the watchtower, cloak heavy with mist, one hand resting on the hilt of the blade he hadn't drawn in days.
Not since the coin.
Not since the word.
REMEMBER.
He'd known what it meant the moment Aurelian said it aloud. Not just for Rhime. Not just for Vantrell. But for him.
The past didn't stay buried. Not when you swore to it. Not when blood was involved.
He turned slightly as footsteps echoed on the stone behind him.
Sera.
Of course.
"You should be sleeping," he said without looking.
"So should you," she replied. "But we both know that's not happening."
She stepped beside him, arms crossed, eyes scanning the rain-veiled hills that surrounded the estate. There was tension in her shoulders—wound tight, like the string of a bow pulled just short of breaking.
"You've been quiet," she said.
"I always am."
"Not like this."
Ezra didn't answer.
"You recognized the magic in that vow," she continued. "Not just in theory. You've seen it before."
He exhaled through his nose. The kind of breath you let go when holding it has begun to hurt.
"Yes."
"How?"
A pause.
"Because I made one."
Sera turned her head slowly. "What kind of vow?"
Ezra's fingers twitched at his side. Rain tapped gently against the steel of his shoulder guard.
"Not like Corvin's. Mine wasn't forged in war or blood." He hesitated. "At least, not at first."
Sera said nothing, waiting.
Ezra finally turned to face her, and for once, the calm mask he wore had cracked.
"It was twelve years ago. I was with the D'Arcos then, stationed near the southern range. Just another sword in a company of shadows. Nothing noble. Nothing honorable. Just blood for coin."
"I've heard stories," Sera said. "Of what they did."
"You've heard less than half. And that's too much."
His voice was low now, quieter than the rain.
"One night, our captain sent us into a village—said it was harboring rebels. We razed it before dawn. No resistance. No sign of any threat. Just families."
Sera's expression hardened.
Ezra didn't flinch from it.
"There was a girl. Nine, maybe ten. Hidden in a cellar with her brother. We found them too late. The rest of the company had moved on, and my orders were clear. No survivors."
"You didn't—"
"I did," Ezra said sharply. "The boy lunged at me. I reacted. Too slow to stop myself. Too fast to stop the blade. I killed him."
He looked away.
"The girl never screamed. She just stared. Then she took her brother's dagger and cut her palm. Pressed it to his wound. Said something in a tongue I didn't recognize."
Sera swallowed, quiet now.
"She looked at me and said, 'You're bound to him now. Until the debt is paid.'"
"A blood vow?"
"Older," Ezra said. "Something before the old tongues. Before the oaths had names."
"And what happened to the girl?"
"I let her go."
He didn't add how long he'd followed her afterward, or how many times he'd seen her shadow in the corners of his dreams.
Sera exhaled slowly. "So you've been carrying this all this time?"
"I tried to outrun it," he said. "Tried to bury it in Rhime's wars. In Aurelian's causes. But the thing about vows—real ones—is they don't care what you want. They wait."
"And now it's waiting again."
Ezra nodded. "The coin. The word. The grave. It's all connected. The Rhimes. The Vantrells. The Marovs. And me."
She stepped closer. "What are you going to do?"
"The only thing I can." His voice was steel now. "Finish what I started."
⸻
By morning, Ezra had gone.
Not far—his horse was still stabled, gear untouched. But his sword was gone from the rack. And a slip of parchment sat on Aurelian's desk.
No name. Just two lines.
"The oath is mine to answer. Keep them safe."
Aurelian crumpled the note in his fist, fury sparking beneath grief.
"He's chasing ghosts," he said.
"No," Sera replied. "He's hunting something he's known was coming for years."
They were in the old chapel now—long since fallen out of use, its stained-glass windows cracked by time and war. The air smelled of dust and moss and the wax of candles no one had lit in decades.
Aurelian paced, eyes haunted. "Why didn't he say anything before?"
"Would you have?" Sera asked. "Knowing what it meant?"
He didn't answer.
Yvaine entered then, not with grace but with the heavy weariness of someone who'd read too much, slept too little. Her hands were smudged with ink, her sleeves stained with dust.
"I found something," she said.
Aurelian and Sera both turned.
"After you told me about the blood-vow—about the girl—I checked the Vantrell records. Not the official ones. The priory ledgers."
Aurelian blinked. "The ones kept by the Black Clerics?"
"Yes. Before the Houses enforced royal seal governance, some oaths were witnessed in secret by priory scribes—vows not of alliance, but atonement. And I found one."
She held out a slip of parchment. Aurelian took it and read.
Sera glanced over his shoulder.
"Ezra of the Southlands. Witnessed by the Black Flame. Bound to one fallen in shadow. Debt to be answered in blood or truth."
"And dated?" Aurelian asked.
Yvaine nodded grimly. "Twelve years ago. Almost to the day."
Sera straightened. "Then his vow is coming due."
Aurelian looked up. "And someone wants it paid in full."
⸻
Ezra rode into the hills by dusk.
The rain had slowed to a mist now, soft and cold. He followed an old smuggler's trail, one only known to those who'd bled for coin or crossed lines for less. The trees closed around him like the bones of old giants, twisted and silent.
He stopped at the edge of a clearing, where the remains of an old Marov watchtower still stood—burned out, half-collapsed, and buried beneath moss and ivy. Only the serpent symbol remained, etched into stone blackened by fire.
Ezra dismounted.
The clearing was quiet.
Too quiet.
He drew his blade.
"I was wondering when you'd come," a voice said from the shadows.
A figure stepped into the faint light. A woman—tall, cloaked, face hidden behind a half-mask of bone. Her hair was white, not from age, but from ritual. Markings along her arms glowed faintly blue in the dimness.
Ezra didn't lower his sword.
"Who are you?"
"You knew me once," she said. "Though I was smaller. Quieter. Less cruel."
His breath caught.
"No."
"Yes," she whispered. "You took my brother."
Ezra's blade trembled slightly in his hand. "You survived."
"I endured," she said. "And while you drank and forgot and bled for princes, I listened to the stones. I learned what was buried. What the Houses tried to erase."
She stepped closer, and he could see her eyes now.
Marov eyes.
Fire and frost.
"You came for judgment," she said. "So be judged."
Ezra lowered his sword—not in surrender, but in understanding.
"I'm not here to beg," he said. "I'm here to end it."
She smiled, cold as steel. "Then draw blood, Oathkeeper."
The wind shifted.
Above them, the trees bent low, and the past came howling through the leaves.
⸻
To be continued in Chapter 7: Ashes of the Serpent
(Where the consequences of the vow unravel across the Houses—and the last Marov heir steps from the shadows.)