The Oath Breaker

Chapter Three

Sera

The provisional council met in the old throne room, which Nessa had redecorated by removing the throne and replacing it with a round table. "No head of the table," she'd told me once, "means no head to cut off."

She sat at it anyway like a queen, hair pinned in a severe knot, a stack of ledgers at her elbow like weaponry. She looked at Dorian and me over the rim of her tea and said, "You're late."

"We're farmers now," I said, taking my seat. "We operate on sun time."

"You're landowners with one cottage and a goat. Don't be precious." She banged the table. "Order. We have a theft to discuss. Two thefts."

Councilor Harth of Eastmarch stood — a man with the permanent expression of someone smelling something unpleasant. "Six months ago, this council divided the shards of Aldren's crown among the provinces — six to ours, the seventh to Veyne by treaty. Tokens of peace. A symbol that no one hand would ever hold that power again."

"Very poetic," Nessa said. "Get to the theft."

"The Eastmarch shard was taken three weeks ago. The vault was opened without force. The guards remember nothing." Harth's gaze slid to Dorian. "The Saltmere shard was taken nine days ago. Same circumstances."

A murmur ran around the table. I felt Dorian go still beside me.

"Who knew the vaults' locations?" Nessa asked.

"Each province's keeper. Members of this council." Harth folded his arms. "And anyone who once wore the crown's shadow."

"Say what you mean, Harth."

"I mean the power didn't scatter when the crown broke." He looked directly at Dorian now. "I mean oathblooms are spreading — Pippa Allard's hand, a withered arm in Saltmere, a bargeman on the Graywater who can't stop rowing — and every one of them tastes of the same magic. His magic."

The room went very quiet. I reached under the table and found Dorian's hand. His fingers were cold.

"Councilor," Dorian said evenly, "if I were stealing shards to rebuild my father's crown, do you think I'd do it badly enough to leave witnesses rowing?"

A few councilors hid smiles. Harth did not. "The question isn't your intent. It's your nature. You are the vessel now — everyone in this room knows what happened in the chapel. The wild magic is leaking out of you, boy, and someone is collecting the pieces. The only question is whether you're the victim or the accomplice."

"Enough." Nessa's voice cut like a blade. "Dorian Vale surrendered a throne. He has spent a year chopping wood in Bellhaven. If you want to accuse him of something, do it with evidence or don't do it at all."

It was Tomas who saved us — Tomas, who slipped in through the side door with an armful of scrolls and the apologetic air of a boy who has run the length of the palace. He wasn't a boy anymore, quite. Seventeen, ink on his cuffs, the archive's youngest keeper.

"Forgive me," he panted. "The forging records. You need to see — the crown wasn't just metal. It was made from oaths. The seven houses each swore a founding vow into the first forging, and the crown wove them together." He unrolled a scroll with shaking hands. "To reforge it, you'd need all seven shards — and a living vessel already attuned to oath magic. Someone the wild magic answers to."

Every eye in the room found Dorian.

He met them all, chin up. "Then we'd better find the shards first."

Nessa adjourned the session before Harth could propose anything with the word vault in it. In the corridor afterward, she caught my sleeve.

"Two shards gone," she murmured. "Oathblooms in both provinces within days of each theft. Whoever's doing this is testing — seeing how the shards resonate with the magic in him." She glanced at Dorian, who was pretending not to listen. "Sera. If the vote comes — and Harth is gathering votes — I can only hold them off so long."

"Then we find the thief before the vote."

She squeezed my arm once, hard. "Be quick."

That night, Tomas spread his records across our guest-chamber floor — the forging rites, the shard division, the oathbloom reports. I stared at the map until the marks blurred: Eastmarch, Saltmere. Two thefts. A dozen blooms.

"Tomas," I said slowly, "the blooms. Are they random?"

He frowned at his notes. "No. They're... they're moving. Each new bloom is closer to Bellhaven than the last."

Dorian looked up from the hearth, and the firelight caught the fear in his face before he could hide it.

"They're not testing the shards," he said quietly. "They're triangulating. On me."