A Shattered Oath
1063 Words
The scent of fire was wrong.
Elira sat bolt upright in bed, her lungs seizing. This was no temple smoke, no ceremonial incense. This was burning wood—flesh, even. Her heart slammed in her chest as a faint, acrid haze drifted in from the corridor. A scream split the air.
And then, a second later, the bells began to ring.
She flung off the covers and reached instinctively for the dagger beneath her pillow. The embersteel blade was warm to the touch—a sign the palace wards had been breached. Magic twisted unnaturally in the air, like bent steel straining to snap.
“Kael!” she shouted, rushing toward the common chamber. “Kael, wake up!”
He was already there—half-dressed, sword in hand, frost blooming across the tile floor around his bare feet.
“Where are the guards?” he asked grimly.
“Dead or worse,” Elira said, glancing out the arched window. “Look.”
The capital city below burned.
Fires blazed across the mid-tier districts, and pillars of smoke clawed up into the night sky. The citadel’s inner wards flickered—the protective runes sputtering like candles in wind. Lightning struck unnaturally from a cloudless sky, tearing through palace towers in silent bursts of light.
Kael cursed under his breath. “It’s an attack. Coordinated. They got past the outer defenses—”
“No,” Elira cut in, voice cold. “This isn’t just them. This is divine.”
And then the palace shook.
---
The Hall of Ashes exploded inward as Elira and Kael entered, flanked by surviving guards. Rubble littered the once-pristine marble, and fire devoured the tapestries of royal lineage. Queen Syrenne’s sickbed had been moved to the chamber’s heart, and now healers scrambled to push it back as a section of ceiling crashed down.
High Priest Valen stood at the center, blood pouring from a gash on his temple, a sword in one hand, the Phoenix Tome in the other.
“They’re inside the palace!” he shouted. “Assassins—mages—something else with them! They killed Lord Drenik, and the council—”
“Elira!” a young acolyte screamed, rushing toward her.
He never reached her.
A shadowed blade burst from his chest.
The assassin stepped forward—a masked figure clad in gray, eyes glowing with unnatural green fire. His aura pulsed with magic, not of this realm.
“Elira Virellian,” the assassin said, voice like cracking bone. “The crown dies with you.”
Kael moved first.
He threw his frostblade like a spear, impaling the assassin’s leg. As the man dropped, Kael tackled him to the ground, plunging a dagger into his throat. The mask cracked, revealing not a man, but a creature—its skin charred, its eyes molten. It hissed, coughed black smoke, and died.
“What in the gods’ names was that?” Elira asked.
Kael stood, breathing hard. “Not mortal.”
---
They fought their way down the halls, palace defenders falling left and right. The attackers weren’t just soldiers. They were touched. Something ancient had twisted them.
And behind the battle, something larger stirred.
The ground buckled.
The air warped.
And then came the voice—not from the sky, but from inside every head.
“The Oath has broken.”
Elira staggered.
“Ignarion,” she whispered, eyes widening. “He’s awake.”
Kael dropped to one knee, clutching his head. “So is Orvaal.”
They had not heard the gods since their wedding. Now, the gods screamed.
A blast of wind tore through the palace gates. From it emerged a figure cloaked in shadow, flanked by two more masked creatures. His face bore the ash-paint of the forbidden Third Order.
“The age of vessels ends tonight,” he proclaimed. “The gods will die with their children.”
Valen shouted, “Neraxis!”
The name stung the air like acid.
The third god. Forbidden. Forgotten.
Betrayed.
---
Magic detonated in the throne room.
Elira unleashed a jet of fire, turning two attackers to ash. Kael spun into the fray beside her, blades dancing, frost shielding her flank. Together, they fought like a storm. Her fire shaped his ice; his walls focused her fury.
But it wasn’t enough.
They were pushed to the altar dais, backs to the flame crystal—still cracked from their union.
Valen screamed a final spell and threw himself into the enemy’s path, a wall of holy fire erupting between the invaders and the young sovereigns.
“Run!” he roared. “Go, both of you—live!”
A final explosion ripped the ceiling apart.
---
They emerged through the catacombs—bleeding, bruised, hearts pounding.
The capital was in ruin. The palace behind them glowed orange, the tower crumbling. And in the sky above it, a new rift had opened—an eye of shadow and light. It pulsed with god-energy so raw that birds fell from the sky.
Elira clutched Kael’s hand.
“We need to vanish.”
“To where?” he asked, coughing blood.
“To wherever fire can hide.”
---
That night, in the ruins of an old flame monastery deep in the Emberreach Wastes, they rested. Not from choice, but from collapse.
Kael built a fire with trembling hands. Elira watched him, silent. She was covered in blood, some of it hers.
“I think… my mother is dead,” she said finally.
Kael didn’t answer.
Elira stared into the fire.
“What if Valen was right? What if Neraxis has returned?”
Kael met her gaze. “Then we’re not just heirs anymore.”
“We’re weapons.”
He shook his head. “We’re targets.”
Elira turned toward the open window, where the smoke from their kingdom still rose in the distance.
“No,” she said. “We are survivors.”
Kael’s voice was low. “Survivors don’t win wars.”
Her eyes blazed. “Then let’s become something else.”
---
Far away, in a cold chamber beneath a blackened mountain, Archmage Varion bowed before a flickering, formless shadow.
“They live,” he said. “But they run.”
The voice of Neraxis curled around the room, dark and ancient.
“Let them run. Let them burn. In the end, even gods kneel.”
---
- Writer
