CHAPTER 4
1065 Words
Whispers in the Market
Morning in Elaris began with the scent of bread. By the time the first pale light touched the cobblestones, the bakery’s ovens were already breathing steam into the crisp air. The market woke in waves, fishmongers with baskets of river trout still glistening, farmers unloading barrels of apples and cabbages, the bright clatter of copper pots from the smith’s stall.
Liora moved through it all with her wicker basket on her arm, her shawl wrapped snug against the bite of early autumn. She wasn’t in the mood to linger; she had herbs to sort and tinctures to brew before noon, but the market had a way of catching people in its current form. A neighbor stopped her to ask about a remedy for aching joints; a boy darted past clutching a stolen pear; Mistress Caddra’s sharp voice rose over the crowd, arguing about the price of honey.
And then she heard it.
It wasn’t the words that caught her attention at first, but the tone low, hushed, meant to be half-swallowed by the market’s noise. She slowed her steps, pretending to study a crate of figs, and let the voices drift toward her.
I should’ve never let the match happen, one woman murmured. Liora didn’t recognize her voice, but the words were heavy with judgment.
“Careful,” another replied. “You know who’s listening.”
No one is important. The first voice dropped lower, but Liora edged a fraction closer, her eyes still on the figs. “Do you remember the stories of the Oathbreakers?”
The second woman gave a sharp inhale. “Hush. You want the priestess herself to come down on you?”
“I’m only saying… There's a reason the Rite watches their blood. It’s not superstition, not for them. The curse runs deep.”
Enough! We talk no more of it.”
Their voices fell silent. Liora straightened slowly, heart thudding against her ribs. She let the figs be and moved on, but the word gnawed at her all the way down the row of stalls: Oathbreakers.
She’d heard the term only once before, in one of her mother’s old bedtime stories, the kind told not by the hearth in the cheerful light, but in the stillness just before sleep, when the wind scraped against the shutters. Her mother’s voice had been low, almost conspiratorial, as though the very walls might lean in to listen.
Oathbreakers.
The word itself seemed to carry a chill. They were said to be a family line who had once stood before the First Light, the god of beginnings, and refused. Refused the sacred blood oath that had bound the town to its gods since the dawn of the settlement. Refused the pledge that every family, without exception, was sworn to uphold.
No one remembered exactly why, whether it was pride, fear, or some greater truth they alone had seen but the refusal had been their undoing. The gods, insulted, had marked their blood in shadow. It was said the curse wound itself through every branch of their line, invisible yet unbreakable.
Doom followed them into marriage. Some whispered that their children were born still and silent, their eyes closed to the world before their first breath. Others swore darker fates that the Oathbreakers themselves vanished on their wedding day, swallowed by the same darkness they had defied, leaving nothing but empty rings and unanswered prayers.
But those were only tales told to frighten children… weren’t they?
She tried to push the thought aside as she stopped at the spice merchant’s stall. Still, as she counted out coins for a pouch of cinnamon bark, she found herself glancing across the square toward the blacksmith’s forge. The familiar clang of hammer on steel rang from within, rhythmic and sure. Kaelen’s silhouette moved against the glow of the forge fire broad-shouldered, steady.
It seemed impossible that someone like him could be tied to such a story.
And yet…
“Morning, Liora, a voice drawled behind her. She turned to see Renvar Holt leaning against a post, his usual lazy grin tugging at his lips. Renvar was one of those men who seemed to have been born leaning against walls, against railings, against trouble. He’d grown up alongside her and Kaelen, though where Kaelen had worked to earn respect, Renvar seemed to collect gossip as easily as other men collected debts.
You’ve been keeping strange company, he said, nodding toward the forge.
“Strange?” she asked, keeping her tone even.
He shrugged. “Not my word. But you hear things. Like how the Darrins keep their shutters locked tight on the night of the blood moon. Or how no one remembers seeing Kaelen’s uncle after his wedding day. Funny, isn’t it?
Liora felt her patience fray. “You should be careful spreading tales you don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand them well enough,” Renvar said, his grin widening. Some families carry good luck. Others carry… something else. You’d do well to know the difference before you sign your name beside his.”
Before she could snap back, he tipped an imaginary hat and sauntered off into the crowd.
By the time she returned to her shop, her basket felt heavier than it should have. She unpacked the herbs and spices mechanically, her mind a whirl of half-formed questions. That word, Oathbreakers, pulsed in her thoughts like a bruise.
In the quiet of the shop, she lit a single candle and reached for her mother’s old journal. It was worn soft with years, its pages filled with careful script and pressed flowers. She flipped through the entries, searching for the story she half-remembered.
There it was a passage near the back, written in her mother’s slanted hand:
“The Oathbreakers. Their blood runs black under the First Light’s gaze. To wed one is to invite the gods’ wrath, to bind your fate to shadow. The Morning Rite was made to find them and to end them.”
Liora sat back, the candlelight flickering. Outside, the market noise faded with the setting sun, but the air in the shop felt heavy, as if the walls themselves had grown closer.
If the Morning Rite truly existed to hunt the Oathbreakers and if the whispers in the market were right…
Then Kaelen Darrin wasn’t just hiding a family secret.
He was carrying a curse.
- Writer
