Ashes And Oaths
824 Words
The shrine crumbled behind them.
Stone screamed as it split apart, ancient mortar dissolving under the weight of broken magic. Calla barely had time to help Mira to her feet before the ceiling began to collapse in jagged sheets.
Riven swept in and caught Calla’s wrist. “We need to go—now!”
She didn’t argue.
Together, they fled through the archway, Mira staggering between them, half-conscious. Flames licked up the walls as glyphs overloaded and burst. Whatever had lived inside the shrine was dead—but the energy it released was not done with them yet.
They didn’t stop running until the trees swallowed the crumbling structure completely.
Calla dropped to her knees, lungs burning.
Riven scanned the woods, blade still drawn.
Only when the ground stopped shaking did he speak. “What happened?”
Calla looked at Mira, who had fallen unconscious again.
“She betrayed me,” she said. “But she wasn’t the only one.”
Riven’s jaw tensed. “What do you mean?”
“She was being used. There was something else in the shrine. It knew me. It wanted the dagger, not just for her—for itself.”
“And the dagger?”
“Gone,” Calla said. “Destroyed.”
She looked down at her hands. They were still glowing faintly.
Riven saw it too. “Calla... your mark.”
She pulled back her sleeve.
The mark on her arm, once a faint crescent moon, now shimmered like molten gold. It pulsed softly.
“It changed when the dagger broke,” she whispered.
He reached out, gently touching it.
And instantly, his own chest burned.
Riven staggered, pulling back his hand.
A matching sigil had flared beneath his collarbone.
Their bond was no longer dormant.
It had awakened.
---
Back in Thornveil, Garrin and Nessa regrouped with the remaining scouts. They found the trail Calla and Riven had left behind, but something about the forest felt wrong.
“We need to get word to Matra,” Garrin said.
Nessa hesitated. “She won’t like it.”
“She doesn’t have to like it,” he replied. “She just needs to know.”
They turned back.
But already, shadows moved in the underbrush.
And something followed them.
---
Calla sat beneath a dead tree, watching Mira sleep.
“She’s not the same girl you knew,” Riven said.
“I know,” Calla replied. “But she’s still part of this.”
“You should have let me finish her.”
Calla looked up sharply. “That’s not who I am.”
Riven was quiet for a moment. Then he knelt before her.
“You’re right,” he said. “And that’s why you have to be the one to lead us.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“The seals are breaking. The signs are falling. The Flame is stirring.”
He reached into his coat and pulled out a scroll.
“The High Blood Council wants to summon you.”
Calla’s blood ran cold.
“The Council exiled me.”
“They changed their mind.”
“No,” she said. “They’re scared.”
Riven’s voice dropped low. “And that means you have power now. Real power.”
Calla looked again at her mark.
It throbbed like a heartbeat.
She took the scroll.
And for the first time, her hands didn’t shake.
---
Far beneath the roots of Thornveil, the ashes of the shrine smoldered.
A single black feather lay where the dagger had once been.
And above it, from the broken rock, a single eye opened—glowing red.
Watching.
Waiting.
---
Later that night, Riven built a fire in a hidden grove near the forest’s edge. The flame cast long shadows on the trees, dancing like spirits.
Calla sat across from him, Mira wrapped in a cloak nearby, still unconscious but stable.
“I used to believe I had control,” Calla murmured. “Over what I felt, over what I could become. But tonight…”
“You became something more,” Riven said.
She shook her head. “No. I became what the prophecy feared.”
Riven moved closer, voice low and steady. “Then make it fear you for the right reasons.”
She looked at him.
For a moment, the forest was silent.
He reached for her hand again—this time without flinching.
Their marks pulsed in perfect rhythm.
“I thought the bond was just a story,” Calla whispered. “But it’s real.”
“And it’s stronger now because you chose mercy,” Riven said.
Calla swallowed hard. “Then we do this together. We face the Council, we face the signs—everything.”
“Together,” he echoed.
Above them, the moon crept from behind the clouds, casting silver light on the pair seated beside the fire—two souls bound by flame, fate, and something older still.
- Writer
