Echoes of Oath and Flame

I whisper to her, though I know the woman I loved cannot hear me.

“Fate was cruel, Serenya. At the end of all things, I choose you still, even if you are only a shade.”

Her reply is not words, but a screech. Spittle and bile lash across my face as she thrashes like a rabid beast. Yet the sound is not rage alone, it carries agony, despair, the echo of the woman I once swore to protect.

The forest writhes in agony as the canopy falls, burning debris raining down ruin, littering the forest floor and transforming the battlefield into a hellscape.

Our blades separate as we are forced to dodge, embers raining down like arrows loosed from the heavens.

She lunges first. Skyrend arcs in a frozen crescent, carving a path of rime through the flames. I pivot aside, the blade grazing my cloak, frostbite crackling across the fabric. My own sword hums in reply, resonance flaring, its edge glowing black as night as it cleaves through a falling branch, scattering sparks across us both.

“You swore to protect me… but you left me here!”

Her words pierce deeper than her blade. Our weapons clash, steel screaming against steel. Sparks blind me as she presses forward, strength born of torment.

I’m here now, I tell her without saying it. Resonance hums along the blade, a low chord that settles in my chest. Time stutters: embers halt mid-fall, flames fold like painted silk, and the world leans toward that single note. She reels back, scarlet eyes bright with something that is not entirely hate. With a howl she drives Skyrend down in a two-handed strike; the earth shivers and splits beneath her. Ice explodes from the fissure in a dozen knives. Directed and precise.

The resonance thrums like a war-drum, steady and merciless in my veins. Gloomsheer, The Night’s Edge, you have re-awoken. I am in need of you once more my old friend.

I feel the blade pulse and crackle beneath my grip, an acknowledgement of what must be done. We are both sword and man, sworn to oath. Sworn to her.

Gloomsheer ignites with all its restored glory, not with red flame, but black shadows as deep as the darkest night. They lick the air, warping the world around its edge like the breaking of water.

The daggers of ice hang in the air as if time itself had reached its end. But I know better. The resonance has now harmonised with my intent. The black arc cleaves through the suspended knives and drinks them with hunger. They crack into a thousand shards, each one evaporating into vapour that smells of iron and old storms.

The Night’s Edge sings. The sound is a blade trembling at the centre of a storm. I push forward, letting the resonance carry me. The black light spills from the steel and sweeps the ground before me, a living shadow that tears at the roots of the forest and strips ash from the air.

Serenya roars and meets me again. Skyrend bites with a frozen scream, but she slips, as if time has become viscous under her feet. I feel the world give. It is there, that ancient comfort of control, the same pull that once held a fortress in stillness while the enemy battered at its gates.

I fold the resonance inward and send it outward, a bowl of silence cupping us both. The trees slow, embers drift like lazy moths, and even Serenya’s wild eyes track the falling world in slow motion. For a heartbeat the forest is a painting come to haunted life, every detail sharpened until it hurts.

I make the choice no Flamewarden should ever wish to make. I push the resonance deeper, carving a sphere of altered flow around myself and the woman I once knew. The air shutters. Sound frays. The world stills.

Even frozen in slow-motion fury, I see her mouth tremble, as if it might shape my name.

Inside the Black Seal of Erethon, we are both bound in its prison. I cannot hold it long. Already it gnaws at me, each heartbeat flayed raw to keep the shadow alive. Resonance makes nothing. It devours its wielder, drumming through blood and bone until will itself is spent.

But I do not have to hold it long. Because beyond the seal’s edge, another watches.

Caden.

— ❖ — 

The stench of smoke and ash burns my eyes, but I dare not close them. The Mirukai is still here, hidden among the fallen canopy. And somewhere within the chaos, Seredain endures.

The cold air bites sharp against my skin, jolting me out of battle’s haze. For a fleeting moment, the smoke parts, and I glimpse the night sky. Crystal-clear, infinite, as if the heavens themselves whisper that hope has not yet burned away.

But the screams drag me back. And I remember what must be done.

Then the wind rises, curling past my cheek, carrying a whisper I almost know. I tighten my grip around the falchion, its flame still alight.

“Let’s go Zephyr, Seredain needs us.” The words leave my lips before I can stop them, a title half-remembered, dragged from the ashes of a life I no longer know.

As if in response to a long-forgotten name, the wind swirls at my back, wholly embracing me. Warm air flows over my shoulders and down my arms like silk, soft and pure. It twists around the blade, sparks leaping as the heat swells. Then, with a roar like breath flooding back into a dying fire, the steady flame erupts into a furious blaze once more.

Screams rise again, echoes weaving a path through the destruction, making the sound impossible to track.

“Do you know where Seredain is, my Song?” I murmur, the words tasting strange on my tongue, as if I had spoken it before in another life.

A breath brushes past my ear, like a gentle whisper.

Vera

“Yes, my Flame.” Her voice rushes through me like a gale through trees. I feel her touch on my shoulders, and the feeling of home swells in my chest. She turns me around and pushes me forward softly.

And then the chaos parts. From ruin, a burning path emerges, the Flamepool itself guiding me to the trial’s end. I must follow.

I walk the twisted path through the destruction, the smouldering trunks and glittering stars lighting my way. Then, in the distance, a dome of black fire looms, its flames curling upward like smoke caught in a phantom wind. But something is wrong, trees are suspended mid fall, embers still hang in the air like fireflies.

And within that dome, suspended in silence, two figures wait. Seredain and the Mirukai. Not moving. Not breathing. Waiting for me.

As I move closer, pressure clamps around me, thick and suffocating, like wading through tar. Each step feels stolen, not granted, as though the dome itself weighs and judges me. The low thrum in the air swells into a war drum, each beat hammering outward in waves that rattle my bones.

Time itself buckles around me. Branches hang unmoving, embers hang suspended mid-fall, the world stilled into a mural of ruin. And yet I move, somehow, impossibly, as if I’m being allowed to pass, carving a path through time. I force my way beneath the trunk of a great tree, caught mid-collapse above me like a relic in glass, waiting for time to reclaim it. A shiver needles up my spine as I step under, every breath braced for the world to snap back into rhythm and crush me where I stand.

With that thought I lean harder into the weight, each step against the pulsing thrum of the dome. Then, without warning, the pressure breaks. I’m hurled forward, crashing to my knees as the soundless air swallows me.

The blasts cease. The thrum falls quiet. I glance back, the world behind me is still frozen, but beyond it, is a deep darkness that presses heavier than any oath. Like a starless sky at the end of time, where hope itself has guttered out, where only nothing remains.

Dread swells in my chest. I look away, unable to bear it. I’ll focus on what I can achieve, not what I cannot. I look forward and see the dome but a few steps away. The black flames give off no heat but still swirl fiercely, daring me to reach out and touch it.

I see Seredain, but he’s changed. His form no longer appears ethereal, but of flesh and blood. Is this his doing? Or perhaps the Flamepool’s?

I stand, and in response, the black flames recoil, parting from the dome as if inviting me in. Then I see it: a rune, glowing as dark as the endless void that surrounds us. All other shadows gleam in comparison. I step sideways, searching for another sign, but at the rune’s heart a sword juts outward. Its hilt is bound in black leather, threaded with silver strands that glitter like the night sky, as if it had slain the heavens and drunk their light.

A trickle of black flame seeps from the wound, feeding the rune. This sword is no captive, it is the source. I know what must be done. This is no path of my own choosing, but it does not matter. I will walk it.

I close my hand around the hilt. Lightning lances through me, every nerve alight. The thrum races through my limbs until it settles in my chest, its rhythm locking with my own heartbeat. The rune ripples, its surface warping as black flame spills outward like ink bleeding into water.

Behind me, her wind rises. It flows over my shoulder, wrapping around my hand. Together, we grip tighter. Together, we draw the sword free.

As the blade slides, black flame lashes from the dome’s wound, rising like a storm unbound. A blast wave erupts, darkness bursting outward. The dome shatters into shards of silver glass. The impact slams into me like a hammer to the chest, but my grip holds firm. So does hers.

The flood of darkness surges across the ground, spreading like water over marble, seeping into every surface until all that remains is Seredain, the Mirukai, and myself with the wind at my side.

The Mirukai, no longer frozen, screeches and lashes out. Not at me, but at Seredain. Yet something unseen restrains it. Its body thrashes with fury, but its shadow does not move. It clings to the ground, unmoving, refusing to mirror the beast’s rage, as though even the darkness rejects its violence.

Between its screams, another voice cuts through, raw, strained, but steady.

“Good, you made it. I knew you would. A name lies hidden in you. The time has come, old friend. Help me, one last time.”

The Mirukai’s scream rattles inside the void, shadows thrashing against their bonds. Seredain’s eyes find mine, steady even in ruin. My hand tightens on the blade. Whatever name lies hidden, I know this: it will demand blood.