Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 6: Chapter 24: Lull

Beatriz placed the paper on my desk. Her hand trembled only a bit as she pulled it away and took a step back to stand at attention.

I sensed this wasn’t one of my usual reports. Something about the guardswoman’s demeanor tipped me off. Without reading it, I placed my quill down and folded my hands.

“I wish to resign,” she said in a voice I guessed was firm only with effort. “If I have your leave, Ser.”

She was clearly afraid of my answer. It made sense. Beatriz had been given into my command as a punitive action, and that wasn’t something one generally just quit. She’d also seen some frightening things the last two weeks. I’d been at the center of most of them.

“Very well.” Without reading the form I signed it and handed it back. “Do you know where you want to go?”

She hesitated, clearly shocked by my easy acceptance. “I have family out in the countryside,” she admitted cautiously, as though afraid of some trap. “I’ll probably go home for a time, and then…”

She glanced down and shrugged.

I nodded. “I wish you luck. If anyone gives you trouble about leaving, I’ll deal with it.”

Beatriz took the form, sketched a hasty salute, then spun on a heel and started towards the door. It had been days since the coup ended, but the bloodstains and remnants of the warding circle on the floorboards were proving difficult to wash out.

“Working with you has been the most terrifying experience of my life,” she told me. “You got Mallet and Penric killed, and they were both good men.”

She spoke in a rush, in the manner of someone who’d been holding on to their words for a long time and was desperate to get them all out. Her expression hardened.

“I appreciate you letting me leave, but I hope we never cross paths again.”

She left without closing the door. Emma walked in a moment later, looking bemused at my expression.

“Oh, there will be others.” My squire strolled over to the desk and leaned against it, tossing me an apple. She kept a second for herself, biting into it. I’d not eaten that day, and took a moment to strengthen myself. One of the perks of whatever the elves had done to me was that I needed little sustenance to keep going.

“You should talk to Hendry,” Emma said. “Tell him he still has a place here with us.”

She spoke casually, but I sensed a tension in her. Emma kept her eyes on the open window as though watching the waves outside, but she was too still.

“And you want that?” I asked.

Her eyes narrowed. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Because you killed his father right in front of him, I thought. Because I know you feel guilty about it, not for Brenner’s sake but for Hendry’s. Because you’re not as callous as you want everyone to believe. Because you care about him, even if it’s not the way he wants.

I also knew Hendry had been avoiding her, and she likely wanted me to bring him back into my command half so he didn’t have an excuse anymore. The girl could be manipulative.

I said none of that. It wasn’t my place.

“He’s reliable,” Emma said. “And you need to rebuild. It’s the smart thing to do, especially since he’s adrift now. Give him a place and he’ll be loyal to you.”

“Right. And you still want to be part of this? After everything, I bet you could argue for a knighthood like the rest of the tourney fighters and go wherever you want.”

Karog had received his own knighthood already, to the great unease of many. While it wasn’t unheard of for non-humans to earn such honors, he was seen as a western monster and a reminder of the threats we’d left behind in a past age during the exodus.

But he’d also helped defeat the coup in the end in front of many witnesses, and shown himself to be amicable to chivalry during the tournament. What kind of legend he’d build for himself remained to be seen, but he’d gotten what he came for.

At least in part. I doubted the fomori’s ambitions were done.

Emma sighed dramatically. “I barely did anything of note, other than pin up that Hunting oaf.” Her eyes narrowed in thought. “No, I need something epic to earn my knighthood. Something that people will remember…”

She considered a moment while chewing on a bite of apple before casually adding, “Have you seen Catrin?”

I paused a heavy beat before answering. “She’s leaving.”

“She went through a lot.” Emma took another bite of her apple. “Perhaps she just needs some space?”

I considered leaving it at that. It wasn’t something I really wanted to talk about, but…

Emma would need to know eventually, and best to get it out.

“She’s leaving Urn. Going back to her homeland.”

Emma winced. “Ah. I’m sorry, Alken.”

I shrugged, and neither of us said anything for a while. The apple had lost its taste, and I spun it in my hands unfinished.

Emma started to speak, hesitated, then let out a heavy sigh. That struck me as odd. She rarely avoided speaking her mind, no matter how it needled people. I waited.

“Do you love her?”

She regarded me with serious amber eyes. I found it difficult to meet them.

“Why do you ask?” My voice was cautious.

“Because I’m afraid if I don’t ask the question you’ll continue to brood for the next century. I like Catrin, I am worried for her, and I see how distracted you’ve been. This is eating you up.”

I almost snapped at her to mind her own business. But it would have just been lashing out, and she didn’t deserve my anger. Besides, I was too tired for it.

“I think I do,” I admitted. “But I don’t know if it’s the way I should.”

If I truly loved her, couldn’t I have accepted her offer? Wouldn’t it be easier to forget the other faces in my heart?

Emma hummed thoughtfully. “And how should you? The way a man loves his wife? I’ve rarely seen married couples who are truly in love, not that I’m certain I could recognize it.”

“She doesn’t want to be with me like that,” I said. “We talked about it. I made the offer too hastily, true, but even if I hadn’t… we live in different worlds, and she doesn’t want to be tied to mine.”

Especially not after all this. If she ever wanted to see me again I’d be surprised.

Emma let out an exasperated breath. “I can’t give you advice about love, Alken. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt it. I’ve wanted things. Wanted people, even, but I’ve never been afraid of losing anyone. Even when my parents died, I…”

She trailed off, looking perplexed and annoyed. “I’m not sure what I felt then was sadness. My grandmother was part of my life for sixteen years, and when she passed on all I felt was frustration. Anger, that what was mine had been taken from me. My birthright, my freedom, my family. When I think about my parents, even my grandmother, I can hardly remember their faces. I just remember feeling angry.”

“And Hendry?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Much the same. Had his father killed him, I’d have been angry, infuriated even, but more at the situation I think. Does that make me a monster?”

When she caught my stare, Emma shuffled in discomfort and changed the subject. “Have you considered that she’s afraid of you?”

I stared down at the burn scars on my fingers. “Yes.”

“Not in that way,” Emma said with clear frustration. “But you are of a much higher station than her in various ways. She is a peasant, a whore — and I don’t mean that as an insult — and a vampire. You are a lord of Urn, a knight, and a demon hunter. I doubt she’s had any romances like this one. Perhaps she’s intimidated? Even feeling somewhat unworthy of you.”

With a sudden suspicious intuition I asked, “Have you two been talking?”

“We’ve chatted,” Emma admitted. “But not about this. I have eyes, you know. She has a very nervous way around you. And think about it like this; she jumped into this situation with Yith readily, almost like she wanted to prove that she could be a hero too. And then it all went to hell. If you want to know what I think, it’s that she’s ashamed, perhaps even blaming herself.”

She pointed at me with a stern finger. “Something you two have in common, by the way.”

After a minute of silence I said, “If either of us is unworthy of the other, it’s me.”

Emma blew out an exasperated breath. “Are you going to be alright?”

I shrugged. “I’ll be fine. This is for the best.”

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Emma squinted at me. “You really believe that?”

“I do.”

I waited for the lie to scald my tongue. It didn’t. Before I could so much as register that, the door burst open. Lisette stood there, her face beaded with sweat beneath her cleric’s cowl. She was breathless, as though she’d run up half the steps in the Fulgurkeep.

“He’s awake,” she gasped.

Emma frowned. “Who?”

Lisette caught her breath and met my eyes, her own clear and blue and full of emotion.

“Penric.”

Emma stared at the cleric as though she were simple. “Lisette…” It was one of the rare times she’d used the other girl’s proper name. “Penric is dead. He had his brains spilled out on this very floor. We were all there, it was very dramatic.”

Lisette kept her focus on me, ignoring Emma. I suddenly felt cold.

“Show me.”

“I had to disguise him to get him through the palace,” Lisette told me as I walked into the cell at the bottom of the tower. “They were about to take him away along with some of the other soldiers who were, um...”

I knew what she meant. The man sat on a chair in the middle of the small room, a single alchemical lantern hung near the door for light. As a veteran of House Forger’s guard, even a commoner, he’d been dressed in armor in the custom of soldiery readied for burial. Simple steel, but clean. His head was swathed in bandages, and the cloak Lisette had covered him with lay discarded in one corner.

He raised his head as I approached to stand just out of arm’s reach. Bandages covered the empty sockets where his eyes had been, but I could make out deep depressions in the material. What skin showed was pallid and sunken, bloodless, and the wrappings were stained.

“Is that you, Ser?” His voice was a dry whisper, but surprisingly clear.

“It’s me, soldier. Do you know where you are?”

“The tower.” His lips turned down into a frown. “A cell.”

I watched him curiously. “You can see?”

The archer shrugged. “It’s more like I can… hear? Everything’s dark, but I can tell where I am. The good priestess is behind you. And…”

His blind face turned to Emma, who stood in the hallway. “Carreon.”

Emma and Lisette both cast worried looks my way at that. We’d never told any of the lance about my squire’s identity.

“And there’s a shadow standing behind you,” Penric added. “It has horns.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, but I kept my reaction controlled. “Do you understand what’s happened to you, soldier?”

He nodded. “I think so, Ser. I died. And now I’m back.”

He was surprisingly lucid for a newly raised dyghoul. Closer to the way Kieran had been than Hyperia, and these other intuitions…

Dangerous.

“I’m guessing this is the part where you put me back down,” Penric said in an amicable voice as though he’d heard my thought. “I appreciate you keeping it in our circle. Be an awful disgrace if my fellows in the guard found out.”

I turned to look at Lisette, who’d brought him here. She clutched her adept’s auremark in pale fingers, her grip tight on the ornately wrought piece of sacred gold. She caught my gaze and pressed her lips into a tight line.

Proper form should have compelled her to take the risen archer directly to the Church and have his body cleansed, a rite that ended with fire. But she’d brought him to me instead.

I turned back to the man, considered, and reached a decision.

“I can put you to rest. If that’s what you want.”

The blind face tilted up as unseeing eyes focused on me. “If it’s what I want?”

“That monster that killed you is only one of legion, Penric. My work is far from done, and I could use people who understand what we’re facing. People who can fight back.”

I thought of Beatriz, and steeled myself for the small evil I was about to do.

“I can leave you like this for as long you’re willing to endure it. If you fight with me, then I’ll keep you at my side and prevent the Church from destroying you.”

Most would have taken a steadying breath, or fidgeted. The dead man did none of that, just lowered his head and considered in breathless silence.

“I’m a monster. Profane.”

“As you said before, I deal with the profane. Mostly I smite it, but sometimes I parley with it. We’re not heroes, Penric, but together we might do some good.”

“And if I refuse?” He asked.

“Then I’ll make it quick as I can.”

I couldn’t promise it would be painless. Once one became undead, there could be no gentle way to undo it. Their final deaths were always violent and painful.

The archer laced his gray fingers together and leaned forward on his chair. “Can I have some time to think about it? I won’t try to run.”

I nodded. “Take the time you need. Lisette can tend to your wounds in the meantime, maybe make things more comfortable.”

Lisette stepped forward, already weaving her golden threads between dancing fingers. I left the man to contemplate his fate.

The days turned into weeks. Summer settled over the coastlands, hot and stormy and full of portent. Difficult questions were asked, the summit dispersed as visitors from across the subcontinent returned to their own lands, and a strange calm settled over the city as it braced for a difficult year.

Rumors of fighting began to filter out of the peninsula.

Hyperia’s reanimation did not take. When it became clear she wouldn’t regain her mind as Penric had, Calerus begged leave to take her back to Talsyn and bury her by the customs of his own people. His request was granted on the condition that he accept occupation by Accord troops and swear fealty at the Emperor’s feet.

He did so, though more than a few grumbled at this apparent leniency.

But those voices remained muted, at least while I stood at the Emperor’s left hand where his steward once had. I wore new armor, black iron that covered me from neck to foot beneath the blood red of my cloak. That image, and the towering tree that remained in the throne room, left few willing to speak out against Markham.

He might not wish to be the tyrant, but he’d also been the one to say that dark days were coming. If it took the Headsman’s shadow to keep the Houses and the Church alike in line, then I would embrace the role.

To the relief of many, I was rarely seen at court. My work occupied my time more and more.

Hendry traveled west to his home country to settle some affairs, and did not return until summer was near to giving way to an unseasonably chill fall. He presented himself to me and asked to rejoin my command.

I accepted, but sensed a change in the young man. He was quiet and grim, and spoke little to anyone. I did not interfere between him and Emma, but could tell there was much left unspoken there.

As a result of his investigation into the Vykes, Vander Braeve was given an official position as the court prosecutor. He and I worked together at times, but I remained something of a shadow figure in the court, operating behind the scenes.

It suited me fine, especially since it gave me time to pursue my own interests.

I dove into study of the occult, of law and history, expanding my knowledge of the world. I consulted with clericons, scholars, eccentric nobles, and even Faisa Dance on a variety of topics. When she and I could not find answers together, she would inevitably always find someone who could.

I could not endure as the blunt instrument. The world had too many dark secrets, and it was time to settle properly into my role. If the realms wanted to believe me the devil, the sorcerer, the evil omen, then let them. I needed to understand what had happened to me that night, what power I’d awakened. I knew too little about what I was and what it meant.

Just as Catrin had decided to do, I needed to know my world and myself.

The engines of history turned. The world shifted into a new pattern, as Lias might say. Powers moved and storms gathered.

The gods remained silent.

Rosanna’s third son was born in the middle of summer to a day of great celebration. She named him Josric after her father, and nobles came all the way from the south to meet the new prince.

I met the child in a private audience with his weary mother. My own reputation had become even more ill omened since the coup, and I’d decided it best not to interact with the royal children publicly and risk tarnishing their image.

Even in private I felt it was a danger, but Rosanna had asked to speak with me and I couldn’t refuse her. I’d never been able to.

She looked more tired than I’d ever seen her, even in a clean white dress and practically cocooned in an enormous cushioned bed. Her eyes were shadowed by lack of sleep, but her visage seemed very peaceful as it looked down into the sleeping face of her son. Like his brothers, Josric had her black hair.

I sat by the bedside, having made my appearance quietly after the clerics and handmaidens were dismissed. Kaia waited in the hall outside, making sure no one else eavesdropped.

“We’ve barely had a chance to speak since the tournament,” Rosanna said in almost a whisper.

“We all have our duties.”

“True. I’m not at all certain I prefer this one to statecraft.” She held the little boy close and let her black hair fall around him like a protective shroud. He stirred a moment, then went back to sleep.

“You always told me you hated politics,” I noted.

“It has its enjoyable qualities, being queen. Even being empress. Though…”

She trailed off, her eyes going distant. I waited silently, half wrapped up in my own thoughts.

“I’ve played this particular role too long. Markham had me agree to wait until our child was born, but I spoke with Lord Johann just yesterday. Do you remember him?”

It took me a moment. “He sheltered us after we left the Herdhold. Or… his father did?”

I recalled a very old man, and that’d been most of two decades past.

“His father, that’s right. He’s told me there’s trouble in the Dales, and the regent I left is struggling to manage such a large realm. Once I’ve recovered from this birth and settled some affairs here, I’ll be taking my household back to Karles. The south needs my direct hand. My departure is planned for the spring.”

I nodded, surprised by how calm I felt at this revelation. “Will you be taking Darsus with you? The way I’ve heard it, he’s only been to the land he’ll eventually rule once.”

“That’s right. I’m taking little Josric here, too. It could be some years before I return, and I would like him to know his mother. Markham grumbled, but agreed it was for the best.”

I knew this wasn’t just about inheritance and managing the affairs of the wider Accorded Realms. Markham’s ability to protect his people, even his family, had been called into question. Rosanna might be dedicated to their alliance, but she would protect her own.

It would be a difficult change for young Malcolm, I expected. I felt for the boy.

“I’m also hoping we can find something to do for Darsus. I fear for him.”

I bowed my head. “I’m doing my own investigations with Faisa’s help. If there’s anything, Rose, then…”

She gave me a weak smile. “And if we can’t? If he grows up as he is now, always hungry? As…”

She couldn’t bring herself to say it, but I knew what she meant. As a monster.

Instead of leaping to flimsy assurances, I considered my answer for a long time.

“I believe that we create our own monsters, or they’re made for us by older ones.”

I thought about Catrin, wandering to distant lands to find answers to what she was. “Darsus might live the rest of his life corrupted by what Issachar did to him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a good king and a good man. We should try to raise him into those things, and if he’s cursed…”

Rosanna’s face fell, but I wasn’t done.

“Then our land is full of curses. We can cope, and teach him to do the same.”

She nodded. “I want you to be Darsus’s godfather.”

I stared at her, dumbstruck. “But, isn’t Faisa—”

“Both Malcolm and Darsus’s godmother, yes. We are in our rights to choose a second. My husband already has a pick for Malcolm, but my secondborn is my heir and it is my choice alone. Will you accept?”

I realized I was shaking my head, more in confusion than denial. “I haven’t earned this. I botched things badly during the tournament.”

Rosanna was quiet a while, her eyes lowering to the child. When she did speak, her voice was stronger.

“You talked down the king of Talsyn, who’d been raised his entire life for the singular purpose of destroying us, and convinced him to give peace a chance. You saved my children from a horde of monsters and slew a demon of the Abyss. You stopped the Priory from taking command over the city, weakening them into something more manageable. Many more people would have died to the wyrm if you hadn’t been there as well, I’m certain of it.”

She reached out and took my hand. “Without you, we’d never have even seen these threats before it was too late. You are too hard on yourself, my friend.”

“I’m no hero.” My voice was choked.

“Maybe not. But even still, I want you to be part of my son’s life.”

“This could be more of a curse on him,” I warned her.

“That is true,” she admitted tiredly. “Yet perhaps between you two, your curses might be easier to bear. Will you do it?”

Her emerald eyes were firm. If I’d hoped to see my doubts reflected in them, I was disappointed.

“I will.”

She smiled, then brushed her hair aside and adjusted herself on the bed to show me the baby. “Would you like to hold him?”

My chest tightened. “Yes.”

She handed him to me carefully, so we didn’t wake him. He was so small, practically vanishing into my arms. Tiny and pale, born too early and impossibly fragile. The healers feared he wouldn’t make it, but he had his mother’s stubbornness. She’d also refused to die when others believed it to be inevitable.

“We’ve come a long way,” Rosanna whispered as she stared at the baby. She looked on the cusp of sleep.

“You should rest,” I told her. “I’ll watch him for a time.”

Rosanna closed her eyes without protest. Moments later she was asleep. I held my queen’s child and watched over them both.

For the time at least that was enough.

End of Arc 6