The Broken Oath

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The wind shifted, slipping through Vael’s stone alleys with a keener edge, and all day the sky hung dull above the peaks—a scrub of bruised cloud blocking what little warmth the sun tried to offer. The village moved restlessly, as if the animals sensed some storm the humans could not yet name. It was near dusk, the hours bleeding to indigo, when Eiran caught the first stench of ash—raw, bitter, out of place amid the crisp scents of pine and earth.

He stood outside the Elder’s hall, cloak drawn tight—a bundle at his feet containing bread, a skin of water, and the ancient star stone, heavy even against his thigh. Mira and Talin, their forms mere shapes in the gloom, conferred in low, urgent voices. Others bustled past: Tanelle distributing hard rolls; Marlo and the twins refilling packs; the Elder watching all with glassy-eyed sorrow. They prepared for a departure none truly understood.

The wind died abruptly. Into its silence fell a sound both foreign and deeply wrong—the rustle of too many footsteps slithering through old snow, a series of hollow thumps, and a whisper that seemed to come from beneath the earth itself.

Eiran’s skin prickled. He turned, expecting to see Mira’s shadow—and saw instead a twisted thing in the fog, black as burnt bone, edges frayed by gloom. It hunched low, sniffing at a shutter. Behind it, others slipped along the fences and sheds—seven, ten—maybe more. No eyes, no faces, only shifting smudges darker than night, trailing the faintest trail of silvery mist.

A scream ripped the dusk. Somewhere near the smithy, the sound of splintering wood. Eiran felt his legs root to the stone. He fumbled for his pack, voice lost in his dry throat. Mira was suddenly beside him, sword drawn, eyes wide. The village erupted—doors thrown wide, townsfolk shouting warnings, the bell beginning to toll in jerky, discordant bursts.

“Eiran! With me!” Mira seized his arm, dragging him into motion. Talin loomed up, bow drawn, arrow nocked. From somewhere behind, Talin called, “Shadows by the western trail! Elder—get inside!”

Eiran twisted as a shadow lunged from the mist, all claws and void, mouthless but screaming nonetheless. Mira met it with blade and fire—the steel flashing, a ribbon of crimson in the gloom. The creature recoiled, hissing, wound splitting into streams of black vapor. Where her blade cut, the fog itself seemed to shudder.

Behind them, Vael burned. The thatch of the carpenter’s house caught first, flames racing across frost-bitten straw. The shadows moved through the chaos, lashing out at villagers who tried to flee. Tanelle—Eiran saw her for one aching instant, dragging the twins into the Elder’s hall—vanished as a shadow fell across the door. A bellow; then silence.

“Go!” Mira snarled, shoving Eiran toward the dark slope. “Don’t stop, no matter what.”

They tore down the path between dying gardens, tripping over roots and loose stones. Behind, Talin loosed arrow after arrow, each one disappearing into the howling dark—sometimes met with an unearthly shriek, sometimes with nothing at all. The Elder’s voice shouted incantations from the threshold—old words meant as blessing or ward, but the shadows only laughed, the sound scraping on glass.

Eiran’s mind flashed: the villagers’ kindness, Marlo’s easy grin, Anlyn’s laughter, all swept away in gray and crimson. He almost turned back—the weight of the star stone in his pack burning hotter with every step away from the only home he’d ever known.

They neared the old bridge at the village’s edge, the stones slick with dew and blood. A shape loomed—Narsa, the strange girl whose eyes always sparkled with hidden light, clutching a wooden staff. She spotted them—her face wild with terror and sudden resolve. Without a word, she raised her hands, power flickering in her fingertips. Lightning burst from her palms, arcing into the largest shadow. It shrieked as fire met night, but even so, new shapes poured from the treeline beyond, endless as floodwater.

“We can’t fight them all!” Mira hissed, yanking Eiran along. “Narsa—run!”

Narsa glared, streaming sweat and arcane light, then sprinted after them, calling bolts over her shoulder. Together they plunged into the deeper woods, thorns tearing at cloaks and skin, the firelight behind them fading to an angry smear amid the trees.

They ran until breath failed, until Eiran’s side ached so he thought his ribs would break. Only when Talin, grimed and wounded, caught up with them did Mira call a halt. All four tumbled behind a fallen pine, gasping, the world shuddering with distant screams.

Mira was the first to recover. “Did… did you see the Elder?” she asked, voice cracked.

Talin shook his head, blood on his sleeve. “He was at the hall door. Last I saw. But so many shadows—” He cut himself off, jaw rigid with grief.

Eiran pressed his face into his knees. The world spun—images of the village burning, of shadows curling around every face he’d loved. Bitterness, guilt, fear—then, as Mira squeezed his shoulder, something else. A cold, searing clarity.

“We have to keep going,” he managed. “Vael is lost. Not because we ran, but because we’re the only ones who know. If the star fragments are the key—if what the Elder said is true—we have to finish what was started. Or there’ll be nothing left.”

Narsa sniffed sharply, wiping tears from her cheeks. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

Eiran surprised himself with a crooked, humorless smile. “Feels like I have. In dreams.”

They crouched in half-silence, the forest older and more ominous beyond the village edge than Eiran had ever known. Smoke stung their eyes. From the direction of Vael, flames roared as the shadows did their work—sounds of battle and despair fading by degrees, leaving only the living ache of abandonment.

Mira bent over her blade, blood and black mist on the steel. Her hands shook. Narsa, arms wrapped around her knees, muttered angry, broken syllables. Talin scanned their back-trail, every nerve taut. They all waited—maybe hoping for a sign, maybe unable to go on. But to remain still was to die, and all of them knew it, however much it hurt to move.

At last, Mira spoke through a storm of doubt. “This is my fault,” she growled, the words escaping thick and low. “I led them here. If I’d just—if I’d waited, if I’d tried a different way—”

Eiran reached out, his voice shaking but sure. “No. They would’ve come, no matter what. I saw it. In the dreams. And… and if we don’t stop them, every village ends like Vael.”

Something in Mira’s eyes—a flicker of faith, or gratitude, or simply the bleak necessity of survival. She nodded once, keeping her tears private in the dark.

A crack sounded in the woods behind. All four froze, senses sharp. Talin loosed an arrow at the noise; a shadow screamed, withered to smoke, and was gone. More would come, drawn by the scent of fear and starfire.

With no more words, they rose—battered, mourning, alive when so many were not. Step by step, deeper into the ancient woods, they left the ruins of Vael behind. Only the star stone remained, cold and pulsing in Eiran’s bag—a last anchor to hope, or to doom. Above them, the stars flickered wild between the trees; shards of ancient fire, silent witnesses to a promise broken and a world still fighting to be remade.

They fled into the night without map or welcome, carrying with them only wounds and a desperate vow: to find the meaning of this darkness, to seek others, to make something from ashes before all of Andarin was lost. The oath was shattered. But they ran, breathless, all the same.

Behind them, the flames of Vael illuminated the low clouds—an answering glare from the shattered heavens, seen by no one who would ever return.

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