The Broken Word – Part 2

The mountain trail that led to the Oathkeeper’s Grave was older than memory and twice as bitter.

Vaelin led the way, his boots crunching over frostbitten pine needles. The path narrowed along a steep ridge where ancient prayer flags fluttered from twisted branches—most had rotted into shreds, their sigils faded by wind and time. The forest here was silent. Not dead, but listening.

Behind him, Elira walked with purpose, but each step seemed heavier than the last. Her connection to spellcraft was still severed, and the loss echoed like a hollow note in her bones.

“You know,” Vaelin said over his shoulder, “this place has all the charm of a crypt.”

“That’s because it is a crypt,” Elira replied dryly. “The Oathkeeper wasn’t buried with ceremony. She vanished with the first broken vow. They say the ground itself buried her out of shame.”

“Lovely,” Vaelin muttered. “Remind me not to offend any ancient magics around here.”

“Too late for that.”

The grave was not marked by stone, but by absence.

They stepped into a sunken glade beneath a sheer cliff wall, where the snow had melted in a perfect ring around a bare stretch of earth. No flowers, no trees—just soil that pulsed faintly with residual magic, like a sleeping heartbeat.

Elira stopped short.

“This is it,” she whispered. “This is where the Binding Tongue was first sealed in blood.”

Vaelin frowned. “Then where’s the body?”

“She’s not here,” Elira said. “She’s part of this. The Oathkeeper gave herself to the vow. Her bones are the root of the Binding Tongue.”

They approached carefully. The silence here wasn’t like before—it was expectant.

As Elira stepped into the ring, she felt it: a static charge along her skin, the memory of words trying to rise in her throat. Not spoken aloud—more like a whisper echoing from somewhere beneath the world.

She knelt, placed her palm to the earth.

The moment her skin touched soil, she was yanked into memory.

She stood in a field of ash.

The sky was red with warfire. Bodies lay in heaps across a scorched battlefield. At the center stood a woman cloaked in iron-gray, eyes glowing with inner fire. The Oathkeeper.

Before her knelt two warlords—mortal enemies—blood leaking from fresh wounds.

The Oathkeeper raised a curved blade and cut her own palm.

“I give word to bind word,” she said in a voice that rang across time. “My blood for yours. My soul for peace.”

She chanted the original phrase of the Binding Tongue—not as words, but as a sacrifice. And the magic took root. Blood became pact. The first vow carved itself into the world’s skin.

Then the woman collapsed.

And the world wept.

Elira gasped, falling back as if struck. Vaelin caught her again, arm around her shoulders.

“You keep doing that,” she rasped, voice shaky.

“You keep falling.” He didn’t let her go right away. “What did you see?”

“The beginning,” she whispered. “She gave up her life... not just to create the Tongue, but to anchor it. To keep it from unraveling.”

Vaelin’s brow furrowed. “So if it’s unraveling now…”

“Then something’s unmaking her sacrifice. Undermining it. Someone is digging at the roots of the vow.”

Elira stood and brushed frost from her gloves, staring at the spot where the memory had bloomed.

Something glinted in the dirt.

She reached down and uncovered a small medallion—black iron inscribed with a familiar sigil: three downward-pointing thorns in a circle.

Her breath caught.

“I know this mark.”

Vaelin tilted his head. “Friend of yours?”

“No. Ally. Once.” She turned the medallion in her hand, expression hardening. “It belonged to the Thorned Archive.”

“That outlawed blood order? The ones who tried to rewrite spellcraft by binding memory itself?”

“They were researchers. Dangerous, yes. But one of them taught me the roots of the Binding Tongue. He’s the reason I can speak it at all.” She hesitated. “Or... could.”

Vaelin straightened. “Are you saying one of your mentors might have done this?”

Elira didn’t answer at first. Her fingers closed around the medallion like it might burn her.

“He knew the risks of tampering with vows. He warned me about this kind of corruption. And yet... if anyone knew how to take someone’s voice of spellcraft, it was him.”

Vaelin studied her face. “If he’s the key to restoring it…”

“Then I have to find him.” She met Vaelin’s gaze, eyes colder now. “And if he did this, I’ll do what must be done.”

He gave her a long look. “You okay?”

She gave a humorless smile. “Ask me again after I dig up the past.”

They camped just outside the glade, where the spell residue didn’t make their bones hum. Elira sat beside the fire, staring into the flames. Vaelin approached and handed her a steaming cup.

“Spiced tea. Not poisoned. Probably.”

She took it without looking up. “Thanks.”

“You said the Thorned Archive were your allies once,” he said carefully. “What happened?”

She hesitated, then spoke, voice low. “I was their student. For a year. They taught me things the guilds wouldn’t touch—dangerous things. But not all of them were monsters. One of them, Marrek... he saw potential in me. He told me the Binding Tongue had a flaw. That a vow bound in pain could still be twisted if the pain was corrupted.”

“And you believed him?”

“I understood him,” she said. “That was enough.”

Vaelin studied her. “If he betrayed you, or this vow…”

She met his eyes, firm now. “Then I’ll break my word to him.”

Silence fell between them, broken only by crackling flame.

Vaelin finally said, “You’re not alone in this. You know that, right?”

Her voice softened. “I know. That’s why it hurts less than it should.”

He didn’t answer. But he shifted closer.

Not touching, not crowding—just there.

And that, for now, was enough.

___________________________________________________

All Parts of the Series

The Broken Word Part 1

The Broken Word Part 2

The Broken Word Part 3

The Broken Word Part 4

The Broken Word Part 5