The Broken Word – Part 3

The route to the Thorned Archive’s remnants lay through the Hollowwood—a forest not mapped by any cartographer still in possession of their sanity. Trees grew in spirals, bark blackened with old warding runes, and fog clung low to the mossy ground like breath that wouldn’t leave.

“Charming place,” Vaelin muttered, blade drawn and eyes sharp.

Elira didn’t smile. Her focus was pinned ahead, where thin stone obelisks jutted up like broken teeth, each carved with sigils from an older age. Her grip on the medallion hadn’t loosened since they’d left the Oathkeeper’s Grave.

“He used to meet me here,” she said quietly. “Said the fog kept ‘lesser minds’ away.”

“I’m already offended,” Vaelin said. “We’ve only just arrived.”

As they walked, Elira remembered…

She was younger, barely out of her first binding circle, hair shorter and wild with impatience. Marrek had spoken in riddles. Always cloaked in his tattered Archivist robes, eyes sunken from sleepless years and forbidden spellcraft. But he’d seen her. Seen through her.

“You want to understand the Binding Tongue?” he once asked her. “Then stop thinking of it as language. Think of it as memory given structure. The tongue doesn’t speak—it remembers. It holds pain like clay and shapes it into form.”

It was beautiful. Terrible.

She hadn’t realized, then, that every truth Marrek gave her came with a price.

They found the ruin just past a split tree shaped like a skeletal hand. Black stone buildings lay half-swallowed by vines and ash. The main hall, once a library of unspoken oaths, stood cracked and hollowed out. But magic lingered in the stone.

Vaelin squinted at the carvings near the door. “These runes are… familiar.”

Elira nodded. “Because they’re binding glyphs. Early prototypes of the Tongue. The Archive was experimenting with vow-stabilization long before the guilds dared to.”

They stepped inside.

The silence was oppressive. Dust motes hung in shafts of cold light. Shelves lined the walls—some collapsed, others scorched. Piles of bound tomes lay half-buried in debris. And in the far corner, an old blood circle—faded but intact.

Then a voice echoed from the dark:

“Elira. You always return when the world starts to burn.”

He stepped from the shadows like a ghost from an unfinished chapter.

Older now. Thin to the point of gaunt, hair streaked silver, eyes bright with fanatic clarity. He leaned on a carved staff of bonewood, the same he’d carried years ago. Its tip bled a slow trickle of ink-like shadow.

Vaelin moved between them instantly.

“Friend of yours?” he said, low.

Marrek smiled. “Oh, I taught her to reshape the world. What did you teach her? Sword tricks?”

“Mostly how not to die,” Vaelin said flatly.

Elira stepped forward. “Marrek. You stole my voice.”

He tilted his head. “I unbound it. Not quite the same. You were too dangerous, Elira. You could undo what should never be questioned.”

She clenched her fists. “You knew what that voice was for. That without it, the clan vow would collapse. People are already turning on each other.”

“Let them,” Marrek whispered, stepping closer. “A world built on blood oaths deserves to bleed. The Binding Tongue was never meant to serve. It was meant to free. I tried to teach you that.”

Elira’s voice was a growl. “You tried to use me.”

“And you let me.” His smile twisted. “So if you want your voice back… you’ll do the same again.”

Marrek offered a relic: a shard of vow-crystal etched with reversed glyphs—an anchor of corrupted memory.

“This will return your voice,” he said. “But you’ll owe me a word.”

Elira stiffened. “A word?”

“Not spoken,” Marrek said. “Given. A name. One I may call upon later. You won’t know when.”

Vaelin stepped forward, blade half-raised. “That’s not a deal. That’s a trap.”

Marrek didn’t blink. “It’s a choice.”

Elira turned away, torn. She walked to the blood circle in the center of the floor and stared into the dust—memories folding in on themselves like paper.

“This is how you’ve always worked,” she said finally. “With truth wrapped in knives.”

Marrek said nothing. Just watched her.

Then Elira turned to Vaelin.

“What would you do?” she asked.

He blinked. “Me?”

“You always see the angles I miss. If you were me… would you take the risk?”

Vaelin looked at her. Really looked.

And said, softly, “If it was the only way to stop something worse—yes. But I’d want to be the one holding the blade if that trust was betrayed.”

A pause. Then she nodded. “Then stay close.”

She stepped into the circle and took the relic.

The moment Elira touched it, her lungs seized.

She collapsed to her knees, eyes wide, as memory uncoiled within her. The words of the Binding Tongue raced up her throat—not just spells, but names, pain, promises, lives once etched into her soul.

Vaelin rushed to her, but didn’t touch her—he remembered what happened last time.

Finally, she exhaled.

The air shimmered as her voice returned—not with a sound, but with a note of magic, like a string plucked from beyond the veil.

“I have it,” she breathed. “But it’s different. It… remembers him now. He’s part of it.”

She looked at Marrek.

“I’ll repay the word,” she said coldly. “But on my terms.”

Marrek just bowed. “As you will. But beware the price of oath-debt. You carry a thorn now.”

They camped outside the ruin, the forest eerily calm.

Vaelin sat near Elira again, but this time, he didn’t wait for her to speak.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I feel like myself again. But there’s something else riding inside the voice now. Like… a shadow beneath every syllable.”

“You’ll master it,” he said.

She turned to him. “You’re that sure?”

He gave her a look. “I’ve seen you bend spells into lightning and silence a banshee mid-scream. You’ve got this.”

She smiled, genuinely. “You always say the right thing.”

“I’m due for a few wrong ones soon,” he murmured, gaze lingering just a little too long.

But neither of them moved away.

___________________________________________________

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