Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 2: Chapter 28: Emma's Doom

The wind carried Emma’s pronouncement away soon enough, though it seemed to hang in the frozen air as a nearly physical thing.

“It is not that simple,” Vicar said with a touch of exasperation in his voice. “You cannot merely say a thing and have it change reality. You are bound, child.”

“That’s not actually true,” Donnelly said in a chipper voice. I stared at him in confusion, but he just winked at me.

Emma lifted a dark eyebrow, a touch of her usual haughty primness entering her tone. “I can’t just say it, can I? Well then, let us make it a bit more official shall we?”

She looked up to Lady Eanor and the rest of the demigods. “I will swear it. I, Emma of the Westvales, renounce the name Carreon. I will hold no lands or titles in that name, and I will have no children of my blood. I will be the last of the bloodline, the last to wield our magic, the last to bear our curse. I disavow all my ancestors and their deeds, I disown all their wealth and allegiances.”

Eanor looked shocked, perhaps even awed. “Child… you understand what this means? This is a curse unto itself, this thing. Should you renounce your ancestors they will not forget or forgive. Remember that dead is not gone.”

She glanced at Jon Orley.

“I will bear their ire then.” Emma folded her hands behind her back in a militant stance, one she’d likely learned from her sword trainer, planting her feet.

A low, throaty chuckle passed over the circle. It came from Mother Urddha, who cast an appreciative gold-and-green eye on the young noble. “Well this is unexpected! Dear girl, little Eanor speaks truth. If you renounce your House, all the privileges and sacred protections given to this land’s nobility will be shorn from you. You will be at the mercy of all spirits and malisons. As it is, you at least have the certainty of knowing your fate. That is not a thing lightly discarded.”

The demigoddess let those words settle before continuing. “If you do this…” She shrugged. “You will be adrift on tumultuous seas, which shall show you no mercy. Nor will you be rid of your Blood Art — that is part of you forever, and many wolves will find you an enticing feast. There are worse things in this world than devils, and they are always hungry. Your protector knows that well enough.”

She glanced at me. Emma did too, but this time I avoided her gaze.

“It should also be mentioned,” Kaharn growled, “that if you break this oath, this pact, and attempt to claim your titles once again, or pass your blood and magic on, you shall face dire consequence. You shall holds no lands and take no husband.”

Emma nodded slowly. “I understand. Even still, I will swear it. I do swear it.”

“Emma…” I didn’t know what to say. “Are you sure? Do you understand what you’re giving up?”

“Nothing that hasn’t just been a burden,” Emma said, though she looked wistful.

Even still, what she’d just done boggled the mind. She hadn’t just given up titles and privileges, her place among the aristocracy, she’d also given up the magics that protected the nobility from various forces, allowed them to rule over domains riddled with supernatural beings. Opening and closing doors in her castle was a parlor trick, true, but it went hand in hand with far more meaningful boons.

With her family’s magic still in her, spirits of all kinds, many predatory, would be drawn to try to feed on that power. She wouldn’t have any authority to repel them, no certain protection. It would be like if I still had the golden fire in me that attracted dark spirits, but with no preternatural command or sanctified arts to keep them at bay. I’d just be a walking meal.

House Hunting would disown her. She’d never be able to dwell in Liutgarde again, or reclaim the Westvales throne. If Orley decided to claim his revenge anyway, she’d have nowhere to hide.

And her own ancestors would be wrathful. The Carreons were fell in life. How much worse would they be in death?

I’d rarely seen anything so brave, or so sad. It infuriated me that the world had pushed her to this.

“This is madness,” Vicar hissed. “It does not free her of us.”

“That is not correct.” Donnelly grinned at the crowfriar as he threw his own words back at him. “It is House Carreon to which your realm has ownership, and I believe as of now…”

The former thief spread his hands out. “You already have all of them. This child is no longer a Carreon.”

“And you no longer have any business here,” Kaharn rumbled. He glowered through his silver helm at the devil monk.

Vicar looked around at the gathering, lips pressed tight beneath the shadow of his cowl. After a frustrated sigh he grew suddenly calm. “Is this the Choir’s decision, then?”

Eanor clasped her hands together and nodded. “It is. We shall accept the child’s oath. So long as Emma abides by her promise, then Astraea Carreon’s pact with Orkael shall not bind her. She is no longer part of that legacy.”

Her voice took on a different, more dire note. “This shall be her doom: She will no longer be a Lady of Urn, and shall never rule over others, shall pass on no blood and demand no obeisance from mortal kind or the spirits of the land. Her Art will die with her.”

“So mote it be.”

All the assembled immortals spoke together in a thunderous echo. I gasped at the force of that pronouncement as it embedded itself into the world, becoming a real, tangible thing, a part of reality itself.

Vicar’s offhand comment that one could not simply say a thing and have it be so became a lie in that moment, proven false by the power of the Choir. I felt it settle into my own aura, joining the collection of memories and vows there.

Emma only winced, feeling the barest touch of the magic.

The crowfriar waited a moment, and I knew he consulted with the invisible spirit whispering into his ear — the true devil, the Zosite. His master, I realized.

After a beat he bowed his hooded head. “The Iron Tribunal has heard it. I will depart.”

I saw the trap. “Orley.”

He paused, turning his darkened visage toward me. “Pardon?”

I nodded to the tree. “Jon Orley. You said yourself that he’s here by his own choice, for revenge. Were you planning to leave him to get a bit of your own payback?”

Emma looked at me, frowned, then glanced to the tree with the bound Scorchknight.

Vicar held my gaze a moment before scoffing. “Perhaps you aren’t so slow as some like to believe, Hewer.”

“Take your dog back to Hell with you,” I told him coldly. “And don’t come back.”

“Wait.” Emma stepped forward. “Before that… let me talk to him.”

I started to protest. “Emma, I don’t think that’s—”

Emma’s features turned hard, and she spoke with uncompromising authority. “I will speak to my great-grandfather. Please, don’t interfere.”

I studied her face, trying to see what she intended. Then with a nod I agreed. “Fine. I’ll be at hand, though.”

We went over to the tree, while Vicar and the Onsolain looked on from a distance. Donnelly shrugged at me, nonplussed as I was.

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Emma paused in front of the bound lord, and for a while she didn’t seem to know what to say. Then, after a deep breath that misted in the frozen air, she began to speak.

“I’ve spent my whole life hating you,” she said. “Ever since I learned your story, I hated you. I believed you to be a wretch who couldn’t accept defeat, and couldn’t take out your anger on the one who broke your heart, so you made my life a misery. I told myself I’d never be so weak. I made myself cold, tried to emulate my ancestors. I believed you were weak and foolish, and she was strong. Astraea. She won, and you lost, and that’s what I believed to be important.”

Orley didn’t answer. I couldn’t see any change behind that melted iron mask, any sign he heard or felt anything about the girl’s words. I waited, tense and expecting danger. But I did not interrupt.

Emma needed this closure.

She folded her arms, shivering against the cold. I don’t know what power kept her from freezing to death in those arctic temperatures, but suspected it had something to do with the ritual of the place. I doubted it would last long, and knew we didn’t have much time. My magic might protect me, but she’d die in this climate very fast once the gathered power dissipated.

Ignoring her discomfort, Emma continued. “Nothing is ever simple, is it? Grandmother didn’t tell me about the pact with Hell. Now I know all of it, I think I understand something. Have you guessed it too, Jon? Did you know?”

She waited, and to my surprise the fallen lord tilted his head up as though listening more intently.

Emma leaned forward, her face very sad. “It was never about winning, was it? Astraea made her pact with Hell so she could keep you to herself forever. And when all her duties were done and her family secure, she tried to join you. I bet they didn’t let her, did they?”

I felt Vicar’s eyes on us, angry and scornful. I silently dared him to interrupt.

“Don’t you understand, great-grandfather?” Emma searched the iron visage of the fallen lord. “She was just as weak and foolish as you in her own way. Even at the very end, she loved you.”

I looked from Emma to her ancestor, letting those horrible words sink in. Why would anyone do that to someone they loved? I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t accept it. The idea sickened me, but I kept my silence. This wasn’t my moment.

“I pity you both.” Emma stood straight again. “And I will not become either of you. I am done fighting your war.”

Orley’s helmed head slumped. I couldn’t be certain, but I swear he became… dimmer.

Emma tilted her head toward me. “Release him.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

She nodded. “Please.”

Expecting the worst but knowing this needed resolution, I stepped forward and placed my hand on the side of the tree. A crackling sound filled the air and the skeletal branches peeled apart. The tree did not vanish, but when I pulled my hand back I held my axe.

It had changed. The elf-bronze head remained the same, but the uncarved length of oak that made up the handle had become even more twisted, entwining around the metal in a more organic fashion. It had grown longer, too.

Orley slumped forward, then collapsed to his knees as the trunk of the Executioner’s Tree released him. He knelt there a moment, reeking of sulfur and hot iron. Then, slowly, with the grating peel of bending metal, he stood to his full, impressive height.

I tensed, clutching my axe tight, ready for trouble. But Orley only stared down at his descendent, any emotions he might have felt unreadable behind the warped visor of his helm.

Emma tilted her chin up, defiant. “I am not her. I am not yours. I am my own.”

Even still, the Scorchknight said nothing. I saw only blackness through the narrow, twisted slits of the visor. I could hear a shallow breathing, slow and laborious like a plague victim.

Emma shocked us all once more. “I will make this oath as well; one day, I will free you from Hell.”

“That is enough!” Vicar swept forward in a flurry of frayed robes. “This farce has gone on long enough. He is ours, and will remain so.”

I stepped in his path, glaring down at him. Unlike the Onsolain, he was shorter than me.

“Try anything,” I said quietly as I put my axe between us, “and you’ll regret it. I don’t know if aureflame will burn you so badly as it would a demon, Kross… do you want to find out?”

He glowered at me with his burning coal eyes, all the aloof airs and barbed humor gone from him. He leaned forward, speaking in a low, hateful voice.

“This changes nothing. We will still have her… she has her whole life to slip up, and we can be very patient.”

“She will disappoint you,” I said. “She’s too clever by half, and isn’t impressed by all your theatrics.”

His cracked, blistered lips split in a cruel grin, showing gray teeth. “It comforts you, doesn’t it? To see a child born of such wicked blood show such courage, such nobility? You must like the idea that any child you might have had would defy their darker aspect, that their very existence might not have been profane.”

He let those words hang. “Do not delude yourself.”

Seeing the horror that must have shown on my face, for I felt it, he let out a harsh, barking laugh. “Yes! I know. Back in the chapel you did not tell me your true sin, Alken Hewer. You painted over it with self indulgent whining about how difficult your life has been, all the great circumstances beyond your control… but my realm knows you.”

He held out his hand and dropped something. Instinctively I caught it. When I opened my hand and saw what was in it, it felt like the world fell out from under me. I barely heard his next words.

“We know what happened during your tenure with the Alder Table,” Vicar crooned. “My masters knew our paths might cross when I began my work in this land. I was briefed thoroughly on your history. We know all of it.”

“This is a trick,” I whispered in a hoarse voice. “A lie.”

“Believe what you will,” Vicar told me. “But I ask you this — where do you believe all the sinners and monsters you smite with that sacred fire go?”

In my hand I held a scarred, burnt medallion bearing the image of a golden tree ringed in a silver sun. A knight’s mark. My mark, once. Despite my attempt at denial, I knew in my bones it was the same medallion I’d lost in Seydis ten years before.

Not lost. I’d given it away.

“How did you get this?” I demanded, stepping forward. I tried to grab the crowfriar by his robe but he glided out of my reach.

“I think you can guess,” Vicar cackled as he turned his back. He pointed at the medallion. “Your world is filled with wounds, Alken Hewer. A battered, broken place aged well past its time. Things have a tendency to slip through the cracks… and we catch them. Think on that.”

The wind had picked up, sending flurries of snow over the circle. Already the growing storm had obscured the pillars, Donnelly, and the Onsolain. Jon Orley had gone, faded away like a wraith. I distantly heard Emma’s voice calling out for me.

We were being taken back. Vicar stepped into the storm, his form becoming hazy.

“Wait!” I stepped forward. “Tell me how you got this, you bastard!”

He laughed. His voice had grown very distant.

I pushed forward, again trying to grab at him, but I only grasped frozen water and air. Then it all faded away.

I spent some time lost in a torrent of snow and wind. Then, suddenly, it all cleared. I stood on a desolate shore overlooking the frozen sea I’d glimpsed through the debate with Vicar. Great hills of ice and depthless, black water spread out to the far horizon. I’d rarely seen anything so unsettlingly bleak.

Perhaps it is true, that some of the worst hells are made of ice and water rather than fire and iron.

“You did well in this,” a soft voice said. Lady Eanor stood at my side, a towering, regal figure perfectly at home on the frozen shore. Somehow she made the whole scene look less bleak, like a missing piece of a tapestry.

I stared down at the medallion, lost in my own thoughts for a long moment. “Did I? Emma did the hard part. I barely did anything except listen to stories.”

“She would never have had the chance without you,” the Onsolain said. “Take some pride in that.”

Her eyes fell down to the medallion, and she let out a small sound of heartfelt sympathy. “Ah, my dear champion. That is a cruel thing. There is a reason my queen disavowed the Infernal Ones.”

A shadow fell over her surreal beauty. “Many reasons.”

“Is what he said really true?” I asked. “Are the agents of Hell allowed to operate freely in Urn again?”

With a troubled look, Eanor nodded. “Few are pleased by it… but I think some of the Choir secretly welcome this change. Orkael once served the First Realm most faithfully, though that was long ago and a very different time. With this new era of chaos and uncertainty, some long for an uncompromising law. They forget so easily just how unfeeling iron can be.”

She looked down at me then, clasping bejeweled hands together. “You must be vigilant, Alken Hewer. This shall not be the last time you will encounter the crowfriars, and now they will know and be cautious of you.”

I took that warning to heart. “Thank you. I can’t help but wonder though.”

Tearing my eyes from the damaged medallion, I met the Onsolain’s shining gaze. “Did you and Nath plot this together? Getting me involved? I know you two are estranged, but I can’t imagine you didn’t have anything to do with your twin cooperating with the Choir.”

Eanor lifted her chin, then looked out over the sea. With a sigh, she shook her head. “My sister tells me nothing without a trace of poison, and I have long learned not to trust her. In this, she acted of her own volition… perhaps she believed her actions to be for some noble purpose, whatever twisted means she employed to accomplish it. That has always been her way — to veil every deed in a twisted bramble, so you can discern neither motive or intent. There is a very good reason why she gravitated toward the Briar.”

She lifted her head toward some distant point, as though hearing a far away sound. “Our time is done. I will leave you with this, Alken — we shall not forget this service. We forget none of your work, but in this there is no mask of blood to sully the cause. You put faith where it was needed. In that, you have my support.”

“Just yours?” I asked wryly.

“No doubt many will be watching Emma for signs of corruption. With her fate untethered, who can say what she will become? But I shall have faith, for your sake and for hers.”

It was as much as I could have asked. I bowed to her. “Thank you, my lady.”

The wind picked up once more, hazing the world in white. I knew I would be pulled back soon, to the castle and all that would come after this night. Eanor’s eyes pierced that gloom, fixing on the medallion.

“You should not keep that thing. It is a treacherous gift, best left in the past.”

Before I could reply, the world turned to white void. Even still, I clutched the medallion tightly.