Oath of the Broken Sword Chapter 28

Kaela’s words hung in the tavern’s smoky air like a blade waiting to fall. *A common problem.* Marshall Marcus—the man who’d taught me how to saddle a dragon, who’d praised my first clumsy attempts at channeling Source Runes—now saw me as a component or an obstacle. A thing to be used or broken.

“He sent purifiers?” I asked, my voice low. The ale she’d pushed toward me remained untouched. My stomach was a knot of cold dread. “Here? To Wave-Surge Port?”

“They will be here by dawn,” Kaela said, her frost-chip eyes scanning the crowd with detached efficiency. “The Port’s neutrality is a convenient fiction. Marcus’s agents are everywhere, and so are the Sect’s. Your display on the sea painted a brilliant target on your back.” She leaned forward, the shadows of the booth deepening around us. “You have a choice, Elia. You can run, and they will hunt you. Or you can fight back with me.”

*Fight back.* The words echoed the fevered dreams of the Echo stirring within me. Images of shattered thrones and crystalizing bodies flashed behind my eyes. *Is this the beginning of that path?

* I thought desperately toward Silvershine, still circling high above the city.

Her mind brushed mine, a silken thread of calm amidst the chaos. *The Marshal seeks to forge a god with stolen fire. The path ahead is woven with betrayal, little spark. But the noble one speaks true. Running is no longer an option.*

“Why?” I asked Kaela, my gaze locked on hers. “You’re a scion of the seven families. Your future is with the Empire, with Marcus.”

A flicker of something unreadable—pain, perhaps, or defiance—crossed her face. “My future is what I make it. The Empire Marcus envisions is a machine sacrifice, one that grinds the weak into dust to elevate the powerful. It is… inelegant.” She paused, choosing her words with the precision of a duelist. “Furthermore, he has made an error. He believes my loyalty can be bought with status. He does not comprehend that some of us still hold to the old vows. The ones we swore to protect the people, not the throne.”

The old vows. The oath of the Sky Knights, a pledge I’d recited with numb lips on my first day. It felt like a lifetime ago.

“What do you propose?” I asked.

“We find the ‘Silver-Tongue’ Anya mentioned. He’s a broker, but his real value is his connection to the Shattered Oath League. They have resources, safe houses. They are the only faction actively opposing both Marcus and the Sect.”

“Revolutionaries,” I murmured, thinking of the whispers I’d heard in the Corps—idealists and traitors, depending on who was telling the story.

“Realists,” Kaela corrected. “They see the tide rising. They just plan to build a better ark than Marcus’s dreadnought.” She stood abruptly, tossing a few coins onto the table. “We can’t stay here. This place will be watched.”

We slipped out of the Gilded Kraken into the labyrinthine underbelly of Wave-Surge Port. The city was a vertical maze, a symphony of creaking rope bridges and the ozone hum of magical lifts carrying goods and shady figures up the towering sea stacks. Kaela moved with an assassin’s grace, leading me through narrow alleys stinking of brine and sorcery, her hand never far from the hilt of her sword.

*She knows this city,* I thought, a fresh wave of suspicion rising. *A noble heiress, familiar with the worst corners of the Free Cities?

*

*Do not underestimate her,* Silvershine’s voice cautioned in my mind. *Her path has been longer and darker than you know. The scars are merely hidden.*

We finally stopped before a nond door tucked beneath a groaning lift mechanism. Kaela knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice more. The door swung inward on silent hinges, revealing a dimly lit chamber that smelled of old paper and charged aether.

The man inside was slender, dressed in impeccably tailored but simple clothes. His eyes were the color of tarnished silver, and a faint, knowing smile played on his lips. “Lady Kaela,” he said, his voice smooth as oiled silk. “And the storm-herald herself. Elia of the Borderlands. Or should I say, Elia of the Shattered God? Please, come in. I am called Silver-Tongue.”

The room was a conspiracy theorist’s dream. Maps of the empire were pinned to the walls, dotted with colored pins and scrawled annotations. Scrolls and crystal orbs lay scattered across a large central table.

“You know who I am,” I stated, the Echo within me stirring warily at his words.

“It is my business to know things,” Silver-Tongue said, gesturing for us to sit. “The question is, what do *you* know? And what do you plan to do with it?”

Kaela took the lead. “Marcus’s purifiers are en route. We need passage to the Shattered Oath’s main enclave. And we need it tonight.”

“Direct. I appreciate that.” Silver-Tongue steepled his fingers. “Passage is possible. But the League will demand something in return. A show of faith.”

“What kind of faith?” I asked, my guard up.

“A simple task. There is a… package… currently in the possession of a certain Master Volkan, of the Alchemists’ Guild. He is, as we speak, entertaining bids for it. From the Empire, and from the Twilight Sect. We would prefer it did not fall into either set of hands.”

“Volkan?” I knew the name from barracks rumors. A genius without morals, who would sell a plague to one city and the cure to its.

“The very same. He operates a floating laboratory-dirigible, the *Aetherium*, moored at the top-level docks. The package is a small, sealed crystal cylinder. Retrieve it, and I will have a skimmer waiting to take you to the League.”

Kaela’s eyes met mine. It was a trap, or a test. Possibly both. But what choice did we have?

“We’ll do it,” I said before I could second-guess myself.

“Excellent.” Silver-Tongue’s smile widened. “A word of caution. Volkan’s security is… inventive. And he is not above using his clients against each other. I suspect you may not be the only team sent to acquire this item tonight.”

An hour later, Kaela and I were scaling the rusted iron ladder that led to the highest docking spire. The *Aetherium* hung in the air before us, a grotesque fusion of polished brass, glowing glass, and weeping copper pipes, looking less like a ship and more like a distillery gone mad. Silvershine’s presence was a distant comfort;

she couldn’t approach the heavily warded spires without triggering alarms.

“This is a fool’s errand,” I muttered, my fingers slipping on a slick rung.

“Most worthwhile endeavors are,” Kaela replied from above me, not even breathing heavily. “The trick is to be the smarter fool.”

We slipped onto the main deck, which was deserted save for the gentle hiss of steam. The entrance to the main laboratory was a circular hatch. Kaela produced a set of fine tools and went to work on the lock, her movements impossibly deft.

“Where did a noble learn to pick locks?” I whispered.

“A lady must have her hobbies,” she said without looking up. The lock clicked. “After you.”

Inside, the air was thick with chemical smells and the low hum of powerful magic. The corridor was lined with cages containing… things. hybrids of beast and machine, their eyes glowing with pained intelligence. I felt a wave of nausea.

*Abominations,* Silvershine’s thought was a snarl of disgust. *This one tampers with the laws of life itself.*

We moved deeper, following Silver-Tongue’s directions. The central laboratory was a cavernous space dominated by bubbling glass contraptions. And there, on a central pedestal, sat the crystal cylinder, pulsing with a soft inner light.

We weren’t alone.

Two figures stood opposite the pedestal. One was a hulking brute in Imperial stormtrooper armor, his face obscured by a helmet. The other was slim, clad in the dark, rune-stitched robes of the Twilight Sect. A woman. The same one from the cutter.

“The asset,” the stormtrooper growled, his voice synthetic through his helm’s vocoder. “Stand down, traitors. The package is Imperial property.”

The Sect woman laughed, a sound like breaking glass. “Nothing belongs to the Empire anymore. It belongs to the Coming Void.” Her eyes, pools of shifting darkness, settled on me. “And you, little god-shard. You will come with us. The Master is eager to meet you.”

Kaela didn’t hesitate. Her sword was in her hand in a flash of steel. “The package is ours.”

What followed was a whirlwind of violence. The stormtrooper charged me, his armored fist crackling with energy. I barely dodged, raw Source energy flaring instinctively around my hands. I couldn’t risk another massive discharge like on the ship;

I was still drained. I had to be precise.

Across the room, Kaela was a blur, her sword clashing against dark tendrils of magic summoned by the Sect woman. They were perfectly matched—Kaela’s flawless technique against the woman’s unpredictable, vicious power.

I ducked under another crushing blow from the stormtrooper and slammed my palm, charged with searing heat, into the seam armor at the knee joint. He roared in pain and stumbled. I didn’t let up, driving a shard of solidified air—a basic combat rune—into his helmet’s viewport. He staggered back, clutching his face.

A scream tore through the lab. I turned to see Kaela’s blade buried in the Sect woman’s shoulder. But the woman was smiling, her dark blood sizzling on the floor. “A scratch,” she hissed. “You cannot kill the faith!”

At that moment, the entire *Aetherium* shuddered violently. Alarms blared. From the viewports, I saw magical projectiles streaking through the night sky—another ship was attacking the dirigible.

“Volkan’s playing all sides against each other!” I yelled at Kaela.

“The package! Now!” she shouted back, yanking her sword free.

I lunged for the pedestal, my fingers closing around the cool crystal cylinder. The moment I touched it, a jolt of energy shot up my arm—a familiar, ancient power. The Echo inside me sang in recognition.

The Sect woman saw my reaction. Her eyes widened in triumph. “You see? You feel it! It calls to you!” She ignored her wound and began chanting, her hands weaving a complex pattern in the air. A portal of swirling darkness began to open behind her.

“She’s trying to escape with it!” the stormtrooper bellowed, recovering and aiming a heavy rifle at me.

“Elia, down!” Kaela screamed.

I dropped to the floor as a beam of concentrated energy shot over my head, striking the Sect woman square in the chest. She gasped, her chant breaking, the unstable portal collapsing in on itself with a sound like a dying star. She was flung back into her own dissolving magic and vanished.

In the resulting silence, broken only by the sirens and the groaning of the wounded ship, the stormtrooper turned his rifle toward me. But Kaela was faster. Her sword flickered out, and the rifle’s barrel was sheared clean off.

“The purifiers are here,” she said to him, her voice cold as death. “Tell Marcus that Elia is under my protection now. And if he wants a war, he will have one.”

The stormtrooper hesitated, then, recognizing the futility of his situation, turned and fled through a secondary hatch.

I got to my feet, the crystal cylinder clutched tightly in my hand. It felt… important. Destined.

Kaela wiped her blade clean on her leathers. “We need to go. That skimmer won’t wait forever.”

As we fled the shuddering *Aetherium*, the cylinder warm against my skin, I knew nothing would be the same. The lines were drawn. Marcus, the Sect, the Shattered Oath… and me, a spark caught in the middle, holding a secret that felt heavier than the world. The path to the broken throne had begun.