Oath of the Broken Sword Chapter 5

The wind screamed like a living thing, clawing at my flight leathers as I stood on the edge of the Wind-Shear Spire. The world below was a dizzying tapestry of clouds clinging to jagged peaks. My stomach churned, a mix of vertigo and the lingering dread from last night. The memory of Aeliza’s terrified whisper—*Your blood cannot be known*—was a cold knot in my gut, tighter than any harness strap.

Kaela stood a few yards away, a study in focused calm. She adjusted the rigging on a massive juvenile Storm-wing with an effortless precision that made my own fumbling attempts feel pathetic. She didn’t glance my way. Our alliance, forged in soapy water and shared punishment, seemed as fragile as the ice forming on the rock spire.

“First rule of the sky, recruits!” bellowed Lieutenant Renn, his voice cutting through the gale. His own scarred bronze drake, Ignis, shifted its weight, its tail whipping dangerously close to a pair of green recruits. “The sky doesn’t care about your bloodline or your title. It only cares if you can stay on. Today, you learn to stick.”

Our mounts weren’t the magnificent, fully-bonded dragons of the senior knights. They were adolescent Drakes—all muscle, instinct, and rebellion. Mine was a sleek, blue-scaled creature named Tempest, who seemed to regard me with pure contempt. Her mind, when I brushed against it, was a whirlwind of raw hunger and impatience.

“You will pair up!” Renn continued. “One rider, one anchor. The anchor’s job is to be a dead weight, simulating combat conditions. Elia, you’re with Kaela. You ride first.”

My heart plummeted. Of course. Kaela’s eyes finally met mine, a flicker of unreadable emotion—oyance?

Resignation?

—before she nodded curtly. She secured her harness to a ring on the ledge, looping the other end to my own.

“Don’t do anything stupid, border-rat,” she muttered as I clumsily hauled myself onto Tempest’s back. The dragon beneath me shuddered, a low growl rumbling in her chest.

“I’ll try not to embarrass you too much, *my lady*,” I shot back, gripping the saddle horn until my knuckles turned white.

“Launch!”

Tempest needed no further urging. She leapt from the spire with a powerful thrust of her hind legs. The world dropped away in a stomach-lurching plunge. Wind tore the breath from my lungs. I clung on, my body slamming against the saddle as Tempest’s wings snapped open, catching the air with a jarring crack. Behind me, I felt the jerk of the tether as Kaela’s weight stabilized us.

“Bank left!” Kaela’s command was sharp in my ear, barely audible over the roar. “Feel the currents, Elia! Don’t just hang on!”

I tried. I leaned, urging Tempest with my mind and body. For a terrifying second, we tilted sharply, the horizon spinning. Kaela’s weight on the tether corrected us, pulling us level.

“You’re fighting her!” she yelled. “You and the dragon are one! Stop thinking and *feel*!”

Her words sparked a memory of Silvershine’s presence—a calm, vast intelligence. I closed my eyes for a heartbeat, ignoring the vertigo. Instead of resisting Tempest’s raw energy, I tried to sink into it, to feel the push and pull of the wind as she did. The tension in the reins eased slightly. Tempest’s frantic wingbeats smoothed into powerful, rhythmic strokes.

A ghost of a connection flickered. Not the I shared with Silvershine, but a thread of understanding. *Hunt. Fly. Free.*

We soared higher, weaving between the stone fingers of the spires. For a few glorious moments, the fear receded, replaced by a wild, exhilarating joy. This was power. This was freedom.

It was short-lived.

“Incoming drill!” Renn’s voice roared from a relay crystal mounted on the saddle. “Simulated enemy harpy attack from the sunward side! Evade!”

Shadows darted above us. Senior knights on their Drakes, playing the part of screeching harpies, dove towards us. Tempest panicked, rolling violently to evade a mock attack. The harness bit into my shoulders. I lost my grip on the thread of connection.

“Elia, dive!” Kaela screamed.

I pulled hard on the reins. Tempest, confused by my sudden, clumsy command, twisted instead. The tether connecting us to Kaela snapped taut, then tangled around Tempest’s hind leg.

The world became a chaotic whirl. We were spinning, falling out of formation. Kaela, anchored to the ledge far below, was being whipped through the air like a pendulum. I heard her cry of shock and pain.

Panic seized me. *My fault.* I yanked and pulled, but only made the tangle worse. Tempest roared in frustration and fear.

Then, a different presence brushed my mind. Cold, sharp, and ancient. *Silvershine.*

*Release the anchor.*

The thought was clear, an imperative that brooked no argument. It wasn’t a suggestion;

it was a survival instinct handed down from a thousand years of aerial combat.

“I can’t!” I screamed into the wind. “She’ll fall!”

*The weight will kill you both. Release it. Now.*

Below, I saw Kaela’s face, pale and determined, as she was slammed against a rock face. Her hand was fumbling for a knife at her belt—to cut herself free. To save me by sacrificing her own chance.

Something snapped inside me. Not the tether. Something deeper. A surge of heat erupted from my core, the same heat I’d felt when my blood hit the dragon feed. Time seemed to slow. The chaotic spin of the world resolved into individual droplets of water, each feather on the attacking Drakes’ wings, the grimace of pain on Kaela’s face. I could see the tangled mess of the tether not as a knot, but as a series of intersecting lines. A path. A solution.

My hands moved without conscious thought. I didn’t pull the reins. I gave them a precise, minimal flick, aligning Tempest’s spin just so. At the exact apex of our rotation, the tension on the tether slackened for a fraction of a second. I slammed the release mechanism on my harness.

The tether snapped free. Kaela, suddenly weightless, swung in a wide, controlled arc back towards the safety of the spire ledge.

Tempest and I plummeted.

The world rushed up. The heat in my veins vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by a bone-deep cold and a searing pain behind my eyes. My vision swam, memories flickering—a woman singing a song in a language I’d never heard, the sight of mountains breaking apart under a sky filled with fire. The taste of copper filled my mouth.

I felt a vast wing block out the sun. A silver claw, gentle as a falling leaf, closed around Tempest and me, arresting our fall. Silvershine’s mind enveloped mine, a silent, stern presence that pushed the chaotic visions away.

We landed softly on a secluded lower ledge, hidden from the main training area. Tempest shivered and crouched, cowed by dragon’s proximity. I slid from the saddle, my legs buckling beneath me. I collapsed against the cold stone, gasping.

Silvershine loomed over me, her silver scales shimmering with an inner light. Her great head lowered, one immense, intelligent eye fixing on me.

*What you felt was a fragment of the truth,* her voice echoed in my mind, weary and heavy. *The temporal distortion. The memory bleed. It is the price of the blood that runs in your veins, child of the Shattered God.*

“What… what am I?” I whispered, the words scraping my throat raw.

*You are a key,* she replied, her gaze unwavering. *A key to a lock that should remain closed. The God-Forging Project seeks not to build anew, but to resurrect a power that broke this world. Your blood is the catalyst. And Marshal Marcus knows it.* She paused, and a new wave of images flooded my mind—not chaotic memories, but a clear, horrifying vision: Marcus, in a dark chamber, standing over a map of the continent, his finger resting on the Southern Shattered Isles. The heart of the ancient god’s prison.

*The reconnaissance mission to the Shattered Isles in three days’ time,* Silvershine’s thought was a grim finality. *It is no routine patrol. It is the first step. And you, Elia, are the intended sacrifice.*

Sacrifice.

This word is like a brand, seared into my soul. The huge figure of Silverlight vanished into the mist, leaving me alone standing in the howling mountain wind, my whole body icy cold.

I'm no hero, no chosen one. I'm just... a consumable. A more advanced one with a specific purpose. Just like those new recruits hauled away in the "Scale-Scraping Yard" and labeled as "acceptable losses".

It turns out that from the very first day I stepped into the Celestial Spire, my fate was already sealed. Everything I have experienced - the training, the selection, and the bond with the dragon - was all just to fatten me up, so that at the right moment, I could be sent to the altar.

Despair, like a black tide, submerged my senses. Those initial fears I thought had been overcome now returned with even greater ferocity. My thoughts uncontrollably plunged into that stone cave where the nightmare began, the place where I first realized that in this place, "survival" itself was a luxury...