Oath of the Broken Sword Chapter 8

My voice was swallowed by the cavern’s oppressive roar. “Silvershine!”

The great dragon’s head whipped toward me, those mercury eyes now vortexes of violet madness. Her psychic agony was a physical weight, pressing the air from my lungs. I felt Kaela tense beside me, her hand instinctively going to her sword hilt.

*Shattered blood… thief…* The thought slammed into my mind, raw and broken.

“We are not your enemies!” I pushed back, pouring every ounce of the strange calm I’d felt on the ledge into the thought. *The mist lies!

Remember the stillness. Remember the stars we saw.* I didn’t know where the words came from, only that they felt true.

Silvershine snarled, a sound that cracked the stone at our feet. Her tail lashed out, forcing Kaela and me to dive in opposite directions. I rolled, coming up coughing in the thick, oily mist.

“Elia, this is impossible!” Kaela shouted from behind a shattered stalagmite. “We can’t reason with this!”

“We have to try! The source is blocked, but the madness is in her mind now!” I focused on Silvershine again, ignoring the terror clawing up my throat. I reached for the memory of our first, fleeting connection—the vast, cold intelligence, the loneliness that mirrored my own. *You showed me a fragment of your past. Let me help you with your present.*

A wing, large enough to cast a shadow over the entire cavern, swept down toward me. I braced for the impact, but it stopped a hair’s breadth from my head. The dragon shuddered, a low, pained rumble echoing in her chest. The violet fire in her eyes flickered.

*…The silence… after the song…* Her thought was a whisper now, full of ancient grief.

“That’s it,” I murmured, stepping closer, my hand outstretched, not to touch her, but as a pledge. “Find the silence again. Push the whispers out.”

For a long, heart-stopping moment, she remained frozen, a statue of conflicted power. Then, with a final, shuddering exhale that stirred the mist into ghostly shapes, the violent purple light in her eyes receded, fading back to their familiar, luminous silver. She lowered her massive head until her snout was level with me. The heat in my veins flared, not as pain, but as a warm, thrumming connection.

*Child of paradox,* her voice, clear and weary, resonated in my mind. *You carry a burden you do not yet understand. The oath-breaker’s scent is on this mist. They seek to silence the echoes of the past.*

Before I could ask what she meant, a sharp whistle cut through the cavern. Lieutenant Renn stood at the raised portcullis, his armor scorched, Ignis snarling behind him. His eyes widened marginally at the sight of the placated ancient dragon, but his voice was all business. “The riot is contained. Marshal Marcus demands a debrief. Now.”

The walk back to the Marshal’s tower was a blur of exhaustion and lingering adrenaline. Kaela was silent, her gaze burning a hole in the side of my head. I knew what was coming.

Marshal Marcus’s office was Spartan, smelling of oiled leather and cold stone. Maps of the empire and beyond were pinned to the walls, dotted with colored markers. He stood by the large window, overlooking the now-quiet Nesting Crags, his back to us.

“Report,” he commanded without turning.

Kaela stepped forward, her voice crisp and formal. She detailed the riot, our decision to take the ledge, the encounter with the juvenile drake, and our entry into Silvershine’s roost. She was, clinical, listing facts like items on an inventory sheet. She omitted only one thing: how I had calmed the young drake.

When she finished, the Marshal turned. His iron-grey eyes pinned me. “And you, Cadet Elia? Is this account accurate?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, my throat dry.

“Cadet Kaela mentioned you were… instrumental in pacifying the ancient one. Explain.”

I swallowed. “I… I can’t explain it, sir. I just… reached out to her. With my mind. She recognized me from a previous… encounter.”

He studied me, his expression unreadable. “A latent psionic talent. Rare. Unpredictable.” He walked to his desk and picked up a sealed scroll with a familiar serpent-and-sun seal—the sigil of the Imperial Chancellor, Rodrigo. “This changes nothing. The Final Selection Trials begin in three days. Your performance there will determine your future in this order. Your… unusual methods will be judged alongside your martial prowess. Dismissed.”

We turned to leave, but his voice stopped me at the door. “Cadet Elia. The bloodline you carry is a double-edged sword. Do not mistake a moment of connection for control. Dragons have a long memory for insults, and ancient ones longer still.”

The words chilled me more than the mountain wind outside.

***

The three days passed in a frantic whirlwind of brutal training. The incident with Silvershine had painted a target on my back. The noble-born cadets, who had always viewed me as a stray, now looked at me with a mixture of fear and resentment. Kaela, however, was different. She cornered me after a grueling swordsmanship drill.

“What you did on the ledge, and in the cavern,” she said, wiping sweat from her brow, her tone direct. “That wasn’t standard psionics. Psionics require focus, gestures. You just… felt

We were alone in the equipment yard. I saw no point in lying. “I don’t know what it is,” I admitted, leaning against a practice dummy. “It’s like a heat in my blood. It responds to dragons. To Silvershine, most of all.”

She nodded slowly, a calculating look in her eyes. “My family’s archives speak of such things. From a time before the Empire. They called it the ‘Dragon-Speaker’s Gift.’ It was said to be a mark of the old bloodlines. The broken ones.” She fixed me with a stare. “Who are you really, Elia?”

“An orphan from a border village,” I said, the practiced lie tasting bitter. “That’s all I know.”

She didn’t press further, but a new understanding passed between us. We were no longer just rivals;

we were holders of dangerous secrets.

The day of the Final Selection arrived. The main training ground had been transformed into a grand arena. Bleachers were filled with spectators—nobles, officers, and, most intimidatingly, the severe-looking patriarchs and matriarchs of the Seven Elector Families. Their judging eyes felt heavier than any armor.

Marshal Marcus stood in the center. “The rules are simple,” his voice boomed across the grounds. “Single elimination combat. Magic, weapons, and bonded drakes are permitted. Victory is achieved by surrender or incapacitation. The final champion will be granted a commission as a full Sky Knight. Begin!”

The fights were a blur of clashing steel and erupting elemental magic. I saw cadets I’d trained with for months fall to brutal blows or cunning tactical spells. My own fights were a strange mix of desperation and instinct. My swordsmanship, though improved, was still rough compared to the aristocracy -bred cadets. But when an opponent’s drake lunged, the heat in my blood would surge, and I’d send a pulse of calming energy that made the creature hesitate for a crucial second. It was I advanced, match after match, the whispers in the crowd growing louder with each victory.

Kaela’s path was a masterclass in precision and power. She moved like lightning, her sword a blur, her fire spells perfectly timed to corral opponents without causing fatal injury. She made it look effortless.

Finally, only we two remained in the center of the scarred arena. The sun was high, glinting off our sweat-soaked armor.

“I knew it would be you,” she said, a faint, respectful smile touching her lips. “No holding back, border rat. Show me everything.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, highborn,” I shot back, a strange thrill mixing with my fear.

The fight was unlike any I’d ever experienced. It was a dance of violence and grace. Her attacks were relentless, each strike aimed with lethal precision, forcing me to rely on pure, ragged instinct to parry and dodge. I couldn’t match her technique, so I fought dirty, using the environment, kicking up sand to blind her, using my smaller size to slip inside her guard.

Then she summoned her drake, Tempest. The creature dove from the sky, jaws snapping. I felt the familiar heat, but this time, I pushed it outward, not as a calm, but as a shield. A visible shimmer of air erupted around me. Tempest recoiled with a startled shriek, buffeted by the psychic wave.

Kaela’s eyes widened in shock. “What…?”

Seizing the opening, I lunged, channeling all my remaining strength into a desperate thrust. At the same moment, Kaela regained her footing, her own sword blazing with fire. Our weapons met in a shattering explosion of light and force.

The impact threw us both backward. I landed hard, my vision swimming. I struggled to push myself up, my muscles screaming in protest.

A shadow fell over me. Marshal Marcus stood between us. The arena was silent. He looked from my prone form to Kaela, who was on one knee, breathing heavily.

“The match,” he announced, his voice cutting through the hushed anticipation. “By the authority vested in me, I declare this trial a draw. Cadets Elia and Kaela have both proven themselves worthy of the title of Sky Knight.”

A roar erupted from the crowd, a mixture of cheers and shocked protests from the noble factions. I stared, disbelief washing over me. A draw?

In the Sky Knights?

It was unprecedented.

As medics helped me to my feet, Kaela approached, offering a hand. Her grip was firm. “It seems we’re stuck with each other,” she said, and for the first time, her smile reached her eyes.

That night, a sense of wary triumph filled the barracks. The other cadets, even the noble ones, offered grudging congratulations. I lay in my bunk, the events of the day replaying in my mind. I had done it. I was a Sky Knight. But Marshal Marcus’s warning and Silvershine’s cryptic words echoed in the silence.

A soft scraping sound at the window made me sit bolt upright. A small, weighted message tube lay on the sill. My heart hammering, I unrolled the tiny scroll inside. The handwriting was elegant, unfamiliar.

*Your display today was… illuminating. The past has long shadows. Some wish to keep them buried. Be watchful. They know your blood sings to the old stones. — A Friend.*

Cold dread trickled down my spine. The “they” Silvershine had called the ‘oath-breakers.’

Before I could process the warning, a deafening roar split the night—Silvershine’s roar, but this time, it was a clarion call of alarm. A psychic blast followed, an image seared into my mind: shadows moving with unnatural speed through the lower barracks. Towards *my* quarters.

They were here. The assassins.