Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

I rode with the lady Laessa in a carriage to the gala. It was, to put it mildly, an uncomfortable experience. We spoke very little beyond some niceties, and she mostly stared out the window at the passing city, her expression distant.

“You clean up well,” Laessa said after some time of listening to wheels over cobblestone.

I grunted something noncommittal. The young woman also looked much changed since that night of blood and terror in which I’d met her. She’d had her black hair arranged into a mossy crown of curls hung lower over one temple than the other, done so they stuck out a ways from her brow in the front. She wore a burgundy dress with detached sleeves that showed her shoulders, and she’d dabbed deeply black kohl over her eyes, dark enough to shadow her already ebony skin.

“You look good,” I told her. Inwardly I winced at that — I’d been a knight once, and good manners, especially with women, were practically a religion to us. I was out of practice.

Laessa muttered a wan thanks, her eyes going back to the window. She’d seemed distracted since I’d picked her up.

“When we arrive,” she told me, “I’ll need you to be on my arm for a time, to get some introductions out of the way. There should be opportunity to leave you to your own devices once the formalities are done with.”

I grimaced. “I would rather not have too many eyes on me, my lady. You know my work for Her Grace is meant to be incognito?”

Laessa studied me. “Are you someone very famous?”

“Not in this realm,” I admitted.

“Hm.” The young noblewoman pursed her lips. “Well, many of my friends and peers are already aware of the mysterious bodyguard who saved my life from Inquisition torturers and monsters fallen from the sky a week ago. They have wanted to meet you. You are free to lie to them, but I assure you this is better than the alternative.”

I could imagine it. Young nobles snooping around, trying to figure out who I was. I didn’t need that sort of trouble.

“Then let’s get our story straight,” I told her, sitting straighter.

We spent the rest of the ride getting ourselves on the same page about my identity and how we knew one another. It was all lies, but need must when the devil drives.

Well, it was Emma driving the coach, but you take my point.

I began to recognize the surrounding architecture not long after, and knew we’d entered the Fountain Ward. Wealthy manor houses and garden avenues replaced the city sprawl, and the canals crisscrossing the streets became cleaner, shallower, and more full of artistry.

The carriage came to a stop in front of a lavish estate surrounded by green lawns and hedge rows. The evening air had a pleasant warmth, the first sign of a summer still some weeks away. The good weather, rare for a Reynish spring, allowed the festivities to take place outdoors.

Emma, who dressed in the sharp uniform of a valet, announced us to the guards and we were ushered onto the green. I gave my squire a nod, grateful she played these more incognito roles so well — a less trusting part of me had worried her highborn upbringing would make her resent it, but she’d told me she “enjoyed watching people without being watched in return.”

Many carriages and coaches lined the wide street of the upper class neighborhood, the chimera pulling them bred for aesthetic rather than war or labor. Music seemed to emerge through some clever artifice from behind the apple trees and hedges, as though faerie minstrels filled some ancient wood with their tunes.

I realized very quickly that was exactly what the hosts intended to convey. All of the attendants dressed in shades of green, brown, yellow, and red, blending artfully with the elegant mansion and its natural surrounds. Servants dressed like elves flitted through clusters of lords and ladies arrayed like fading flowers across some mythic autumnal meadow.

I’d thought my amber coat and red scarf an odd pick for a noble gathering, but I realized now that Faisa Dance had matched me to the theme, and to my companion in her burgundies and forest yellows.

“Who’s hosting this thing anyway?” I muttered to Laessa as we stepped onto the grass.

Her dark eyes ran across the grounds. “Isn’t it obvious? Only House Dance throws parties this ostentatious.”

I snorted. “Should have known. Let me guess — this is Lady Faisa’s estate?”

Laessa flashed her small teeth in a narrow grin. “Indeed. Welcome to Embassy Dance, Master Alken.”

A young, red-cheeked serving girl wearing a long dress of leaves twirled up to us, smiling brightly as she offered drinks from a tray. We both refused, and she shrugged before moving on.

I felt distinctly uncomfortable — by the number of people, by the fact I hadn’t been to such an event in a lifetime, and by the fact I suspected this had all been made to resemble Seydis. It seemed macabre, somehow, not much different to my eyes than if the hosts had decided to make the party theme a cemetery.

Laessa clung to my arm, like any lady with her gentleman, as we moved with the migrating guests into the wider spaces behind the estate. Here, more greenery had been converted into something very like a cluster of forest groves. Lights had been hung here and there, or floated like Wil-O’ Wisps.

To my shock, I realized some of them were wisps. When the first few flitted toward me, attracted by my aureflame, I stopped and blinked at them.

“They like you!” Laessa laughed.

I wondered how Lady Faisa had managed to attract these into the depths of Urn’s largest city. They normally abhorred the noise of civilization. Then again, the Dances had always been very resourceful.

More false elves and autumn colored nobles had congregated in the groves. Here I also saw the other crop of guests. The Renaissance.

There were artists with their tools and stands out in full view, painting anyone who stopped and agreed to be captured on canvas. There were sculptures being admired by groups of people, with their makers standing by with wringing hands and nervous smiles. There were what I guessed to be philosophers or poets, or some mingling of the two fields, debating with anyone who offered them an opinion to be contrary to.

There were inventors, and engineers. A woman in a yellow frock had set up a stage between two trees, showing off some device I couldn’t guess at the purpose of, made all of brass and wood with many moving parts, and something like organs made of leather sacks which expanded and deflated as a wiry man cranked a lever.

“What in Blessed Onsolem is that?” I asked, half to myself.

“I think it’s some sort of medical device,” Laessa told me. “I’ve seen one before. Apparently, they can breathe for you. I hear they can save children born with weak lungs.”

“That’s incredible,” I said.

“Lots of incredible things coming out of the west,” Laessa agreed. “Lots of scary things, too.”

A sunken-eyed, scarecrow thin man beneath a tree showed a group of aristos a pair of marions, making them dance without the need for strings. They were made of painted ceramic and wood, and moved with an eerie grace.

I remembered Lias’s puppets, blank-faced, twitching, and lethal. I tore my eyes from the scene.

“Lae!? Is that you, you blessed strumpet!?”

We both turned at the high, cheerful voice. A group of highborn approached us, four young women and three men. I recognized two of the men as Siriks Sontae and Jocelyn of Ekarleon, the tourney knights.

Damn. I felt a sudden and visceral urge to be anywhere else.

Laessa focused on the girl at the lead of the group of aristos and pursed her lips critically, tilting her chin up in challenge. “Esmerelda,” she said coolly.

The lead noblewoman was a slight thing, with bright orange hair and blushing cheeks. Her dress evoked the image of something I wouldn’t want to touch in a forest, not without getting a rash or worse. By the serrated points on her long sleeves and little bells resembling poisonous berries, I guessed the effect to be intentional.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, darling, I’ve been missing you!” Esmerelda went in for a hug, which Laessa disentangled from my arm to return. I caught some of the quiet words the newcomer spoke into the other lady’s ear.

“It is good to see you again, Lae. How are you?”

Laessa hesitated, then returned the hug with more affection. “I am keeping on.”

I don’t think the words were intended for me. I surreptitiously took a step away, trying to pretend like I hadn’t heard.

“And who is this! Is he the brave I’ve heard rumor of, who saved you from those dreadful veils?”

Laessa cleared her throat and gestured to me. “This is Alken, my bodyguard. My family hired him on retainer, due to all the violence in the city of late. Master Alken, this is the lady Esmerelda Grimheart.”

The ironically named girl brought a fan designed like a poison oak leaf up to her face, too late to hide her sunny grin. “A pleasure. Oh, but you’re scarier looking than I thought you’d be. And more… used.”

Her eyes lingered on my scars, before she made a stage whisper to Laessa. “Lae dear, I didn’t realize you liked older men. He is handsome enough though, isn’t he?”

“Grimheart?” I asked, focusing on her more fully.

“You know us?” Lady Esmerelda asked, tilting her head without losing the smile.

I nodded. “I fought with Harlan and Gerard Grimheart back during the war. They were brave knights.”

Esmerelda tittered. “My older brothers. Oh, isn’t this a sweet coincidence. You battled the Recusants then?”

“Everyone battled the Recusants who was old enough at the time,” Siriks muttered, his eyes wandering the party.

“Or were Recusant,” one of the other women added. “Don’t mind Siriks. He just resents that he was a little boy during the war.”

Siriks scowled, but didn’t dispute the statement.

I’d fought with the Grimhearts in the siege of this very city. They’d been young at the time, boisterous, but very competent when the killing had started.

They must be in their thirties now, I thought, which meant Esmerelda had been a young child during the war. So had most of these young bluebloods, even the brash Cymrinorean and the quiet Ironleaf. The realization made me feel old.

More greetings were made, and I dodged any personal questions as neatly as I could. Though I could tell the young ladies were curious about me, Laessa artfully redirected their attentions. I focused my attention on the young man they’d arrived with.

“Lord Siriks,” I greeted him quietly.

The proud young warrior from the night of the storm shuffled, folding his arms and glancing around the gala with an impatient edge. He’d doffed the warrior robes he’d worn at court, opting instead for a not dissimilar outfit done in muted forest browns, the hem of the long coat — cut more like a robe — nearly trailing on the grass. He’d wound his long braid of dark red hair around his neck.

“Alken, was it?” He rolled his eyes back to me and smiled. I’d expected more dismissal, but the expression seemed warm. “I’ve been hoping to see you again. I was a bore that night. I got angry at that fop Jocelyn for stealing my kill. After some thought, I realized we all stole your glory.”

Jocelyn coughed.

Siriks held out a calloused hand. I shook it, finding his grip iron strong despite his lean build. I remembered how easily he’d wielded that enormous sword-spear.

“We should try this again!” He flashed his boyish grin. “Siriks of House Sontae, at your service.”

“Alken,” I said.

“So you fought in the war?” Siriks Sontae’s grin widened, a light glinting in his eyes. “I was just a boy back then, but we had bloodshed in Cymrinor. I regret I was too young to wield steel, but I hear there were glorious battles.”

Esmerelda, hearing him, rolled her hazel eyes. “Oh, give the brute talk a rest, Siriks. Is it all you think about?”

Siriks blinked as though confused by the question. “Yes?”

The Grimheart girl scoffed, flashing her fan almost as a baton as she pointed at the young warrior while looking at me. “Forgive him. I dragged him along, even though he’s dreadfully disinterested in all of this.” She waved at the gaggle of artists and engineers. “I thought perhaps some culture might do him good, but he tuned out as soon as he learned they weren’t displaying any weapons.”

"I like it all well enough!" Siriks protested. "I just... don't have words for it."

The banter passed over me like a breeze, while I turned my attention to the third man.

Siriks noticed where my attention went. “Alken, this is Garrett of… somewhere.”

“Losca,” his companion said in a rich basso.

The man — I placed him in his mid thirties, which made him the oldest in the group besides me — had an easy smile, his teeth black against very pale skin. He had frost-white hair I suspected had been powdered by its texture. Tall and lanky, I didn’t take him to be a warrior. He wore a tightly sewn coat and a neck cloth in some unfamiliar style.

“Losca…” It took me a moment to place the half familiar name. “That’s in Bantes?”

Garrett of Losca shook his head. “It’s a vassal to the Republic, yes, but we don’t consider ourselves Bantesean. I know people in the subcontinent don’t tend to distinguish, but we can be sticklers about that over there. I hear it’s similar here, even though all your little kingdoms share one king?”

“Emperor,” Siriks corrected him. “We have many kings, one emperor.”

The foreigner shook his head, perplexed. “So odd.”

“You’re here for the summit?” I asked, assuming him to be a dignitary of some sort.

“He’s an alchemist!” One of the other young women, whose name I hadn’t caught, said brightly. “Makes Devil Iron and such.”

I went very still, focusing my attention on the thin man.

He didn’t notice, grimacing in distaste. “Please. Don’t lump me in with those madmen in the Three Towers. Next you’ll be accusing me of occultism, and I’d rather not have a visit from the priorguard.”

“Master Garrett is quite the young prodigy back in his country,” Esmerelda told me. “He’s got half the city’s wealthy families clamoring to patron him.”

Briefly, I wondered if the gaunt alchemist was a faust, with a crowfriar whispering in his shadow. Yet, as I studied him, I sensed nothing. He seemed ordinary. Human.

I’m paranoid, I thought.

For good reason, I reminded myself.

“But what happened to that boy you were sweet on, Lae?” One of the women asked, looking at Laessa. “The pretty one, the artist.”

Laessa went very still. Esmerelda winced.

“Oh, he wasn’t an artist.” One of the girls let out a titter, leaning in to stage whisper to her friend. “Just a dye maker’s apprentice.”

“Oh. Well, he was easy enough on the eyes.”

Laessa’s face had turned ashen. The Grimheart girl took her arm, shooting a savage look at the others. Siriks looked confused.

“Why don’t we chat, just the two of us?” Esmerelda began to pull her friend away. I caught Laessa’s eye, and at her nod I kept back as the two wandered off. The two women who’d made the comments about Kieran looked perplexed, but shrugged it off as they took the men in arm, happy for different sorts of attention.

Nobles. I’d half-forgotten about all of this.

“Do you think the Priory is still after her?”

I turned, and realized the question had come from Ser Jocelyn. The alchemist and Siriks had been led off by the ladies to look at some sculpture display, but the mercenary had managed to disentangle himself from their attentions.

“What makes you think the Priory is after her?” I hedged, trying for nonchalance.

The glorysworn gave me a cool look, his pale brown eyes narrowing. “I saw that street. I know the storm ogre didn’t kill all of those priorguard. They had blade wounds.”

I said nothing. Better to let him speculate than come up with some kind of half-baked lie.

He studied me a moment longer before adding, “You killed them. You were protecting her. The whole city’s talking about it, how the Inquisition tried to take her out of the Greengood mansion in the night. The rumors among the common folk are that she’s some kind of witch.”

“How do they figure that?” I asked, frowning.

Jocelyn paced a few steps to a low hanging branch on one of the decorated trees. He lifted his hand, and several wisps danced around it. They liked him as well.

He watched the wisps a moment, a peaceful look on his angular face, then turned to me. “The word for months now has been that something occult is at work in the city. Artists going mad, nobles covering up the crimes of their family members, inquisitors searching for the one responsible for all the deaths. Monstrous things have been seen here and there. People have gone missing.”

I knew all of this. “What’s your point? Laessa isn’t responsible for any of that.”

“But someone is,” Jocelyn said, his voice turning from casual speculation to stern seriousness. “And the people are frightened. With the summit, the Emperor stays in his castle in the bay, with great lords and ladies in attendance. The powerful are silent in their councils, or they indulge in affairs such as this.”

He nodded to the party. “While people on the streets fear to go out of their homes in the depths of night. They throw festivals and fill the air with light so the shadows don’t creep in too deep.”

Almost on cue, a firework went off. People throughout the groves clapped and cheered.

“The nobility appears to be ignoring it,” Jocelyn continued once the colored sparks had faded from the air. “Foreign powers are allowed into the city, with strange new works in tow. The Priory insists that evil is at work in the land, and they seem to be the only ones doing anything about it.”

“They aren’t,” I insisted, beginning to feel angry.

Jocelyn held up a hand. “That is how it appears,” he said. “To the common folk. And amid all of this, Laessa Greengood escapes apprehension by the priorguard. She is given refuge in the Fulgurkeep, and that same night a monster falls out of the sky, killing and spreading havoc. Do you see it?”

I cursed, when I realized what he meant. “They think she summoned the storm beast?”

Jocelyn nodded. “That is the rumor. I think there will be consequences for it soon. I do not believe she is a witch…”

His eyes wandered after the young Greengood, where she chatted with her orange-haired friend. “However,” the knight added with a sigh, “I am not certain a gentleman’s sword can protect her from the dangers to come. I just wanted to warn you, as her protector.”

Jocelyn departed then, returning to his group of companions. I stood there a while, what he’d told me floating around in my skull.

He was right. Laessa would look very suspicious to anyone who didn’t have all the context. Even worse, Rosanna would end up looking suspicious for harboring her.

Did you anticipate this Rose? Did you keep the girl close to you so something worse didn’t happen?

I caught sight of two figures standing atop the steps leading up to the mansion’s back doors. Pushing politics out of my mind for the time being, I navigated through the throng, almost losing my head to some screeching rocket a sweating man had been trying to display for a group of bored looking aristo youths. He apologized profusely as he scurried after his whirling device. Some people clapped, and others shouted encouragement.

I stepped up the white-washed stairs and paused next to a regal woman in her later years and a heavyset man in a pointy-tailed coat. Faisa Dance had festooned her silver hair with golden pins, and I noted her dress shared a similar color to my coat — amber, with some yellows mixed in to evoke a vanishing sun shining through the woods.

“Lady,” I greeted the gala’s host. Then, speaking a more neutral voice to the man I said, “Lord Yuri.”

The nobleman was shorter than Faisa, overweight, and wore a puffy coat of maroons and blacks. He had curly blond hair, and one blue eye seemed just a touch darker than the other. He coughed as I greeted him.

“Ah, Lady Faisa.” Yuri of Ilka spoke in a deep, nervous voice interposed with many coughs, grunts, and clearings of the throat. “I believe you’ve met my employee, Master Alken?”

“When he first arrived in the city, yes.” Faisa Dance held a fan in her painted nails, which she held poised in front of her chin as though expecting to need to hide a smile or frown at an instant’s notice. “He did me good service, determining the nature of my dear Yselda’s killer. You always did hire well, Lord Yuri.”

Yuri smiled and dabbed at his sweating forehead with a cloth, eyeing me sidelong. “Yes, well, I do stumble on competent help from time to time.”

“Do you like it?” The high lady asked me, gesturing to the lamplit groves with her fan.

I considered the scene for a minute before answering. “Have you been to Seydis, my lady?”

“When I was a girl,” she said, her eyes sliding across the gathering. “I tried to recreate the image from memory as best I could, but I am afraid I am a patron to artists, and no artist myself. I would have liked to get that Seydii ambassador, Lord Fen Harus, to judge, but he seems to have declined my invitation.” She shrugged. “Well, the night is young.”

Her eyes flicked to me. “Do you like the garments?”

I nodded. “They were a generous gift. How did you know I’d be attending?”

Faisa smiled. “I didn’t. Not for certain, anyway. Her Grace implied you might be assisting young Laessa, and I did believe the poor girl would be here, despite her recent griefs.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How are you involved with the Empress?”

The noblewoman snapped her fan closed. “That, Master Fetch, is a secret of some worth. Perhaps I’ll tell you, if you manage to avenge my Yselda.”

She leaned closer. “Yuri here tells me you have a lead. Do you believe the creature will appear here tonight?”

I traded a glance with the nobleman. I considered a moment, then shook my head. “I don’t know. But something happened to Laessa’s paramour at an event like this. The same thing that happened to many others, including Lady Yselda.”

“We know members of the cultural movement are being targeted in particular,” Yuri said quietly, scanning the groves. “What we cannot ascertain is why.”

I faced the woman more fully. “What can you tell me about Anselm of Ruon?”

Faisa pressed her fan to her lips. “Anselm… that’s a name I didn’t expect to hear from your lips. What does he have to do with anything?”

“Other than the fact that one of his paintings was in Lady Yselda’s room?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow. “And other than the fact he apparently spoke with Kieran right before the boy became a target for the same monster that killed them both?” I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

Faisa’s lips pressed into a pout. “Oh, don’t be droll. But I take your point. You think he’s some sort of warlock?”

“I only have suspicions,” I said. “So who is he?”

“A polymath,” Faisa said. “An artist, and much more. He’s helped build churches, aqueducts, other public works. He writes philosophy. He came up with the design for that.”

She nodded to the breathing apparatus being demonstrated by the two physikers. They were testing it on an elderly lord, and the results seemed to impress all the spectators as well as the haggard looking man.

“He’s practically the face of the Urnic Renaissance,” Yuri tacked on. “I doubt we’d have been taken seriously by great minds in Bantes and its neighbors without him. They say he’s traveled a great deal of the world beyond our shores.”

He stared at me intently with his mismatched eyes. I got the message. This is what I’ve managed to learn since we last spoke.

“An explorer, a scholar, and an artist.” I shook my head. “Why have I never heard of him?”

Faisa Dance shrugged. “Because he’s not a soldier? I hear he was abroad during the war.”

“Fair enough.” I folded my arms. “Is he here?”

“He’s always invited to these things,” Faisa told me, “but he doesn’t always show. He’s a recluse. I’ve seen him a bare handful of times in the last five years.”

I hummed thoughtfully. “Well, I’ll stick around for a while. See if he turns up.”

Some other group of elites caught the Dance’s eye, and she excused herself to go join them. That left me standing on the porch with Lord Yuri.

“Nice disguise,” I muttered. “Boris, right?”

Yuri of Ilka blinked, and for a moment his left eye became a bright, moon-colored green. “I wondered how you knew who I was.”

Though the deep, slightly burbling voice remained, I recognized the change in inflection.

“That swindler we met on the road outside the Herdhold,” I said. “Rose wanted me to take his cart and leave him stranded, half because he was rude to her. I wouldn’t do it, and paid him for a ride out of the province instead. She wouldn’t speak to me for two days.”

Lias snorted. “Another life. Still, it would have been quite awkward had you not recognized me, considering our original cover had Lord Yuri hiring you on behalf of that Dance woman.”

We watched the gala a while before he spoke again. “Do you sense anything?” He asked quietly.

I considered a while, scanning the groves. “I don’t know. Do you feel like the shadows are deeper than they should be? Do you feel an itch on the back of your neck, and smell burning iron? Is there something like a huge heart deep underground, slowly beating?”

Lias eyed me for a moment, his expression blank. “So…”

“Yes, I sense something.” I shook my head. “Thing is, I can’t tell what. You know my powers work half on abstraction, Li. I have a feeling there’s danger here, but I can’t tell what it’s from.”

“Something wicked this way comes,” Lias murmured, sipping from a wine glass.

“What do you know of Ser Jocelyn?” I asked, marking him in the crowd. He spoke with the alchemist, Garrett of Losca.

“The Ironleaf?” Lias shrugged. “He’s a mercenary adventurer. Leads a company of glorysworn, all disenfranchised men-at-arms or young knights trying to make a name for themselves outside their Houses. He’s fought in Cymrinor.”

“I hear the war didn’t really end in the peninsula for several years after the fighting died down everywhere else.”

I’d rarely strayed into the Princedoms throughout my life, despite touching near every other coast of Urn. Even as Urn had always been isolated from the wider continent, Cymrinor had long been its own entity in its own right. They practiced customs held as archaic or even barbaric throughout the rest of the Aureate Realms, ranging from polygamy in their noble families to slavery.

“The Cymrinoreans have always been squabbling,” Lias said dismissively. “But yes. The Ironleaf fought there, and in the isles north of Urn, and in a few places in the continent. He’s quite accomplished, and now he’s here for the Emperor’s tournament. I hear Ser Jocelyn was given a personal invitation to participate. No doubt Markham wants his glorysworn to bolster the Accord’s soldiery.”

“And Siriks Sontae?” I asked. “What’s his story?”

Lias eyed me curiously. “Why do you care?”

I made a dismissive gesture, while in my head I kept hearing Umareon’s words about new champions being prepared. “Just curious.”

“Hm. Well, the Sontae’s are an ancient House, but they’ve fallen on hard times. Back during the Fall, they were nearly butchered to the last babe. Siriks managed to survive along with his mother and a brother or two by hiding with other relations. His family isn’t nearly so prestigious as it once was.”

“I guess he means to change that by winning glory in the lists,” I muttered. The boy’s story reminded me of Rosanna’s. Her family had also been purged, before she’d gone into exile and met Lias and me.

“Undoubtedly.” Lias had never been interested in martial matters. His mismatched eyes wandered from the two knights.

A wind stirred the apple trees. Another firework went off. Wealthy men and women laughed and gossiped.

“Something’s watching us,” I said quietly.

Lias took another sip of wine before replying. “Yes. I sense it too. The demon?”

“He wouldn’t be foolish enough to draw my attention after the damage I did.”

I let my eyelids droop, focusing on the subtle impressions passing into my aura. I could burn my magic, let it flow into the world and gain more concrete information, but it would announce me to any sensitive paying enough attention.

“There’s too many people here.” I looked toward the entrance. “It’s muddling my senses. Whatever it is, it’s not making an effort to hide itself.”

Something watched me from the crowd, or the thin woods surrounding the Dance estate. It wanted me to know.

“Emma should be around somewhere,” I said to the wizard. “She’s disguised as a valet. Could you let her know I’ve got a trail, and I need her to keep an eye on Laessa?”

Lias, in the guise of Lord Yuri, nodded. “And what will you be doing?”

I turned and began to walk toward the distant hedge rows. “Hunting.”