The air was thick with smoke and the taste of iron.
Reiji stood in the ruins of what once had been the Hall of Glass—its mirrored walls shattered into countless shards, each reflecting fragments of his face, none of them whole. Every reflection whispered something different—accusations, regrets, the echo of Kaede's voice calling his name from the depths of the ruin.
He could feel it again—the faint vibration beneath his skin, the same resonance that once came from the Monarch's sigil. The pact had fractured, but its voice hadn't died. It was breathing through the cracks in the silence.
Reiji knelt beside one of the shattered mirrors, his eyes hollow.
"Silence was supposed to save me," he murmured. "Not haunt me."
From behind him, Kaede's footsteps approached—soft, deliberate. Her silhouette emerged from the lingering haze, cloak torn, blade still glinting faintly red from the battle in The Fractured Edge.
"You made the oath," she said quietly. "But you never told me what it cost."
Reiji didn't look up. "It cost everything I couldn't kill."
A pause.
The wind shifted, scattering ash across the floor like snow. One of the mirror shards rolled and stopped near Kaede's foot. When she picked it up, her reflection trembled—distorted, split in two, one eye hers, the other not.
"Reiji… these reflections," she whispered. "They show what we fear the most, don't they?"
He finally looked at her. "No. They show what we've already become."
---
Thunder rumbled in the distance—dull, heavy, like the world breathing in before another collapse.
The storm above the city had not stopped since the Garden burned. Crimson light flickered through the fog, painting their faces with the color of old blood.
Kaede knelt beside him, voice low. "What now?"
Reiji closed his hand around a shard of the mirror, blood trailing between his fingers. "Now we fulfill the oath."
He rose, eyes fixed on the black horizon where the ruins met the storm.
"The Silent Oath was never about saving the world," he said. "It was about remembering what it means to be alive when the world forgets you."
Kaede's expression hardened. She understood. The oath wasn't redemption—it was acknowledgment. A binding promise between those who chose to remember pain instead of hiding from it.
---
They walked through the ruins in silence.
Each step echoed softly between broken pillars, accompanied only by the whisper of wind threading through the hollow remnants of Zeirath—the ancient quarter buried beneath the city.
As they descended deeper, the architecture changed: marble gave way to iron, glass to obsidian. The light thinned, shadows became tangible, brushing against their clothes like unseen hands.
A faint hum resonated beneath the floor.
Kaede stopped. "Do you hear that?"
Reiji nodded. "It's the sound of the pact trying to mend itself."
The path led them to a gate—massive, engraved with runes that pulsed dimly like a dying heartbeat. Across its surface was carved the phrase Silentium vincit veritatem — Silence conquers truth.
Reiji stared at it for a long moment before speaking. "This is where they made it. The first oath."
He placed his hand against the cold surface. It recognized him instantly—his veins lit faintly with silver light, matching the runes.
Kaede drew her blade, wary. "Are you sure about this?"
"I was never sure," he said, "but that's what an oath is. You don't make it because you're certain—you make it because you can't turn away."
The gate trembled. With a sound like cracking bone, it opened, revealing a chamber beyond—a vast cathedral of silence. The air was dense, heavy with echoes of voices long dead.
At the center stood an altar carved from black stone, and upon it—a crown.
But not of gold.
It was made from broken mirror shards, each piece still bleeding faint light.
Reiji stepped forward slowly. The air around him shimmered, and whispers began again—voices layered atop one another.
Reiji... traitor... savior... shadow... king...
Kaede gritted her teeth, pressing her palms to her ears. "Make it stop—"
Reiji touched the crown, and the voices fell silent.
Instantly, the room grew colder. The storm outside ceased. Even their breathing sounded wrong, as if stolen by something else.
---
Reiji turned to Kaede. "This is the heart of the Oath."
"And if you break it?" she asked.
He looked at the crown's reflection in her eyes. "Then everything I buried comes back to life."
He lifted it. The shards bit into his skin. Blood ran down his arm, painting the altar. But he didn't flinch.
The crown began to hum—low, mournful, alive.
Light fractured through the chamber, bouncing off every mirrored wall until they were surrounded by versions of themselves—hundreds, thousands, each one taking a breath in perfect unison.
Kaede whispered, "Reiji… what are they?"
He answered quietly, "Every decision I didn't make."
The reflections started to move independently—some reaching for their blades, others simply staring. And then, one of them spoke.
"You made the oath to silence us. But silence cannot last forever."
Reiji's grip on the crown tightened.
His voice was calm, almost tender. "Then let the silence scream."
---
The ground split open.
From beneath the altar, black tendrils rose, forming a circle of runes that spiraled outward. The reflection walls shattered, releasing echoes that filled the chamber with blinding red light.
Kaede lunged forward, shouting his name, but the force threw her back. Reiji stood unmoving, crown still in his hand, as if rooted to the chaos around him.
The whispers condensed into one final phrase—spoken by every voice, past and present.
> "The Silent Oath binds not the shadow… but the light that tries to flee it."
And with that, the light vanished.
When Kaede opened her eyes again, Reiji was gone—
only the crown remained on the altar, bleeding faintly into the cracks of stone.