Atsuki Nightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 10 of 17

The scroll named his parents. It did not say why they broke their oath. Atsuki reached the monastery before dawn and told his grandmother what Caspian had found. The old woman shook her head. "Only one person watched the vow snap," she said. "The priestess who married them. She lives by the river now. She has not spoken of that day to anyone." Atsuki left before the family woke. He needed the reason his parents broke their bond. Without it, Matthias's story stood alone. The riverside temple sat low over the water. Weathered steps climbed to a red door. Inside, a stone goddess leaned by the wall, her face worn smooth, her robe cracked. A small woman swept the floor around the statue's feet. Silver hair, gold-trimmed robes, quick brown eyes. She did not look up. "You brought mud on my clean stone," said Miriam Ashveil. "I need to know about an oath you witnessed," Atsuki said. "Two houses. Nightwhisper and another. Twenty years ago." Miriam's broom stopped. "I marry the living. I do not dig up the dead." She turned back to her sweeping. He came again the next morning. He carried water from the river and filled her jars. She said nothing. He came the third day and mended the loose board on her steps. On the fourth, he cleared vines from the goddess. Miriam watched him work each time. She fed him rice but gave him no words. On the fifth day he set the pendant at the statue's chipped feet. "I am their child," he said. "The one they gave away. A priest wants me dead to bury what you saw." He did not beg. He waited. Miriam picked up the pendant. She held both halves to the light. Her thumb traced the joined seam. "You have her jaw," she said. "And his stubborn hands." She sat on the temple step and patted the stone. "They did not break the oath from spite," she said. "The oath bound two houses to a third promise. A tribute of blood, sworn to Matthias's order every generation. Your parents refused to give the next child to the priests. Refusing broke the vow. That is why they married against both houses. That is why the order killed them." She pressed the pendant back into his hand. "You were the tribute they would not pay." Atsuki closed his fingers around the gold. Now he knew. His parents had not failed. They had defied Matthias's order to save him. The broken oath was not shame. It was a refusal. "Matthias does not want proof erased," Miriam said. "He wants the debt collected. He still believes your blood is owed." She stood and lifted her broom. "Go warn your grandmother. He will not stop at the pendant now." Atsuki ran for the cliffs. He had his answer. He also understood, for the first time, that Matthias had come to finish a payment twenty years late.