Atsuki Nightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 14 of 17

Atsuki left the dwarven hall with the sealed proof pressed to his chest. Scriptus's warning still rang in his ears. Matthias would come. But a stamped record meant nothing if no one forced the priest to obey it. Atsuki needed someone above Matthias's order. He returned to the old oak at the forest's edge, where Aelindor sat in the groove worn into the root. "The seal is done," Atsuki said. "But Matthias answers to his order, not to a dwarf's ring. Who makes him honor this?" Aelindor did not look up from his page. "The Oath Warden," he said. "She rules on broken vows. Her word binds every order in Eldergrove." He turned the page. "Council hall. Ask for Thera Oakbound." The council hall rose from carved stone and old timber. Painted patterns ran under its roof. Atsuki climbed the wide steps and pushed the heavy doors. Inside, a short woman in wooden armor knelt over a stone floor. Green leaves grew from her braid and her sleeves. She was scoring a name into a slate tablet, her jaw tight, her hand steady. She did not stop when he entered. "State your oath," Thera said. She kept carving. Atsuki knelt and laid the sealed record before her. "A blood debt, already paid. Two deaths settled it twenty years ago. Matthias Crimson's order still hunts my family for it." He set the whole pendant beside the page. "Archon Scriptus verified both. I need you to bind the order to honor it." Thera set down her tool. She lifted the record and read the seam, then the wax seal. She weighed the pendant and matched its two engraved houses to the two names. Her sharp eyes moved slow and careful. For a long moment she said nothing. "Scriptus does not seal lightly," she said. "Nor do I." She rose and crossed to a stone table. From a drawer she drew a polished ring, its face a bright crest. She pressed it into fresh wax below Scriptus's mark. "This is a warden's ruling. It stands over every order in Eldergrove." She held the page out. "Matthias Crimson may not touch your blood. If he lifts a blade against them, he breaks a warden's binding. That is not enforcement. That is a crime, and I will hunt him for it." Atsuki took the ruling. Two seals now. His family was safe under law. Thera picked her tool back up. "But law is paper until someone carries it," she said. "He came to the dwarven hall this morning. He knows what you hold. If he reaches your family before this reaches him, the seals mean nothing." Atsuki's stomach turned cold. The monastery. His grandmother. He gripped the sealed ruling and ran for the doors. He had the only thing that could stop Matthias. Now he had to reach the cliffs before the priest did.