Lauki's Arc

Chapter 12 of 18

Conrad set the broken helmet aside. "You have proven your sword," he said. "But a sword does not tell me my daughter's heart. I will speak of Torra. First you must show me her love is her own, and not a thing you forced from a frightened girl." His steel eyes did not blink. "Bring me proof no man can fake." Lauki had no proof. Words meant nothing here. He rode through the night to the one place where words carried weight. The Oath Stone of the Fey stood in a black ring of skull-carved pillars, wrapped in dark roses. Jade cracks glowed across its surface. All who spoke here were bound by word, by deed, by blood. Betrayal would be marked on the stone forever. He was not alone. Damien Shadowborne stood among the pillars, a vampire with a white streak in his black hair. Lauki had burned Damien's rose maze and destroyed his sealed letter. They were enemies now, and Damien smiled like a man who had waited for this. "You come to the Oath Stone," Damien said. "Then let us settle our debt. Swear here that you will never again cross me, and I will let you leave whole." Lauki refused to swear a false peace. "I burned what I burned to free myself," he said. "I will not lie to a stone that marks liars." Damien's smile fell. But the stone flared green at Lauki's words. Truth. Damien saw it too. He stepped back, unwilling to be marked as the one who lied. Before Lauki could speak his own oath, black wings spread at the ring's edge. King Tiberius Darkwing landed among the roses, crown dark on his white hair. The swamp king had claimed Lauki once, and warned that betrayal would destroy his name. "Fey'ri," Tiberius said. "You stand at the stone that binds my kind. Will you swear your heart here, where a lie leaves a scar?" "I will," Lauki said. He pressed his palm to the cold onyx. Fire flickered under his skin, then went still. "I swear I never forced Torra. I swear my life to her freely. If she does not want me, I walk away and never return." The jade cracks blazed bright. No scar rose. The stone had marked him true. Tiberius watched the glow fade. "The stone does not lie for anyone," he said. "Not even for me." He looked to Damien, then back. "I release my claim on your name, fey'ri. A man bound to the stone cannot be bound twice." He rose on black wings and was gone. Damien lingered, then turned and left without a word. Lauki rode back at dawn. He did not carry a token. He carried the stone's judgment, sworn where no lie survives. He laid his oath before Conrad. "Send for Torra," he said. "Ask her yourself. The stone already answered for me." Conrad's cane stilled. For the first time, he sent a servant to fetch his daughter.