Ashes & Oaths

The rain fell in thin needles, a quiet, steady rhythm on the forest canopy above. Beneath the cover of twisted limbs and black moss, Seraphine Vale crouched low in the underbrush, breath tight in her throat. Her fingertips pressed into the damp earth, tracing the faint heat of old magic that shimmered just beneath the roots. A warning. A whisper.

Someone had crossed into the warded perimeter.

She lifted her head slowly, strands of raven-black hair slick against her cheek, eyes glowing faintly violet in the gloom. The forest was dense here, suffocating. And yet she could feel it - a presence. No animal tread. No scavenger's curiosity. This was practiced. Intentional.

Witch hunter.

She whispered a spell under her breath, the words curling through her lips like smoke. Her magic was subtle, meant to hide, not strike - the mark of someone who had lived too long being hunted. Light bent around her form as the enchantment took hold, and she vanished into the shadows of the trees.

Moments later, boots broke through the fog.

He moved with precision. Controlled. His cloak was dark, soaked at the hem, but his steps were silent even over the sodden forest floor. He was tall, lean but strong, with the poise of a man who knew he had never missed his mark.

Kael Thorne.

Seraphine's blood cooled instantly. She knew his face from wanted posters, from whispered stories passed between witches like curses. The Ghost of Daggerfall. The man who never failed to bring in his target - dead or alive.

Usually dead.

But what was he doing this deep into the Wyrdwood?

She narrowed her eyes. If he was tracking her, he was hours too late. She had cloaked her trail three forests ago and cast false signs to confuse any tracker worth their salt. Unless-

She froze.

He knelt. Fingers brushed the ground. And without hesitation, he spoke: "Nightbloom."

The word struck her like a blade to the chest. No one had called her that in ten years.

Not since her family was burned alive in the Purge.

Kael rose slowly, scanning the trees. The silence pressed down on him, but he didn't flinch. This part of the Wyrdwood was dangerous for anyone - but especially for those like him. The scent of old magic clung to the air like rot. He'd seen the signs: arcane glyphs carved into bark, unnatural stillness in the animal paths, faint tremors in the soil where leylines intersected.

This was a witch's domain.

But Kael wasn't afraid. Fear was trained out of you in the Witch Guard, long before they handed you your first soulsteel blade.

He pressed his palm against the scarred trunk of an elder tree. Beneath his glove, the silver mark on his skin pulsed faintly. The Hunter's Brand. It allowed him to sense magic - even the kind meant to be hidden.

"She's here," he murmured.

A whisper of movement - too smooth for an animal. He turned, hand on his blade.

Nothing.

Only the rain.

Seraphine watched him from above, crouched along the thick branch of a yew tree. Her heartbeat was slow, trained. She had spent years evading hunters, killers, and worse. But Kael Thorne was not just another sword with a badge. He had found her magic. Spoken her bloodline.

And she didn't know how.

He was too dangerous to let live.

She extended her fingers, letting a line of magic slip from her skin - delicate, almost invisible. It laced toward him like a strand of silk, meant to bind his movements just long enough for her to escape.

But as soon as it touched his cloak, he turned.

Steel flashed.

Her thread snapped.

"Found you," Kael said.

Before she could leap, he moved. Too fast. A dagger spun through the air and embedded into the tree trunk inches from her head. Not meant to hit - meant to distract.

He lunged. She dropped.

They collided midair in a blur of cloak and sparks. Her spell burst between them, sending both crashing to the muddy ground. She rolled, kicked upward - and he caught her leg, twisting. She snarled and struck with an arc of crackling violet energy.

He blocked it with a shield of spellsteel. "You're fast."

She sneered. "You're not dead. That's unfortunate."

Their eyes locked - violet to ice-blue - and in that moment, the world narrowed.

She pushed off, disappearing into the fog.

Kael didn't follow. Not yet.

He touched his cheek where her spell had grazed him. His skin burned faintly, not with pain - but something else.

Magic that felt like memory.

That night, Seraphine sat by a dying fire in a hidden cave, bandaging a shallow cut on her side. Her magic pulsed around her like a shield, trembling with unease. She had fought witch hunters before. Killed three. Escaped many more.

But Kael Thorne...

He hadn't tried to kill her.

Not really.

He had studied her. Tracked her.

Named her.

That meant something. But what?

Bobble - her fox familiar - slunk beside her, blinking sleepy amber eyes. "He was cute," he muttered.

Seraphine glared. "He was trying to kill me."

Bobble yawned. "He looked more like he was trying to understand you."

She hated how that unsettled her more.

Kael returned to the outpost outside Wyrdwood, soaked to the bone. The guards gave him wide berth. He was known for his cold silence and colder success rate.

But tonight he didn't sleep.

He sat by the fire in his quarters, holding a half-burned sigil in his hand. It matched the one he'd found in the Nightbloom ruins ten years ago - carved into stone, beneath the bodies of the last true witches.

He had been only sixteen when the Purge began. A boy raised to believe that witches were evil. That the fire cleansed. That the screaming was necessary.

And then he saw her face - the young girl hiding beneath the floorboards. A single violet eye peeking through the cracks.

He never told anyone.

He let her go.

Tonight, he saw that same eye.

And for the first time in ten years, Kael Thorne felt something splinter in his chest.