Chapter 6 THE MOUNTAIN OF OATHS

CHAPTER 6 -THE MOUNTAIN OF OATHS

Morning broke cold and bright.

Frost clung to leaves like scattered stars, and the world felt washed clean after a night heavy with truth. Jackline stood at the edge of camp, spear in hand, the wolf beside her like a shadow with a heartbeat.

Elara tightened her cloak.

Terin slung his small pack over one shoulder.

Maelor leaned on his staff, the movement slow but deliberate.

No one spoke at first.

Words felt too small for what lay ahead.

The peaks of High Mist rose like teeth in the distance - jagged, snow-dusted, wrapped in low cloud as if the sky itself guarded something sacred. The wind that rolled down from them carried cold, but also something older:

Echoes.

Memory.

Magic that waited.

Jackline took the first step.

Not one forced by fate - one chosen.

"We walk," she said.

The path they followed was narrow and steep, winding through rock and pine. Birds circled overhead, distant and wary. As hours passed, trees thinned, replaced by stone and lichen. The air grew thinner, too - each breath sharper than the last.

The wolf never lagged.

Even when ice cut between stones, even when wind pressed like a hand against their chests - he moved like he'd walked this mountain once before.

Maybe he had.

When he was still a man.

TRAINING ON THE ASCENT

Mid-climb, Maelor raised his hand.

"We stop."

Elara blinked. "Now? We barely began."

Maelor met Jacline's eyes - not stern, but knowing.

"If she cannot command her power in cold and wind, she cannot command it in war."

Jackline nodded once - tired already, but unbroken. She stepped into open stone beneath the rising peaks, spear flashing in winter sun.

Elara took her stance opposite her.

Maelor began the lesson.

Not shouting. Not striking.

Teaching.

"Your strength is instinct," he said. "What you lack is control. You must guide power - not just release it."

Jackline inhaled, steadied her shoulders, lifted her spear like she was born with it.

Elara attacked - quick, clean, without hesitation.

Jackline blocked.

The crack of wood echoed across stone like thunder splitting the sky. Jackline's arms tensed, legs braced. Elara moved again, faster - blade flashing as if wind moved her. Jackline dodged, swept, and countered with a strike that would have landed if Elara hadn't slipped aside like water.

Terin watched wide-eyed.

The wolf watched unblinking.

Maelor nodded slowly.

Again.

Elara lunged.

Jackline turned.

Their staffs collided with force that sparked pain through bone but also clarity through breath.

Sweat burned Jackline's brow.

She struck low - a move from survival. Elara blocked, twisting above her shoulder - trained. Efficient. Sharp.

But Jackline felt something then.

A pulse in her palm.

Faint silver beneath skin.

The same spark that drove wraiths away.

Power answered movement - something she didn't command but could follow, like a river following its own slope.

She swung the staff.

Not harder - truer.

Elara blocked a moment too late. The strike knocked her off balance - not injuring, but proving something undeniable.

Jackline lowered her weapon.

No triumph.

Only understanding.

Maelor smiled like winter breaking to thaw.

"Your mother fought like that," he said. "Wildness tamed only by choice."

Jackline's throat tightened - not with grief, but pride she had never been allowed to feel.

"Again," she said.

Elara nodded.

And they trained until fingers ached, until breath fogged white, until Jackline moved less like she was learning and more like she was remembering.

As if the spear was not new, but returned.

SIGNS OF THE CURSE

By the time they made camp among frost-slick boulders, clouds rolled thick above the peaks. The moon hid behind them, but Jackline could still feel it - like a heartbeat above the sky.

The wolf felt it too.

His steps grew restless. His breath is deeper, shorter. Muscles shifted under fur like something inside pushed against bone. Red glimmered in his gaze, then faded slowly - but never fully.

Maelor watched him carefully.

"The curse grows stronger the closer we climb," he murmured.

Jackline knelt beside the wolf, hand resting in his fur. His body tremored beneath her palm - cold and heat mixed, like magic fighting itself.

He met her eyes.

Not beast-eyes.

Human pain behind them.

Jackline whispered.

"You're still here."

His breathing steadied - just slightly - under her touch.

Elara looked on with silent awe. Terin with fear-hope tangled like a thread. Maelor, with the weight of one who had watched this curse for years, maybe decades.

Jackline leaned against the wolf gently.

Her voice was low - not command, not comfort:

Bond.

"We will reach High Mist," she told him. "And when we do, we will break what binds you."

The wind rose - cutting cold - but the wolf leaned into her hand.

And the moon above the mountains burned brighter.

THE RUINS OF HIGHMIST

By midday on the second day of climbing, the wind turned strange.

Not colder.

Not fiercer.

Just aware.

Like something ancient watched from the snow-veiled peaks - patient, waiting. The path narrowed until only one could walk at a time, stone on either side rising like broken ribs of the mountain itself.

Jackline pressed forward first.

Elara followed close behind.

Terin next, clutching his cloak tight.

Maelor last, the wolf shifting beside him like a living shadow.

When the final turn opened before them, Jackline froze.

High mist.

Not a village.

Not a fortress.

Bones of one.

Stone columns cracked and half-swallowed by ice. Walls broken open to the sky. Archways where wind sang like ghosts. At the center stood what remained of a once-great hall - roof fallen, pillars fractured, snow piled like forgotten crowns.

The wolf stopped beside Jackline and let out a low, grieving sound.

Not growl.

Memory.

Jackline swallowed - heart heavy.

"He knew this place," Elara whispered.

Maelor nodded, voice quiet as frost.

"Because he once swore an oath here. As a human."

Jackline stepped into the ruins.

Cold air wrapped around her ankles, up her arms, into her lungs. The ground trembled beneath her feet - not physically, but through sensation, like stepping across the ribs of old magic still breathing under stone.

Terin gasped softly.

Shapes moved across the broken courtyard - not alive, not solid.

Ghosts.

Faint silhouettes of soldiers in old armor, shadows of horses, echo of banners blue-and-silver fluttering in wind that existed only in memory. None looked at them.

These were not spirits aware.

These were imprints - the past caught in time.

Jackline moved slowly, mesmerized.

Elara followed, breath shallow.

Terin stuck to her shoulder like a shadow.

The wolf padded forward with head low, as if walking through a dream he almost recognized.

And then-

A figure broke from the past.

Not pale like wind, but shaped. Whole. Standing in the center of the hall like a statue come alive.

Tall. Armored in frost-worn silver. Hair dark as winter earth. Eyes-

Jackline's breath stopped.

Silver, bright and human.

The wolf stiffened.

His breath tremored.

His eyes mirrored the figure's - recognition like a wound reopening.

Maelor's voice came like distant thunder.

"A memory of who he was. The knight before the curse."

Jackline's heart slammed.

The knight turned - slow, deliberate - toward her. He moved like real muscle and sinew, though she knew no mortal lived centuries. His gaze met hers.

Not hollow.

Not ghostlike.

Aware.

His lips parted.

Jackline stepped closer - unable to stop.

But Maelor lifted his staff sharply.

"No!"

The memory turned sharply toward the wolf - expression breaking into something raw, fierce, unspoken. Pain and love tangled like two arrows sunk into one heart.

The wolf stepped forward.

For one impossible second

He looked almost human.

Posture straighter.

Gaze clearer.

Curse trembling beneath the weight of memory.

Jackline's throat tightened.

"Speak to him," she whispered.

The knight's voice cracked the cold like thunder undersea.

"I failed her."

Jackline stumbled back a step - breath gone.

The wolf flinched like struck.

Maelor's face hardened with sorrow.

"He remembers one thing - the moment the curse bound him."

The knight continued - voice rough with centuries of regret.

"I could not save the queen."

"I could not protect the child."

"I am still bound to the blood I failed."

Jackline shook - not with fear, but with something that cut deeper.

He had not chosen to guard her.

He had begged for it.

The knight reached toward Jackline - hand open, trembling like a man drowning reaching for the surface. The wolf snarled softly - not at Jackline, but at fate itself.

Jackline stepped closer.

Voice barely breathes.

"You didn't fail me. You saved me."

The knight's form flickered - unstable. Wind tore through ruins like memory collapsing under truth.

Maelor stepped forward.

"The first key lies beyond this hall - where oath was broken. There, choice must be made anew."

Jackline nodded slowly - eyes never leaving the wolf.

He leaned against her leg - not beast-seeking comfort, but man-seeking anchor.

Terin whispered, awe-struck:

"You're waking him."

Jackline touched the wolf's head gently, reverent.

"No," she murmured.

"He's waking himself."

The ghost-knight nodded once - approval, or farewell - before fading like snow in sunlight.

The ruins breathed stillness again.

But the path forward was no longer silent.

It's called.

THE TRIAL BENEATH THE MOUNTAIN

The memory faded into the wind.

Silence returned - but it was heavier now, aware, watching. Snow shifted across the stone floor in shallow drifts, as if the mountain itself was breathing beneath them.

Maelor turned to Jackline.

"The first key to the curse lies beyond these ruins," he said.

"But only the heir can claim it."

Elara lifted her chin. "Then she won't go alone."

Maelor's staff struck the stone sharply - frost rippling outward like cracked ice.

"No."

His voice echoed as thunder swallowed in stone.

"The trial accepts only royal blood."

Jackline's heartbeat tightened.

"What happens if I fail?" she asked quietly.

Maelor looked at her - sorrow, hope, and something unspoken in his eyes.

"Failure is not death," he said.

"Failure is forgetting."

Terin swallowed. "Forgetting what?"

Maelor answered without softening the truth:

"Yourself. Him. Everything that binds you."

Jackline's breath stilled.

The wolf stepped closer, brushing her hand with his fur - grounding her like roots in the wind.

Elara reached for her sleeve, voice tense.

"You don't have to rush this. You just started learning power. We can wait-"

Jackline shook her head.

"The king isn't waiting. And neither is the curse."

Moonlight cut through a gap in the ruined roof - silver falling across her shoulders like a mantle not chosen, but claimed.

She turned to the wolf.

"You come with me."

He blinked, slow - not beast response, but understanding.

Maelor did not object.

"He may walk the trial," the elder said. "But if he loses himself to moonblood inside those walls... nothing will stop him."

Elara's hand tightened on her dagger. "Then we'll be ready to pull you both back."

Jackline met her gaze.

"No. If I call you, you will help. If I don't-"

She swallowed, voice steady even as fear tremored beneath it.

"You run. All of you. Promise me."

Elara opened her mouth to argue, but Terin spoke first - voice quiet, young, but firm:

"If you fall, the world needs us to survive."

Jackline nodded once - gratitude and grief tangled like root and thorn.

Then she stepped toward the archway.

The Threshold of Memory

Snow crunched under her boots as she entered the inner chamber - a hall of cracked pillars and shattered banners frozen beneath stone sky. Carvings lined the walls, eroded but recognizable:

A wolf and a crown.

A crescent moon.

A child wrapped in flame.

Jackline's breath thickened in her lungs.

This place was built for her blood - not metaphor.

The wolf walked at her side, silent but tense. His eyes glowed faintly silver in the cold gloom - red flickering beneath, pushed down by will alone.

Torches flared to life without flame as she passed.

The floor trembled.

Stone parted ahead - like breath opening into deeper lung - revealing a stair descending into dark.

Terin called out behind her:

"We'll wait at the entrance."

Elara added, voice fierce -

"Come back."

Jackline didn't turn.

"I will."

And she stepped downward - into shadow.

The Hall of Echoed Truths

The stairs spiraled into a dim blue glow, air colder, older, heavier. The walls pulsed with ancient magic - veins of silver light threading stone like lightning frozen mid-birth.

Then the chamber opened.

Circular. Vast. Columns like trees turned to bone.

At the center - a mirror of black glass taller than three men.

Jackline approached slowly.

The wolf hesitated - a single step behind her, breath unsteady.

When she stood before the mirror, it didn't show her reflection.

It showed two.

Jackline - crown of moonlight.

And beside her -

Not a wolf.

A man.

Barefoot. Cloaked in silver.

Eyes like storms and scars across his hands.

Her guardian - unchanged, unshaken, unbroken.

The wolf stiffened - recognition like a blade through the heart.

Jackline's lungs ached.

She whispered into the dark:

"That's who you were."

The reflection shifted.

Now she stood alone - no wolf, no knight - only a throne behind her. Empty. Cold.

Another shift.

She stood crowned - but the wolf was bound in silver chains beside her throne, eyes hollow and red like an undone memory.

Jackline stepped back - breath sharp.

The mirror pulsed with cold power.

A voice rose - not human, not wraith - something woven from old oath and broken fate:

"Choose what you save."

Jackline froze.

The wolf growled - low, dangerous, warning.

"Save the kingdom."

The mirror showed armies kneeling, banners raised - Jackline crowned but alone.

"Or save the guardian."

It showed the wolf fully human, reaching for her - but behind him, the kingdom burned.

Jackline's chest tightened painfully.

No choice.

Punishment disguised as destiny.

Her voice trembled -

"I won't choose between them."

The mirror flared bright - rejecting answer.

"One path opens only if one is named."

Jackline's eyes stung - not with tears, but fury.

"I will save him and the kingdom."

The mirror cracked.

Not broken - resisting.

Fractures glowed like lightning strikes.

Magic tore through the chamber in cold wind.

Jackline didn't flinch.

She lifted her spear.

Moonlight sparked along the wood - silver bright and wild.

She spoke not like a child, but like heir:

"I refuse your choice. I make my own."

The mirror shuddered - then shattered into a thousand shards of light.

Silence rang like a bell.

Power rippled outward - strong enough to shake stone, enough to pull shadows from walls like startled birds.

And then-

Two things happened at once:

The wolf fell to his knees - half-collapsed beneath sudden pain.

And a doorway opened ahead, carved of pure moonstone.

Jackline rushed to him - hands on his shoulders, voice steady but breaking inside:

"I'm here. I'm not leaving."

His eyes flicked open - silver trembling like a dam holding back a red tide.

He stayed in control.

Because she was touching him.

Because she chose him.

He rose slowly - leaning into her weight, not weakness but connection forged in trial.

They crossed the threshold together.

Not kingdom or guardian.

Both.

The Vault of Silver Blood

The moonstone doorway closed behind them with a soft sound - not a slam, not a seal.

A heartbeat.

The chamber beyond glowed with silver light that had no source - walls carved with crescent symbols and runes Jackline recognized in her bones, though not in her mind. The air tasted old, as snow melted from centuries.

The wolf stepped beside her, body still trembling faintly, but controlled.

Eyes silver.

Red pushed back.

Held.

Jackline exhaled slowly.

"We did it."

He pressed closer, shoulder brushing hers - not fear, not need, something deeper. Something like I am here because you chose me.

Something, as I trust you not to let me fall.

She tightened her grip on her spear.

Torchless light deepened at the room's center - illuminating a pedestal of moon-carved stone. Upon it lay an object wrapped in white cloth, edges embroidered with the royal crest she'd seen only twice:

Once in the portrait.

Once in the diary.

Her mother's mark.

Jackline approached - feet silent on moonstone floor. She touched the cloth with reverence and unwrapped it slowly.

Inside lay a silver circlet.

Not a full crown.

Not yet.

A half-circlet - broken.

It's missing a side jagged as if torn away.

Elara and Terin carried half a crest.

Jackline carried half a crown.

Nothing was whole yet.

She lifted the circlet carefully - light humming through metal like a pulse. When her fingers curled around it, a voice whispered through the chamber - not sound, not echo.

Memory.

Her mother's voice - soft, resolute, aching:

If my daughter finds this, let her know - she was not abandoned.

She was saved from a fate written in blood.

If she wears the crown half-made, the kingdom will rise half-broken.

She must choose whether to rule alone - or rebuild what was torn.

Jackline felt her heart tighten - not pain.

Purpose.

Elara and Terin stood outside. Her allies. Her beginning. And the wolf-

She looked at him.

Silver eyes locked to hers like a vow she hadn't spoken yet.

The room brightened.

And something happened that had never happened before.

The wolf inhaled sharply - chest shuddering - and sound formed in his throat.

Rough.

Painful.

Human.

"J...ac...line."

She froze.

Her heart stopped.

He spoke.

Not a growl shaped like a word.

Not a magic-mimicking voice.

A voice - broken by years of silence, fragile and raw like a wound reopened - but a voice.

Her name.

A sound she had never heard, yet recognized as if she'd always known it lived inside him.

Jackline stepped closer, barely breathing.

"You remember," she whispered.

His gaze wavered - not red, not silver, something like both, flickering with humanity trying to surface.

"Not... all," he managed - voice shaking like winter branches.

"But... you."

She felt something break open inside her - not fear, not relief, something deeper.

Recognition.

His body trembled, strength draining under the effort. She placed her hand on his neck immediately - anchoring him. His eyes steadied. Breath eased.

He stayed.

And that was enough.

Jackline pressed her forehead gently to his.

"We'll get it all back," she murmured. "Your voice. Your memory. Your life."

He closed his eyes - not in weakness.

In trust.

The circlet hummed in her hand - responding not to blood alone, but to bond.

Maelor appeared in the doorway - leaning on his staff, eyes shining with awe, heavy as snowfall.

"It has begun," he whispered.

Elara and Terin stepped in behind him, silent beneath the enormity of the moment.

"The second key lies beyond this vault," Maelor continued. "But the path is steeper. The magic is darker. And what comes next..."

He looked at the wolf - and his voice softened with warning.

"...will test whether his humanity is returning - or slipping further away."

Jackline straightened slowly.

Her voice held steel now - not learned, but awakened.

"Then we move forward."

Not back.

Not paused.

Forward.

Together.

And the wolf - still breathing her name - walked beside her, no longer only beast.

Not yet fully man.

But returning.

One step.

One word.

One heartbeat at a time.