The map room of the Harrower's Hall was cold despite the hearth fire burning low in the grate. Shadows moved like thoughts over the heavy tapestry-map that covered the far wall, a woven depiction of the Veil's many folds and tears. Runes glimmered softly in its threads—living glyphs now pulsing with change.
Hollowmere: Stabilized.
Skath's Weep: Quieter than it has been in centuries.
Mourndell: Stirring with ancestral sleepwalkers.
Maerlowe stood beneath the great map, hands clasped behind his back, wearing an elegantly disheveled ensemble that wouldn't be out of place on the cover of GQ: Arcane Academics Edition. His silver pen glinted from his pocket like a badge of office.
Grey entered first, looking slightly miffed at the immaculate Maerlowe, followed by Alaric, who moved with the silent grace of a storm biding its time. Wickham trailed in last, carrying a half-eaten apple and a rolled-up parchment he pretended to read upside-down.
"I thought you'd want to see this," Maerlowe said, gesturing to the glowing runes. "The seals are changing. And we have field reports—fresh ones."
He pulled a sheaf of paper from the table, ink still wet in places. "Caderyn is moving. His agents have been seen near soulwells long fractured. Old allies have gone quiet—either hiding or vanished. The Thorncairn Knighthood has ceased all contact, and the Sisters of Iskar haven't responded to the last three communiqués. Even the Lanternmen—who've weathered three court collapses—have gone dark. They were always the watchmen of forgotten places. If they're gone, something is silencing the deep."
He held out the top report. "Listen to this. West of the Barrow Glen, five spirits rose in the same hour. Restless. Each whispered the same phrase: 'Light cannot bear remembering.'"
Grey frowned. "What does that mean?"
Maerlowe shook his head. "I don't know. But I've seen it before. Right before the first Dissolution. The Veil is thinning again. Something is stirring the dead."
Alaric's voice was low. "Or waking them."
Wickham snorted, biting into the apple again. "Delightful. Shall we just paint a target on the Hall and host a ghost gala?"
But his eyes didn't twinkle with mischief. Not quite.
The discussion moved to the war table. Candles flickered. The map beneath their hands seemed to hum with potential.
Maerlowe looked up. "We can still remain hidden. Continue mending the Veil quietly. But that won't last long. Not now."
Wickham threw himself into a chair, legs over the arm like a lounging cat with a penchant for arson. "Or—and hear me out, my darlings—we ignite the hearts and minds of the disenchanted with an absolutely lurid theatrical uprising. Flaming letters by ghostpost. Cryptic threats delivered via enchanted origami. Fashion statements so rebellious they offend both Court and couture. I've already mocked up a banner. It's dreadful. You'll love it."
He unrolled a parchment revealing a stylised sigil of a thread weaving through a broken crown. Underneath it: Let the forgotten speak.
Grey blinked. "That's… surprisingly good."
"I know." Wickham preened. "Minimalist but defiant. Very now."
Alaric, arms folded, remained unmoved. His voice was measured, but carried an edge forged from centuries of bitter lessons. "Spectacle draws attention. We need precision. A subtle strike could do more than a thousand burning banners."
He glanced toward the flickering map. "Caderyn thrives on theatrics. He'll be expecting something loud—rage dressed up as righteousness. If we charge in with flags unfurled, he'll have his trap set and sprung before we reach the threshold. He'll use it to his advantage, and rally more to his side."
Alaric's jaw tightened. "No. If we strike, it must be where he least expects. Quiet as a grave breath. Certain as winter. That's the only way to win against someone who's already written the script."
Grey looked between them. Then stood slowly. Her voice was quiet, but it carried.
"We don't need a rebellion. We need a reckoning."
Silence fell.
Maerlowe's eyes narrowed. "Then we summon them."
Grey nodded. "The ones who remain. The ones who remember. We bring them here. All of them."
Wickham raised a brow. "A Convocation of Forgotten Threads. Oh, I do so love a dramatic title. I'll put on the kettle, shall I?"
Alaric smiled faintly. "Then let's make it more than a title."
Night had fallen by the time the white crow came.
It landed on the battlements without sound, eyes pale as pearls. In its beak: a single silver thread.
Maerlowe retrieved it with reverence, his gloved fingers handling the thread like an ancient relic. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the silver shimmer warmed against his palm, and a faint crackling tension threaded the air, like the moment before lightning strikes. Slowly, the thread unspooled, and a voice rose from it—Isolde's voice, crystalline and grave, as if spoken from the marrow of memory itself. The air smelled like rain.
"There is one blade left. Forged for a king, lost to time. But not lost to me. The Oathblade knows its master. It waits… in the shadow of my throne."
The thread dissolved.
Grey blinked. "So I feel like I should be asking what the Oathblade is," she said to nobody in particular.
"I mean, what the actual hell? I… I don't know how to wield a sword!"
Wickham clapped her on the shoulder. "Darling, maybe it's ceremonial. You know, like a royal accessory. Or a cheese knife. Very symbolic."
He laughed too quickly, the sound a little hollow.
No one joined him.
Maerlowe turned his gaze toward Alaric. Long. Silent. Knowing.
Alaric did not flinch.
The truth hung in the air like unshed thunder.
The blade did not belong to Grey.
It belonged to him.
Maerlowe cleared his throat and stepped forward, breaking the tension like a man drawing curtains on a storm.
"The Oathblade," he said quietly, "is one of the five sacred relics forged in the First Accord, when the Seelie and Unseelie Courts still spoke as kin. Each was crafted to embody a virtue lost to time: Mercy, Memory, Oath, Shadow, and Truth."
He placed a reverent hand against the map.
"The Oathblade is the rarest. A weapon that binds not just flesh, but fate. It swears itself to one alone—only once in all time. That it still exists is miracle enough. That it waits in the shadow of Isolde's throne is… unthinkable."
Maerlowe looked up at Alaric with something caught between awe and fear. "To wield it is to bind your will to the balance of all things. It will not accept a lie. Or a divided heart."
Grey stared, still stunned. "Why would she hide something like that?"
Wickham, for once, had no joke.
Alaric stepped forward, his expression unreadable, the firelight casting bronze along the hollow of his cheek. He lifted his hand slightly, the fingers long and calloused, ringless but bearing faint sigils burned in lines along the palm—remnants of a promise made too long ago.
"Because it was never meant for a king," he said.
His voice held the gravity of ancient things, and he continued, "The Fae cannot die by mortal means. Poison, fire, iron—it wounds, yes. But true death?" He shook his head slowly. "No. Only two things can unmake a Fae completely. The first is an ancient spell, one so dire that invoking it would almost certainly kill the wielder. The second…"
He looked directly at Grey. "Is the Oathblade. A sacred executioner's weapon. It was never forged for ceremony. It was made to kill the undying. To pass judgment on gods."
A silence spread like frost.
"That is why it was hidden. Why it calls not to monarchs, but to those who walk alone."
And with that, the room went still.
Outside, the crow took wing into the night, vanishing like a ghost among stars.
Folio of Threads Entry: Scribed by E. Maerlowe
Let it be recorded:
The Oathblade, long thought lost to time and legend, has stirred once more. Its whereabouts are now known to the Harrowers. Details of its location remain sealed, for even in secrecy, truth breathes danger.
No Fae is untouchable.
Vault of the Chorus Beneath, somewhere in the Irish Sea
The sea did not forget.
It curled around the Vault of the Chorus in coils of moonlit current, holding its breath.
Within, silence reigned—not as absence, but as authority.
The Sirens of Iskar stood in a circle, motionless beneath the glass arch of the ceiling. Pearlescent robes clung like second skins. Driftglass masks hid their faces, each shaped to resemble a different expression of grief: the wail, the hush, the tearless stare.
In the center of the circle, Thalassa Vael knelt. She was younger than the rest. Less still. Her mask lay beside her, untouched.
Before her, the pedestal stood empty.
Where once there had been a vessel—grown from whisper coral, bathed in lament, sealed with an unspoken name—there was only a faint residue of golden songlight, flickering and fading like the last note of a funeral dirge.
Thalassa's voice, when it came, was level. Measured.
"He's broken the seal."
The oldest Sister stirred. Her mask showed a closed mouth, weeping at the corners.
"He has sung what was not his to utter. Bound what was not his to wield."
Another voice, in chorus with hers: "The tide does not forgive theft. Nor does grief."
A third: "He does not understand what he's done."
Thalassa's eyes narrowed. Her hair drifted around her shoulders like ink in water.
"No," she said softly. "He understands exactly what he's done."
She stood slowly, every movement deliberate. The water did not resist her. The pedestal's light flickered once more as she reached for the siren-blade at her hip—a vessel of her own. Unused. Unopened.
The eldest Sister spoke again, voice like waves over bones. "If you follow this path, Thalassa Vael, you may not return whole."
Thalassa turned her head, gaze piercing.
"Wholeness was never part of the covenant. Only purpose."
"He is using our sorrow to make promises he cannot keep. To pull the threads of souls that would choose peace—and bind them into lies."
"If the Convocation will not act, I will."
The circle fell silent.
Then—a single, harmonious note. Low and resonant. A blessing. A warning.
Thalassa bowed her head once in return.
And as the Chorus parted to let her pass, her voice—barely audible—drifted back through the tide:
"He's singing ghosts into cages. I'll remind him what the sea does to cages."