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Heart and Oath

Idris

T he forest reeked of abomination. Of rot and death and the sickly sweetness of the Morta, the grotesque creators of the lesser monsters Idris usually fought.

But that was not the only thing Idris scented as he strode down the road. He smelled Anya , clear and bright as a golden ribbon leading his nose deeper into the tangled cover of this cursed forest. The warm, indescribable scent of her skin was too pure for such a wretched place.

It belonged in a cheerful pub, surrounded by singing and merriment. Underneath a blanket of stars, mingling with campfire smoke. Nestled in a soft bed, tucked against his chest. It belonged wherever Anya wished it to, for that was her charm: the ability to befriend and belong just by being herself.

Instead, her scent was here. Surrounded by the stink of monster that Idris himself had surrounded himself with for the last fifteen years.

No more. No more of this for either of them.

The delicate salinity of her tears peppering the forest floor kept him moving as swiftly and silently as possible. Protectiveness pulsed in his heart with each step.

His body hurt. The tenderness in his ribs ached with every breath, and the old injury in his shoulder was stiff with strain from his fight with Oderin. The streak of blood across his bicep from his friend’s axe was already coagulating, cooling in the night air; it stuck to his ripped sleeve and pulled taut with his movements, cracking open to ooze more blood each time he flexed. Had Oderin tried harder, the gash would be deeper—but Oderin’s heart hadn’t been in the fight, and Idris’s had.

Heart against Oath .

Idris knew now which one was the winner. Oderin hadn’t even bothered to hide his amusement as Idris had shackled him to a tree. “This isn’t the first time I’ve worn cuffs like these,” he’d said with a wink before Idris disappeared into the forest.

That had been hours ago.

The quiet of this place disturbed Idris. Under normal circumstances, even he wouldn’t’ve entered the forest alone. The ruins of Kelebraim were famously overrun with Morta, and this was the road that led there. Marked with Anya’s footprints. A place even the bravest of Valiant hunting parties had long ago given up on patrolling.

What had he been thinking, abandoning her to take this path alone? The Lord’s theoretical consequences for interference in Anya’s mission seemed paltry when compared to the real and present dangers of this road. With her Oath of Proving, she had to do this alone, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help from afar.

Idris hoped he’d come to his senses in time. That it wasn’t too late for Anya. He picked up his pace, using his long legs to eat up twice the distance as her reluctant strides.

The scent of her fright intensified as he went, hovering in the mist, unmistakable. It smelled vulnerable as a newborn; pungent as sweat. He hated it. He hated that it was getting worse as he walked, her fear tipping into terror.

A shriek pierced the air, perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead.

Idris broke into a run, a different sort of terror coursing through him—determined, singular, selfless. He left the path and wove through the underbrush in the direction of her voice, ducking under tree limbs and leaping over logs. A great cracking filled the air, but he did not slow, did not hesitate. He pushed through the pain in his ribs, the stiffness in his knees, barreling toward Anya—

—only to find that her scent had faded.

He realized what she’d done the moment he saw the Morta appear—she’d thrown her voice, thrown the abomination off her trail. The creature—blind, based on its eerie white eyes—had fallen for it.

But so had Idris.

The Morta jerked its head, triangulating Idris with its cunning ears. The creature was on the smaller side, a young one. It was rare for a Morta to be sightless, but given the state of its body, it must’ve fallen into one of the pools. The geothermal waters outside Kelebraim were known for their strange effects. One couldn’t enter a pool without exiting it changed . Seems this abomination had found a pool that would make it even more horrifying.

Idris prayed to the Fates that Anya found the correct pool.

Idris wasted no time in sizing up his opponent. He unsheathed Halgren, blue flame licking over his palm and wrist as he gave his sword a few swings, warming up his arm. Idris was worn down, slowed by age and the wear of so many years fighting the lesser offspring of creatures such as this—but in this fight, he had both his Oath and his heart on his side.

He ran for the abomination.

The Morta matched his vigor, swiping out with a vicious claw, impossibly quick. It clipped Idris in the chest before he had time to register the strike, his breastplate repelling the blow with a zap of energy. He gritted his teeth, heaving Halgren down on the gray slab of muscle at creature’s hip.

Black blood spurted. The abomination squealed in pain, baring it’s long and pointed teeth. Idris swung again, but this time, the creature sidestepped him, only to lunge a second later. It clipped his thigh, the cut searing with the poison of its sickness. Idris’s Oath granted him partial immunity from monsters’ fluids, but it wouldn’t take more than a few wounds from a Morta to slow him.

To bring him down.

Idris breathed deeply, going in for another few blows. Even without eyes, the Morta moved confidently, using its eerily long arms to swipe at him. It nicked a vambrace, the metal repelling it back as his breastplate had. Idris used the opportunity to rush the creature, dealing blow after attempted blow. He managed a slice across the face, the shoulder. The creature’s body crackled with a bone-chilling, calamitous racket of tearing flesh and snapping ligaments, and it took all Idris’s focus not to cow to the sound. It drowned out even the sound of his own breaths, his own thoughts.

Halgren was a blue blur in the dark, blazing against the shadows that surrounded him. With a lesser monster, the fight would’ve already been won—that gash he doled to the Morta’s hip would’ve been deep enough to fell the creatures he usually fought. But this abomination was fierce—fearsome.

In an unrelenting onslaught, the abomination came at him with the vigor of ten monsters combined. Apparently, it did not need sight to make a formidable foe; even with the awful snapping of its own body, it seemed to hear Idris plainly, no-doubt using the whoosh of Halgren’s flame and the clamor of Idris’s footsteps to locate his ever-moving location. It managed another strike to his leg, then his arm, the cuts burning worse than vinegar. Idris was forced to retreat, walking backward across the uneven forest floor while swinging Halgren wildly.

Then suddenly he went down, stumbling backward over a fallen tree. The abomination leapt, its bony chest slamming against Idris’s breastplate with a clatter. Halgren slipped from his fingers, and when he reached for the sword, the abomination pinned his hand to the ground with a claw, the sharp black bone piercing all the way through his palm and out the other side into the dirt.

The pain—hot, searing—traveled up his arm, spiderwebbing like lightning. His eyes pricked with tears of shock, and he squirmed underneath the abomination’s weight. It snapped at him with its dreadful maw, and he gripped its face with his one free hand, pressing his thumb into a white, unseeing eye—but the monstrosity wouldn’t back down. It leaned into his palm, hissing inches from his face, saliva burning his skin like hot rancid oil.

True fear swept through Idris. He might die like this, pinned underneath a monster. It was just another way he was destined to fail someone he cared about.

Idris braced for the inevitable impact, the shredding of skin with that venomous mouth. He breathed through his nose, his senses filling with the awful, vomit-inducing stink of Morta—

—and the gold ribbon of something…else.

Something warmer, sweeter, purer.

The scent was faint, but it was nearby, half-buried in the loamy ground. Iron, wood, and feather, tangled with the scent of her . Pressing harder into the abomination’s eye, Idris glanced sideways along the forest floor and spotted it: a single crossbow bolt, no farther than an arm’s length away.