The dawn after the vow was a strange one.
The light came slowly, golden and soft, but nothing seemed warm anymore. The marsh was still, as if nature itself were hesitant to intrude on the presence of someone who had crossed a threshold of no return.
Frido stood at the edge of a cracked stone path leading east, beyond the Pool of the Sworn. His shoulders were straighter now, yet something in him had hollowed — not broken, not empty, but carved out intentionally, as if preparing to carry something vast.
He had no words.
And that silence changed everything.
Mirea walked beside him. Every time she looked at him, her chest tightened. He was still Frido — the same boy with rough hands and foolish bravery — but something had passed through him, leaving behind an echo of something greater. Something sacred.
Teren followed behind, quieter than usual.
They moved eastward through the final stretch of fenland, toward the low hills where the banners of the Eastern Marches were said to rise like fire from the stone.
---
By midday, they crested a ridge and saw the valley of Murigar spread before them.
It had once been a city. Now, it was a ruin — smoke rising in thin black threads from the bones of houses. Stone walls broken. Gates shattered. A river ran through the city's spine like a scar.
And across the bridge that crossed it, camped in banners of red and steel, stood the Legion of the Crowned Flame.
Teren dropped low. "They're mobilizing."
Frido stepped forward, unconcerned. Mirea caught his arm.
"You can't just walk in. They'll kill you."
He turned to her, eyes gentle, calm.
Then raised a hand and tapped his chest twice, over his heart.
Trust me.
She let go.
Teren exhaled. "I swore I'd protect you. Even if I don't understand what you've become."
He followed anyway.
---
By evening, they reached the outskirts of Murigar.
Ash still drifted from the burnt homes. The smell of soot and iron clung to every shadow. No children laughed in the streets. No merchants barked in the square. Only the slow tread of armored boots, and the breath of soldiers sharpening blades.
A patrol spotted them before they reached the gate.
"Hold!" barked the captain, a broad-shouldered man with a jagged scar down his cheek. His red tabard bore the Crowned Flame.
Frido raised his hands, palms out.
The captain's eyes narrowed. "You there. Speak your name."
Frido did not answer.
Teren stepped forward. "He cannot speak. He is under vow."
The captain sneered. "A mute wanderer in a war zone?"
Mirea stepped beside Frido. "He comes under peace. We seek audience with Commander Aerthas."
The captain hesitated. "No one sees the commander without order."
Then he looked at Frido again — something in the boy's stillness unsettled him. His discipline faltered.
"Wait here."
He vanished into the camp.
---
They were made to wait two hours in the shadow of the gate.
When the captain returned, his eyes were no longer dismissive.
"Come," he said. "The commander will see you."
They were led through the burnt bones of Murigar, past tents buzzing with preparation. Soldiers drilled, whetstones rasped. Fires crackled. But everywhere Frido passed, heads turned.
Something about him stirred discomfort. Or reverence.
Perhaps both.
They reached a large pavilion at the city's ruined square — once a place of festivals, now littered with spears.
Commander Aerthas was waiting.
He stood tall, armored in gleaming black with red inlays. His hair was silvered from years of command, his eyes sharp as a hawk's. He had fought in twenty battles, crushed five uprisings, and once broke a siege by walking alone into enemy lines and returning with their leader's head.
But when he saw Frido, something in his jaw tightened.
"You," he said.
Frido bowed slightly.
Mirea stepped forward. "He comes as a bearer of the Vow."
Aerthas raised an eyebrow. "There are none left who take that oath. It was forbidden by the Triune Treaty."
Teren spoke. "He took it anyway. At the Pool of the Sworn."
Aerthas studied Frido.
"You bear no weapon."
Frido nodded.
"No banner."
Frido nodded again.
Aerthas walked forward until they were face to face. Then, without warning, he drew his sword.
Mirea gasped.
Frido did not flinch.
Aerthas held the blade an inch from his neck.
"Do you fear death?" he asked.
Frido reached out, calmly, and touched the flat of the blade.
Then gently pushed it aside.
"No," Teren answered for him. "He fears the silence more — the one left behind by war."
Aerthas lowered the weapon. "Bold."
He turned to his guards. "Leave us."
---
Inside the pavilion, the four sat.
Aerthas leaned back, watching Frido like a scholar watches a rare artifact.
"You don't understand what you're walking into, boy. The Eastern Marches are days from rising. My men are ready. The nobles are blood-hungry. What do you think one silent boy can do?"
Frido picked up a piece of charcoal and wrote on the tablecloth.
> "I will not speak. But I will be heard."
Aerthas frowned. "Poetic. But war is not moved by riddles."
Frido wrote again.
> "But men are."
The commander was silent.
Then he leaned forward. "You want to address the war council?"
Frido nodded.
Aerthas laughed. "You'll be eaten alive."
Frido stared him down.
Something in that gaze — not arrogant, not naive — gave Aerthas pause.
Finally, he grunted. "Tomorrow at dawn. The commanders will gather. If you can stop what's coming with nothing but silence and eyes... then I will call back the fire."
He stood.
"But I doubt it."
---
That night, Mirea sat with Frido near the remains of a broken fountain. Stars above. Smoke on the breeze.
She hadn't spoken in an hour.
Finally, she said, "I hate that you can't speak."
Frido tilted his head.
"Not because I need your words. But because I want to hear your truth from you. Not through others."
He looked at her gently.
Then took her hand and placed it on his chest.
His heart beat steadily.
This is my truth, it seemed to say.
She closed her eyes.
"I wish I'd told you sooner," she whispered. "I wish I'd told you what you mean to me."
He wrote in the dirt between them:
> "I've always known."
Her tears were silent, like his vow.
---
As dawn broke, bells rang.
Not for war.
But for judgment.
The council convened.
Frido would stand before lords and generals, warpriests and killers — and speak without words.
Whatever happened, the world would change.
And the silence would thunder.
---
End of Chapter 41