Ending Maker novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Oath Blade
Greer wakes in gold armor before a kneeling cathedral, faces her rival in black plate, and breaks the oath blade in front of everyone. The sky clock drops to 29.
The last thing I remembered was a raid timer at two in the morning and a cold cup of coffee.
The next thing was stone under my knees and a hundred voices chanting in unison.
"Sunblade."
I opened my eyes.
I was kneeling in a cathedral so tall that the ceiling disappeared into gold light.
My hands rested on a sword that was not a sword.
It was a blade of pale fire, steady as a candle, and it did not burn me.
I wore golden half-plate that fit onto me.
Hundreds of people knelt in the nave, and every face was turned my way.
I knew the room.
I had stood in the Cathedral of Dawn on a screen for eight years and never smelled the incense.
"No," I said out loud. "No, no, no."
My own voice sounded wrong in the stone air, a little deeper, a little steadier.
I pushed at the air with my thoughts, the way I'd opened menus for years.
A pale panel unfolded in front of my eyes.
QUEST LOG.
Under it, in red letters, one line was locked behind a grey bar.
ENDING: THE LAST EMBER.
In the sky above the stained glass, something hung that did not belong to any window.
It was a clock, thin and red, and it read 30.
"Rise, Sunblade," said a deep voice.
A man in silver armor came down the steps with a scar along his jaw and a face.
I recognized him from the cutscenes.
Sir Rennard Vosk, Champion of the Queen Regent.
In the game he was a quest giver.
He was not a quest giver now.
He was looking at me.
"Thirty days," he said, and he spoke to the whole nave. "The prophecy is older than this city."
"The twin heroes wake when the Hollow King stirs."
"The Sunblade and the Nightwarden meet at the Ember Gate on the last day."
"And there the oath is kept."
People wept.
Some of them were smiling.
That was the part that made my stomach turn.
Rennard lifted a long sword from a cushion held by two priests.
It was plain steel, with a red thread wound around the hilt.
"The oath blade," he said. "Take it and swear."
A second set of footsteps rang on the stone.
I turned my head.
Across the nave, rising from his own knee, stood a man in black plate with a cloak that moved.
He had dark curls to his collar, a nose that had been broken once, and a look I would have known across a stadium.
Emmett Quarles.
Nightfall.
For four years he had been number one in the duels while I was number one in the raids, and every patch day we met in the global chat to destroy each other.
He had taken the world-first I'd bled for.
I had reported his build to the moderators the week after.
He turned and saw me, and for one second fear broke across his face.
Then it went flat and bored, the way it did in every chat log I had ever screenshotted.
"Halcyon," he said.
"Nightfall," I said.
It was the only thing either of us could think of.
"You know each other," said Rennard, and he sounded delighted.
"Then the oath will be simple. Take the blade, Sunblade. Swear to meet the Nightwarden at the Gate and end him."
The priests held the sword toward me.
"Or he will end you," Rennard added gently. "Either way, the Hollow King is bound."
The nave went silent.
I looked at the clock, at the weeping faces, at the man in black plate who was not helping me at all.
I took the blade from its cushion.
It was heavy and real and it was a murder weapon with a ribbon on it.
"Swear," whispered a priest.
Rennard smiled.
I brought the blade down across my armored knee, hard, with both hands.
It cracked.
The sound went up into the dome and came back down on a hundred people at once.
I dropped both halves on the floor.
"I don't swear to kill people because a quest told me to," I said. "Find another hero."
No one breathed.
Rennard's smile went out, one tooth at a time.
Across the nave Emmett Quarles let out a short breath, almost a laugh.
He walked past three priests, stepped over the broken blade, and stopped beside me close enough to speak without moving his lips.
"Good," he murmured.
Then, so low I almost lost it, "Now it starts for real."
Overhead the red clock ticked once.
It read 29.
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