The Vault of Iron Oaths

The Bastion's lower levels breathed differently.

Where the upper corridors carried echoes and light, the descent into the armory vaults felt like slipping beneath skin, warm stone giving way to cold marrow. The torches here burned duller, as if uncertain they were welcome. Ryuji's footsteps echoed less, but their weight seemed heavier.

He passed the final guard post, unmanned now, and entered the steel-barred corridor. Dust clung to the walls in faint outlines where banners once hung, now removed or stolen by time. An old inscription ran across the arch overhead,

"Steel remembers what silence forgets."

Ryuji paused beneath it.

He had read those words as a boy, wide-eyed and full of reverence. Back then, he thought it meant the sword was a tool of memory, that justice was forged like a blade. Now, it felt more like a warning.

The door to the inner vault creaked open at his touch.

The smell struck first, oil, rust, old parchment. A dim lantern flickered near the back, casting long shadows across racks of unused halberds and sealed crates marked with outdated crests.

At the center stood a squat figure hunched over a worktable.

"Velen", Ryuji said softly.

The steward didn't turn. "You walk like a man carrying too much", he said without greeting. "Even your silence sounds armored."

Ryuji stepped forward. "I heard you kept more than blades here."

"I keep what others forget", Velen replied, still not looking up. "That's the nature of my post."

Ryuji studied the room. Old ledgers lined the far shelf. A few crates bore the sigil of the Ninth Oath, long since disbanded. But others were older, unmarked or scratched clean.

"I'm not here for weapons", he said.

Velen gave a low grunt. "Then you're either a fool or you're looking for ghosts. And ghosts are worse."

"I'm looking for what they left behind."

That made the steward pause. Slowly, he turned. His face was lined, deeply, eyes shadowed beneath thick brows. His hands, though calloused, moved with care, one resting near a small wooden box on the table.

"You're Daima's son", Velen said.

Ryuji didn't flinch. "I was."

"I remember the day they first brought him to the Citadel. Sword still wet with Breach-blood. He believed."

Ryuji didn't respond.

Velen lifted the lid of the box. Inside, nestled in old cloth, was a small medallion, circular, bronze, engraved with nine coordinated rings. Each ring bore a sigil. All but one had been scored through.

"The Medallion of Binding", Velen said. "Given only to those who signed the original Dominion Pact. Nine hands, nine oaths. Nine locks to seal what should never be reopened."

"And yet one ring remains unbroken", Ryuji said.

Velen nodded. "Because one oath was never fulfilled."

He held out the medallion.

Ryuji took it gently, feeling the worn metal warm in his hand. The empty ring bore no crest, only a blank surface.

"Who held this one?" he asked.

Velen's eyes did not leave his. "Your father."

Silence flooded the vault. Somewhere above, a door slammed shut, distant thunder through stone. But down here, the sound felt far away.

Ryuji stared at the ring, voice low. "They told me he died in the breach."

"He did", Velen said. "But not before he gave up what he swore to guard."

The words fell like slow ash.

Ryuji's grip tightened. "What was behind the seal?"

"I never saw it. None of us did. Only the Nine. And even they feared what it truly was."

Velen stepped back, reaching behind a cabinet. He produced a rolled parchment bound in wax-thread, old, fragile.

"This was hidden beneath the floorboards after the first collapse. Marked with your father's cipher. I kept it sealed, in case…"

He handed it to Ryuji.

The weight of it felt heavier than the medallion.

Ryuji did not open it yet. He looked at the steward. "Why now?"

"Because you're the last one asking questions. And because sometimes… the rot needs to be seen before it can be cut out."

Ryuji gave a slow nod. His eyes lingered once more on the vault, on its shelves of forgotten arms, its broken oaths, its silence.

He left without another word.

---

Back in his chambers, the wind outside had begun to shift. It carried dust from the southern tier, and the faintest scent of snow.

Ryuji lit a single lamp and unbound the scroll.

Words in his father's hand, rigid, pressed hard into the parchment. Names. Coordinates. Symbols too old to decipher immediately. And a line underlined twice, the ink faint but deliberate,

"If they ever return, the seal must not be restored. What broke is meant to warn us."

He sat in the quiet long after the flame had burned low, staring at those words.

There was more at play than betrayal. More than memory. The Dominion Pact hadn't ended a war.

It had buried something alive.

And someone still wanted it forgotten.