# Chapter 14 – The Shard's Whisper
Arthur Vaelstrom
The ridge was bitter today, the wind slicing across the crags like a blade. Arthur stood alone, the blackstone shard heavy in his hand. It wasn't just stone anymore. When he touched it, the Codex at his chest hummed, faint but alive, like a heart stirring in the dark.
He knelt on the frostbitten ground, setting the shard before him. Eyes closed, he steadied his breath, letting the world fall away. The knight's final words clung to him, sharp as the wind. *"I break my sword. But not my word."*
He didn't force the Codex to respond. He waited, open, like offering a hand to someone wary. And for the first time, it reached back.
A flash of steel, jagged and fleeting. A low roar, distant but clawing closer. The ache of a body breaking, yet no surrender in it.
Arthur's mind sank into the shard's echo. It wasn't a story, not some tidy tale from a bard. It was raw—grit and blood and a promise left hanging. The knight had faced something unstoppable, something he couldn't kill. But he'd held his ground, not for glory, just to buy time.
Then, nothing. A quiet that pressed like a stone on Arthur's chest.
When he opened his eyes, the wind had shifted. It didn't touch him anymore, curling around him like water around a rock.
He pressed the shard to the Codex's lower edge. It didn't fuse, didn't vanish into the metal. Instead, the shard's faint lines flickered, accepted but separate, like a vow held in trust. The Codex's inner plate shimmered, and words carved themselves into the surface, soft as a whisper:
> I will remain standing.
Simple. Heavy. Like the first stone laid for a wall.
Arthur felt the air change, a subtle tilt in the world. The ground itself seemed to notice, as if it sensed a promise taking root.
He hadn't spoken. But the Codex had listened.
That evening, Captain Arga caught him by the training yard, where Arthur was drilling forms until his muscles burned. Sweat soaked his collar, his movements sharp, binding thought to motion.
"You've been up on that ridge three times this week," Arga said, voice low but firm. "We need you here, Vaelstrom."
Arthur straightened, wiping his brow. "I'm getting ready. Whatever's at the shrine isn't done with us."
Arga's face tightened. "It's not just the shrine." He stepped closer, eyes locked on Arthur's. "A patrol came back this morning. Roughed up. Spooked. They saw something out by the hills—a knight in full plate, bleeding black from the seams. Stood there, staring. Then gone, like smoke."
Arthur's jaw clenched. "No one went after him?"
"They were lucky to make it back at all."
In his quarters, Arthur unbuckled the Codex, its weight familiar now. The etched words glowed faintly, pulsing with his heartbeat.
*I will remain standing.*
He didn't know when those words would matter, but they felt close, like a storm just over the horizon. The Codex knew more than he did—he could feel it.
He fastened it beneath his breastplate. It wasn't just armor anymore. It was a choice, heavy and his.