CHAPTER 57 — THE VOWS OF THE UNMADE
The moment the Raven Gate sealed behind them with a grinding metallic groan, the world seemed to exhale frost. The corridor ahead was narrow—too narrow—and carved from veins of black stone that pulsed like a slow heartbeat. Every wall was alive with faint whispering. Not words. Not sound. Just pressure on the skull, like thoughts that did not belong to any living mind.
Pearl swallowed hard, her breath fogging.
"They're watching," she whispered.
Ardyn didn't deny it. He simply tightened his grip on the blade of fractured light he carried and stepped ahead of her. The aura around him had grown darker since the confrontation at the Shattered Gate—but not weak. Never weak. It was like something ancient had awakened in his blood, and it listened to the whispers more intently than either of them admitted.
Behind them, the Citadel trembled again—another collapse. The world was falling apart piece by piece.
"We move," Ardyn said, voice firm but low. "Before the Veinborne track us."
Pearl nodded. Her ribs still ached from the last encounter, but the fear that lingered in her chest now wasn't for herself—it was for him. There were moments, brief and sharp, when she saw something ripple across Ardyn's eyes… something not entirely human.
Something becoming.
The corridor opened unexpectedly into a cavernous chamber, circular and ringed with obsidian chains suspended in the air. They clinked faintly, though no wind moved. At the center of the room was a pool so black it ate the torchlight.
Pearl froze.
"Ardyn… this looks like—"
"A Sacrarium," he finished. "One of the old ones."
Sacrariums were forbidden places—where the Unmade once tore vows out of themselves and grafted new ones into their flesh. She had seen them only in the Archives. Never in person.
But this one was awake.
A faint red glow simmered beneath the black water like blood lit from below.
Pearl stepped closer—
"Careful," Ardyn warned.
She ignored him. Something was calling her.
Not a voice.
A pull.
Like gravity but… emotional.
She knelt at the pool's edge, fingers trembling. The surface rippled—but not from her breath.
A hand reached out of the water.
She jerked back, hitting the stone behind her.
The hand was thin, bone-like, but wrapped in something that resembled glistening roots. They writhed as they moved. Slowly, painfully, a head emerged—pale, mouth stitched shut with metallic thread. Empty sockets wept black ichor.
Pearl screamed.
Ardyn was already in motion. His blade slashed down—
But the creature didn't attack.
It pointed.
Not at either of them.
At Ardyn's chest.
Pearl's breath caught.
"No, no, don't look at it—"
Too late.
Ardyn's eyes locked with the stitched horror, and the world seemed to tilt. The chamber dimmed around the edges. A low hum filled the air, vibrating through their bones.
The creature pressed its trembling hand against its own chest, then pointed at Ardyn's heart again.
Pearl's voice shook.
"It's… warning you?"
The creature nodded once, the motion jerky, desperate.
Then its head twisted violently to the side, as if pulled by an invisible hook, and its body was yanked backward into the pool. The black surface swallowed it whole, leaving the chamber dead silent.
Pearl pressed a hand to her chest, heart racing.
"What—what did that thing want?"
Ardyn didn't answer immediately.
He stood perfectly still, jaw clenched, breaths uneven.
"Ardyn?"
"I felt it," he murmured. "It was showing me something. A vision. A vow."
Pearl stepped closer. "What vow?"
He turned his head toward her—and she took half a step back.
His eyes were darker.
Much darker.
"A vow that was once mine," he said. "Before it was taken."
They left the Sacrarium in silence. And Pearl hated the silence. It pressed on her, heavy, suffocating, laced with a tension she didn't understand.
"Ardyn," she whispered as they entered a passage carved from jagged crystal. "Talk to me. What did you see?"
He exhaled slowly.
"A memory that wasn't a memory."
"That doesn't help—"
"It showed me kneeling. Not as I am. As something else—something bound by the Unmade. I was swearing a vow… to her."
"Her who?"
He stopped walking.
Pearl nearly collided with him.
"The Night Matron," he answered.
Pearl's blood went cold.
The Night Matron was a myth whispered to frighten children. A being older than the Citadel, older than the roots, older than the world before the first Vein was carved. She wasn't a queen. She wasn't a god.
She was the reason sacrifice existed.
Pearl swallowed.
"You… served her?"
"No," Ardyn said bitterly. "I defied her. And she tore the vow out of me. She made sure I wouldn't remember until she wanted me to."
Pearl's voice trembled. "Why show you now?"
He glanced over his shoulder, shadows curling around his jawline.
"Because she's awakening."
The corridor trembled then, as if agreeing.
Minutes later, the passageway widened again—this time into a bridge suspended over a massive gorge. Wind howled upward through it, icy cold and carrying the faint scent of burnt metal.
Pearl stepped onto the bridge—
—and immediately felt eyes on her again.
Not whispers.
Not visions.
Eyes.
"Ardyn," she whispered. "We're being hunted."
"I know."
The shadows at the far end of the bridge stirred.
Then something crawled out of them—long limbs, armor made of bone-like plates, and a skull mask fused to its face. A Veinborne Hunter. One of the elite.
Pearl raised her blade.
"Just one. We can take it."
Ardyn didn't draw his weapon.
His voice was dangerously calm.
"It's not here for you."
Pearl stiffened.
"What are you talking—"
The Veinborne Hunter knelt.
To Ardyn.
The wind died instantly.
Pearl stared.
"What—what is this? What is it doing?!"
The Hunter's skull twisted toward Ardyn, its voice a scraping echo.
"Your vow… returns. The Matron calls her lost son home."
Pearl's breath vanished from her lungs.
"Ardyn," she whispered in terror, "don't listen—"
Too late.
The bridge trembled violently. Cracks spider-webbed across the stone. The Hunter rose and extended a clawed hand.
"Remember what you are," it hissed.
Pearl acted before Ardyn could.
She hurled her blade.
The dagger struck the Hunter's throat and burst into blue flame. The creature shrieked and stumbled backward into the darkness.
Ardyn snapped out of his trance, eyes clearing.
But the damage was done.
The bridge began to collapse.
"RUN!" Ardyn shouted.
They sprinted as the ground crumbled beneath their feet. Chunks of stone plummeted into the abyss. Pearl's lungs burned, the wind slicing her skin, the roar of collapsing stone shaking her bones.
A massive slab gave way beneath her.
She fell.
"No!" Ardyn dove, catching her wrist at the last second.
Pearl dangled above the abyss, the Void screaming below. Her fingers slipped on his grip.
"Don't—don't let go!" she gasped.
Ardyn's muscles trembled—not just from effort. From something darker ripping through him.
His voice was hoarse.
"They want me to become what I was."
"Then fight it!"
He squeezed her wrist harder.
"I am fighting—"
The bridge gave a final shudder and collapsed completely.
Ardyn hauled her upward with a roar, flinging both of them onto the far edge as the last of the stone bridge plummeted into the Void.
They lay there for several seconds, panting.
Pearl turned her head toward him.
"Ardyn… are you still with me?"
He didn't answer immediately.
But then he looked at her.
And she saw it—the battle behind his eyes. The predator and the protector. The darkness and the light. The vow he once had… and the vow he was forging now.
Finally, he whispered:
"I'm with you. For now."
Pearl's chest tightened at the "for now."
But before she could speak, the chamber ahead lit up with a faint pulsating glow—crimson, rhythmic, like a heartbeat.
The heart of the Citadel.
The pulse of the Matron.
Whatever waited ahead… would decide which vow Ardyn belonged to.
And whether Pearl would survive his choice.