Shadow's Oath

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Chapter 61: The Ritual

"Was it the powder that had to be burned first? Where should I do it?"

Damion asked.

"Looks like it should be done here,"

Jedrick said, pointing to a shallow, dish-like indentation on the stone table.

Damion frowned, doubtful.

"Looks like? Are you not sure either?"

"I’ve only been here once or twice with my father when I was a child. Don’t overestimate my experience."

"Well, we’ll find out once we try. As for the fire...?"

Damion glanced around, searching.

"I’ll take care of it,"

Ram said, stepping forward.

He picked up one of the torches scattered around, placed it on the table, and broke the torchstand into smaller pieces to create a fire.

It was a task he was familiar with.

From behind, Charlon asked,

"I’ve been meaning to ask, what is this? It’s broken, so I can’t tell."

Damion joined her by the statue at the far end of the cave.

"Yeah, I was curious about that too. When the Archbishop said he’d smash it, I thought, ‘Why bother? It’s already broken.’ Jedrick, do you know what this is?"

"It’s Raham’s temple, so it must be Raham—or Iktaron,"

Jedrick replied as he stepped closer.

"And that creature on top?"

Charlon pointed to the winged beast carved above the statue.

Her next words matched exactly what Ram had been thinking.

"When I first saw it, I thought the creature was attacking the human figure in front of it."

"It’s the dragon Raham rides.”

"A dragon? That thing? Its neck is too long to be a dragon. It’s more like a snake."

"Dragons look different in every country because people imagine them differently."

Charlon eagerly agreed.

"That’s true. In Born, dragons have always been imagined as birds with flaming wings—majestic and sacred. But I heard the Empire describes them as wingless lizards! I remember laughing when I first heard that."

Damion nodded.

"In the southern regions of Triton, dragons are said to live in the sea. They have fins and scales. But in the eastern regions, they’re considered forest spirits with bark-like scales. So, I guess it’s not strange for the dragons here to resemble snakes."

Meanwhile, Ram finished setting up the small bonfire on the stone table and approached the group.

As he listened to their conversation, he felt a faint breeze flowing along the wall.

Curious, Ram placed his hand on the wall and followed the airflow.

The others watched as Ram slowly traced his hand along the wall, moving past the statue.

The breeze continued, leading him to a corner of the cave floor.

At first, it seemed like there was nothing there.

But upon closer inspection, Ram found a small hole covered by a rock.

The breeze was coming from that hole.

"Your Highness, over here..."

Ram pointed to it.

Jedrick was already beside him.

"It’s a snake hole."

"A snake?"

"The first thing Maraka warned me about when we came here was, ‘Never go inside these holes.’ He said they’re sacred passages for holy snakes and must not be touched."

Jedrick nudged the rock covering the hole with his foot.

It wobbled slightly.

A bit more force, and it would move aside completely.

"Could it be the dragon’s passage from the statue? It looks just right for a snake,"

Charlon said with excitement.

"No. Later, my father told me it was just a warning to keep people away because it’s dangerous. Large caves like this usually have smaller connected tunnels. If you go in, you could get lost forever, fall into another chamber, or worse—get stuck."

"Stuck?"

"Your body could get wedged between rocks. You wouldn’t be able to move forward or backward. The worst part is, it takes a long time to die. Imagine being trapped in total darkness, unable to move, slowly suffocating over several hours."

Charlon shuddered and took a step back.

"That tunnel isn’t just in the wall—it’s on the floor. Maraka must have blocked it even as a joke, to keep anyone from going in. When I told Olga about it, she said it could be a passage used by the Ancients." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"The Ancients? The people who lived here before the Geronians?"

Damion asked.

"Not just here, but many of the temples in this area were all places where the Ancients hid from invaders. Like fortresses where they blocked the entrances and resisted the attackers. But if they needed to bring in supplies from the outside, they’d need another way in and out, and tunnels like this might have served that purpose."

"So, if we go into this tunnel, we could get out to the outside?"

Charlon asked.

Jedrick immediately shook his head.

"That’s just a theory. We don’t know for sure. Maraka isn’t the type to issue warnings lightly. If he’s mixing in superstitions to keep people away, it means it’s dangerous. Don’t even think about trying it."

"I know. Warnings from adults are always like that. Like saying your soul will be stolen if you walk under a ladder. I was just curious, that’s all. I’m not planning to go in."

The four of them returned to the stone table where the firewood was burning.

"Do we just sprinkle the powder of the spell here?"

Damion asked.

"Yes. Then the four of us need to share each other’s blood," Charlon said.

"How much blood are we talking about?"

"Just a drop. When I received my positions as an Ehothin and Elhorn, we used a needle to prick our fingertips lightly,"

Jedrick explained.

Damion immediately drew a small dagger.

"No needle, so we’ll use this. Ah! I forgot cups!"

"I brought some,"

Ram said, placing cups on the stone table.

"We’ll need water, too,"

Damion remarked.

"Here,"

Ram said, holding up a water pouch and pouring it into the cups.

Damion looked at him in amazement.

"How did you prepare all this?"

"We came here for this ritual, so I prepared accordingly..."

Ram replied, puzzled by Damion’s surprise.

Baron Selken had always scolded him for not being prepared, never praised him for doing so.

Damion pricked his fingertip with the dagger, drawing a small drop of blood.

He dipped it into the water, letting the blood spread.

"Next,"

He said, handing the dagger to Jedrick.

Jedrick chuckled as he took the blade.

"You trust me too much, giving me a knife in a place like this with no one to stop me."

Damion scowled.

"Just hurry up. We need to finish before Aikob gets here."

Jedrick pricked his finger, repeating the process.

Then he handed the dagger to Ram, who followed suit.

"Be careful, Charlon,"

Damion warned before Ram even passed the dagger to her.

"Just let the tip of the blade barely touch—just barely. That’s enough, so please be careful. And when you’re done, make sure to put it in your mouth so your saliva can disinfect the wound…”

“Your Highness, you don’t think I’ve never seen blood before, do you? The reason my brother Lusef cherishes me so much is because I got into too much trouble when I was younger.”

She lifted her green-tinted bangs slightly with her hand.

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“Do you see this? I got this scar from fooling around with a sword. The blood covered half my face. Father scolded me to within an inch of my life, but guess when I picked up a sword and started causing trouble again? The very next day. I swung it around with my head still tightly bandaged.”

“Well, it’s not that I don’t trust you—I just mean to say, be careful…”

Charlon boldly pressed the blade to her finger, drawing blood.

Of the three, she bled the most.

Even after all four of their blood was mixed, it was such a small amount that it didn’t stain the water in the cup red.

“Well, this part’s ready…”

When Damion hesitated with the pouch of powder, Jedrick took it from him.

“I’ll do it. No one said a specific person had to do this.”

Jedrick reached into the pouch and grabbed a handful of the powder.

“For the record, this is my first time doing it myself.”

“We don’t know anything, so it’s better you do it.”

Damion said, and Charlon nodded in agreement.

Jedrick, without hesitation, poured the powder into the fire.

He put so much in at once that the fire seemed to extinguish for a moment.

“Was that too much?”

Damion asked.

“Maybe the fire was too weak,”

Jedrick replied.

“I thought you did this with your father?”

“Not exactly this ritual.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Hak Maraka lit the fire, killed a chicken, and collected its blood. He mixed the blood with powder, smeared it on my face, and made me dance the Wolf’s Dance.”

“The Wolf’s Dance? What’s that…”

As the two talked, the dormant powder suddenly ignited, and the flames roared up.

Red smoke billowed upward, swirling toward the ceiling of the cave.

The four of them flinched and backed away behind the stone table.

“Is this supposed to happen?”

Damion asked nervously.

“I don’t know,”

Jedrick replied.

The red smoke spiraled upward, escaping through a hole in the ceiling of the cave.

Charlon pointed at it.

“It rises like a snake. If someone didn’t know better, they might think it’s sorcery.”

“What do you mean, ‘if someone didn’t know better’?”

Damion asked.

“If the cave is shaped this way, an air current would form above, causing the smoke to spiral like a coiling snake,”

Charlon shrugged and added,

“But I’m not entirely sure.”

Damion watched the red smoke, fascinated, then pointed to the hole where the smoke escaped.

“When the smoke goes through that hole, it’ll leak out to the top of the rocky mountain, won’t it?”

“Location-wise, yes. Why?”

“It’d be visible from quite a distance, wouldn’t it…?”

“And why is that a problem?”

“Well, we can’t exactly claim we weren’t doing anything here to Aikob now, can we?”

Damion fretted.

Charlon offered a suggestion.

“We could just say we lit the fire out of curiosity?”

“That cunning old fox might not fall for it…”

Damion picked up the cup.

“Well, what’s done is done. Let’s move on. We’re supposed to drink this now, right? I know it’s a bit late to ask, but… is it really okay to drink human blood?”

“It’s just a drop or two. Divided among the four of us, it’s barely the same as biting your lip, isn’t it?”

Charlon urged him.

“Sounds fun, doesn’t it?”

Jedrick raised an eyebrow.

“Fun?”

Charlon smiled.

“Honestly, isn’t it? This morning, we were all so gloomy. And Aikob’s not entirely wrong. Sometimes, when you just go through with it, things turn out to be no big deal. Don’t you think so, Jeje? No matter how sacred this place is to the Gerons, coming here like this makes it seem trivial. It’s the same for me with grand cathedrals—they often fail to move me.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

Jedrick nodded.

“When I came here with Father, it was night—almost dawn. It was dark, frightening, and filled with strange smells. Hak Maraka beat his drum and sang odd songs, making the entire space reverberate with his voice and drumbeats. The torchlight cast so many shadows that it felt like the cave was teeming with living creatures. When Maraka declared Raham had come, I almost believed him.”

Jedrick waved his open hand as if brushing away an invisible wall.

“But now… it’s just an ordinary, clean cave. I think this is my first time coming here during the day.”

Damion, after listening, suddenly tilted the cup and took a sip.

“Here.”

He handed the cup to Charlon, who drank, and then it was passed to Jedrick.

After Jedrick drank, the cup was handed to Ram, with just one sip left.

It seemed everyone had taken exactly a quarter.

Ram hesitated to drink.

“What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’re squeamish about drinking it?”

Damion joked.

Ram answered seriously.

“Quite the opposite. I’m not sure if I deserve to stand here, drink this, and share the same bond as you. I’m not of the same status…”

Damion cut him off, grabbing his hand tightly and looking him in the eye.

“If this is about what Aikob said earlier, don’t let it bother you.”

“But I…”

“And if you’re worried about yesterday’s prophecy, don’t let that bother you either. You’re not going to become the ‘Tanu’ who kills us. Right?”

Damion didn’t let go until Ram pulled his hand away himself.

“Thank you.”

Ram drank the last sip of the water.

“What’s next?”

Damion asked.

“We’re supposed to make a vow not to harm one another. Then, we listen for a way to avert the calamity,”

Charlon said.

“Alright. I vow not to harm any of you,”

Damion declared.

“I vow never to harm any of you,”

Charlon followed.

“I will not harm you,”

Jedrick added.

“I vow not to harm you,”

Ram said.

And then, they waited.

The red smoke from the powder gradually dissipated.

Nothing happened.

[Translator - Night]

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