The Exile’s Oath
A weary pilgrim treads the path of shadows, bowed by quest—
His name, a whisper lost to winds that mourn through crumbling aisles,
Alaric, painter of the dusk, whose soul the gods beguiled.
The temple looms, its fractured spires like ribs of some vast beast,
Its glory scarred by time’s cruel hand, yet hallowed in decease.
Here, once, the hymns of mortal throats entwined with stars above,
Now silence chokes the altars cold, where none but phantoms love.
He enters, brush and palette clasped as swords against the night,
To wrest from ruin’s gaping maw a fragment of the light.
The frescoes fade, their golds subdued to ashen, spectral grays,
Yet still their ghostly figures stir—a dance of lost parades.
A maiden, etched in ochre, seems to weep with vacant eyes,
Her lips half-parted, poised to sing a hymn to severed skies.
“Awake,” he murmurs, “breathe anew through pigments I shall blend,
Let art reclaim what time devours, let beauty’s reign transcend.”
But lo! A voice, like rustled leaves, replies from depths unseen:
“Who dares disturb the slumber of the guardian of this scene?”
From shadows steps a figure cloaked in raiment spun of dusk,
Her face a mask of sorrows veiled, her tone a blade’s sharp thrust.
“I am Elara, bound by oath to shield this sacred ground,
No mortal hand may alter here what fate and dust have crowned.
Depart, lest curses woven thick in ages past take hold,
And weave your thread into the shroud that wraps this temple’s soul.”
Undaunted, Alaric meets her gaze, his heart aflame with zeal,
“What art endures unchanging in a world the fates unseal?
These walls, though grand, are but a tomb if none dare lift their voice—
Grant me the right to reawake what time has slain, by choice.”
A tremor grips the stagnant air; the stones themselves inhale.
Elara’s eyes, like fractured glass, betray a conflict frail.
“Your fire mirrors the pyres that once lit this vaulted sphere…
Yet know: to touch these sacred forms demands a price severe.
Swear never to forsake this place, though storms or sirens call,
Swear blood and breath to guard its heart, or see its essence fall.”
He kneels, the vow etched on his tongue—a bond no knife may sever—
“By brush and soul, I pledge to keep this charge, undone never.”
Her hand, as cold as marble, clasps his own in spectral grip,
A pact sealed in the gloaming’s breath, the hour’s fatal crypt.
Thus Alaric’s labor blooms: the walls resume their prime,
As pigments kiss the barren lines, defying death and time.
The maiden’s tears are gilded now, her song a radiant sigh,
The gods in azure heavens dance where once there hung but sky.
Elara watches, silent, as his art bestirs her core—
A thaw within her frost-bound breast, a light unseen before.
She speaks of ages spent alone, of vigil without end,
Of how the temple’s heartbeat slowed, as faith did fate offend.
He paints her tales in cobalt streams, in embers’ dying glow,
And with each stroke, the bond between them deepens, soft and slow.
But hark—the world beyond the stones intrudes with venom’s breath:
War’s drums resound, and smoke obscures the sun, portending death.
The temple, once a refuge, lies besieged by flame and spear,
As kingdoms clash, and blood now floods the vales once green and clear.
“You must depart,” Elara pleads, her voice a fractured chime,
“The oath you swore demands you live—to stay is but to die.”
“Shall I forsake my vow,” he cries, “and prove my honor dust?
To flee while fire devours all—in that, what justice thrusts?”
“The oath was made to *guard* this place, not feed the pyre’s thirst—
Go! Let your art outlive its frame, lest both be claimed by cursed!”
Her anguish spills like midnight oil, unyielding, yet resigned,
As Alaric, torn, beholds the truth: his death saves not the shrine.
He gathers brushes, stained with hues of love and fleeting days,
And flees through crypts where shadows wail, their dirge a wordless craze.
The temple burns—a final hymn ascends in ashen clouds,
Its beauty, like a martyr, cloaked in funeral shrouds.
Years pass. The painter wanders lands where foreign suns hold sway,
His masterworks adorn grand halls, yet none can soothe his fray.
For in each stroke, he sees her face—the guardian, the lost—
Her voice, the requiem that haunts the lines his hands emboss.
One night, a vision sears his mind: Elara, bound in chains,
Her form ethereal, fading fast, consumed by timeless pains.
“The oath is breached,” she whispers, “not by flight, but love’s cruel blade—
You left my heart to burn alone… Now see the debt repaid.”
He returns, a specter drawn to where his soul still dwells,
The temple, now a skeletal husk, where memory compels.
Amidst the rubble, Alaric finds a shard of painted eyes—
The maiden’s gaze, once vibrant, drained to gray, her song demise.
He clutches it, as lifeblood ebbs, and lays upon the stone,
A final pledge, in crimson brushed, to atone what was undone:
“Forgive the hand that failed to stay, the heart that chose to flee—
In exile, I have borne our curse… Now, love, set me free.”
The dawn breaks o’er the ruins, where two shades entwine, at last,
Their voices merged in whispers soft, transcending mortal past.
The winds, through empty archways, chant an elegy profound—
Of art and oath, of bonds outsped by time’s unyielding round.
And travelers who chance upon this sanctum of despair
Will mark the fresco, born of ash, that shows a pair ensnared:
A painter and his guardian, their souls in brushstrokes twined,
A testament to beauty’s cost—and exile of the mind.
“`
