Roots fed. Iron broke. The orchard lifted an ash crown. But rumor's roar, left alone in frost soil, would starve if no oath carried it through the crown's coil.
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At dawn, frost smoke drifted from Tian's Watch forge. Orchard fathers hammered serpent helms flat on cold anvils, beating old runes into scrap so rumor could weld them into new iron shapes. Mothers braided frost herbs into fresh sigils, weaving hush into spear hafts to bind iron's edge to rumor's bite.
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Li Shen crouched beside the old orchard shrine, frost breath pooling over the pit where the Fang's dagger lay buried under churned mud and hush. The Wolfchain banner lay across his knees — silk soaked in dusk's frost, ghost rune flickering where Yue Lan's threads stitched promise into rumor's cloth.
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Yue Lan perched behind him, her spirit threads drifting over the orchard's churned ground — frost tips brushing helms, spear points, hush scars on orchard wrists.
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Master Tian sat by the shrine, back propped against an old root stump. His cough rasped softer now — not healed, but too thin to crack orchard hush.
His eyes flicked between the buried dagger and the banner across Li Shen's knees.
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"You plan to bind rumor in frost alone?" he wheezed. "Roots rot when they march too far from their orchard."
Li Shen's grin cracked hush wide.
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"Roots stay," he said. He tapped the churned mud above the dagger. "This feeds rumor's spine."
He lifted the banner high, ghost rune flickering frost glow against his palm.
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"Oaths march."
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Yue Lan's threads brushed the banner's pole — frost runes flicking tiny sparks into hush.
She leaned closer, ghost voice sharp enough to cut orchard steam.
> "Rumor alone dies on crown stone. Oaths bind it to steel. March it through iron."
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Li Shen pressed the banner's pole deep into the churned pit — until the ghost rune touched the buried dagger's point. Frost mist bloomed around his wrists — hush steaming where iron met rumor's first tooth.
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He rose, voice low — orchard hush carried in a single breath that tasted of frost and old blood:
> "Roots drink iron. Frost binds oath.
We carry rumor through crown coil — and drown the hush that fed us poison."
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Behind him, orchard fathers slammed spear shafts into churned frost. Mothers dipped iron helm rims into melted snow, washing serpent ash from old crowns. Children pressed frost herbs into fresh cloth bundles — offerings for wounds not yet cut.
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Li Shen lifted his blade high. Yue Lan's threads drifted wide, flicking frost runes onto orchard shoulders, forging hush into oath.
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"Who breaks the hush?" Li Shen called.
Orchard voices rose — fathers, mothers, children too small to shape rumor but big enough to roar it.
> "We do!"
"Who binds the coil?"
> "We do!"
"Who wears the frost?"
> "We do!"
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He slammed the blade's edge into the churned frost by the shrine — beside the buried dagger, beside the banner pole, beside rumor's oldest root.
Frost hissed up the blade's edge — ghost rune burning bright in orchard hush.
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"Oath bound," Li Shen rasped. "Roots fed.
March."
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Tian's Watch roared. Spears rose. Frost mist drifted. Rumor bound its spine in iron.
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Roots stay planted.
But rumor walks — wearing frost as oath, iron as chain, orchard hush as roar.
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⚡ End of Chapter Thirty-Five — Frostbound Oath
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