Three days after Corren's fever broke, the first riders came.
Kael spotted them from the ridge above the valley — a slow trickle of armored figures winding through the mist, their banners hidden, their faces obscured.
Not soldiers of the king.
Not Blackthorn's men either.
Something older.
Something forgotten.
Jorren cursed under his breath.
Maerin closed his worn book and tucked it under his arm.
"We're out of time," the old scribe said simply.
And so, that night, while the valley slept uneasy under a sky bruised by stormclouds, they led Kael deep into the woods — farther than he had ever dared go alone.
The trees grew ancient here.
Thick, gnarled trunks twisted around each other like sleeping giants, their bark cracked with the weight of centuries. Moss glowed faintly along the roots, silver and green.
At last, they came to a clearing — a place where no birds sang, no wind stirred.
At the center of the clearing, half-buried in black earth, stood a sword.
It was not a king's sword — no jewels adorned its hilt, no proud banners fluttered above it.
It was plain. Worn.
The leather on the grip cracked with age.
The steel dulled by time and rain.
But it thrummed.
Even Kael, who had never held more than a hunter's knife, could feel it — a deep, low hum beneath the earth, resonating through bone and blood.
Jorren said nothing.
Maerin said nothing.
They simply stepped back, leaving Kael alone before it.
He approached, heart hammering against his ribs.
The mist curled around his ankles like living things.
As he drew nearer, he saw something etched along the blade's fuller — old letters, barely legible:
"For he who bears burdens, not crowns."
Kael reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the hilt, the mist surged upward — a wall of white, blinding and cold.
Voices rose within it — whispers, laments, warnings.
He will break you.
He will crown you.
He will betray you.
Kael gritted his teeth and pulled.
The earth clung stubbornly — not with malice, but with sorrow, as if the blade itself regretted being freed.
With a final wrench, Kael tore it loose.
The mist screamed — a sound of mourning, not triumph.
The trees around the clearing groaned as if awakening.
And far away, unseen but surely felt, a bell tolled — low and hollow — across the broken kingdoms.
Kael staggered back, the sword heavy in his hand.
Not heavy from weight — heavy from memory. Heavy from expectation.
Jorren knelt before him, pressing one fist to his heart in a gesture Kael did not yet understand.
Maerin bowed his head, murmuring a prayer in the old tongue.
Kael stared at them, bewildered.
He was just a boy.
A boy who wanted to hunt, and fish, and someday plant a tree of his own.
He did not want to be a symbol.
He did not want to be a sword.
But the world does not ask what you want.
The world demands what you owe.
As they walked back to the hut, Kael asked, voice hoarse:
"Was this always meant for me?"
Maerin smiled sadly. "Meant? No. Offered? Yes."
Jorren added, rough as grinding stone:
"You chose, boy.
Remember that.
You chose."
Kael looked down at the sword in his hand.
It did not gleam.
It did not sing songs of glory.
It waited — patient and silent — for whatever burdens he would lay upon it.
He tightened his grip.
Somewhere in the distance, lightning forked across the bruised sky.