The light outside the carriage grew softer as early afternoon transitioned to midafternoon. The boredom was setting in, and I was doing my best to not dread the remainder of the trip. The two people sitting with me hadn't said anything in hours and seemed content to stay that way. Occasionally, a question for one of them would float through my mind, but the notion that they didn't want to be disturbed always followed. At some point, the even, structured fields we had been moving through transitioned to unmanaged plains, with the occasional small farm or side road scattered around. There were trees growing here and there too, often clusters standing in the middle of an otherwise empty area.
The people living out here were either very confident in their survival skills or simply had no other choice. They were an hour's walk at least from any of their neighbors, if you could call them that, and about a day's walk away from the city. If they needed help, they'd be in a tough spot, and if a wave managed to break through, the only thing they could do was hope they went unnoticed. They also didn't have access to the same technology the more established farmers had, and they had trouble growing anything, often barely harvesting the minimum of what would allow them to live to the next harvest. There were some animals, small things, borrowers, birds, but they were hard to catch and would hardly constitute a meal.
Life here was lonely and harsh. Rarely would someone exiled here have the opportunity to take someone with them, and those who chose to come out here usually didn't have anyone they'd even want to come with them. The almost completely barren plains left the wind unobstructed, leading to a fairly constant hammering that would leech the heat out of buildings and could turn rain into shards of glass. Even as we traveled, I could hear the wind occasionally whistle past the corners of the carriage. We stayed warm in spite of it, though. It wasn't raining strongly, the carriage was well insulated, and our robes kept out whatever cold was left.
Thinking about the robes again, I realized that I had thrown mine over my sword. I did a quick test to see how quickly I could get to it and found that, so long as I didn't fumble on opening the front of the robes, I could get to it fairly easily. It wouldn't be as fast as it would be if it was on the outside, and there was a chance of slicing open the robe when I pulled the sword out, but it wasn't going to be an active detriment.
I pulled out the sword and placed it on my lap, intending to try to figure out how to control it. As soon as the sword left the concealment of the robes, I noticed Clare's head snap around to look at it. Her face remained placid, and she said nothing, but she continued to stare at the sword. Granted, I couldn't see her eyes, however it was the only thing that made sense. I thought back to when I first discovered the sword and the intense feeling of sadness and loss that surrounded it, and while I no longer noticed it, it was clear the capability to produce such feelings was still there, and I assumed Clare had noticed that in some way. After all, I was confident I was the least capable person on this team, and her apparent blindness made me think she had several cards hidden yet.
With the sword on my lap, I held my hand just over the hilt, willing it to rise. Nothing happened. I changed the mental command a few times, each time trying for about a minute before moving on, but the sword remained unmoved. As this went on, I resorted to muttering commands under my breath, but if the sword could indeed heed my commands, it must have decided through unknown criteria that I was not worthy of commanding it, and I could only hope that would change in time.
As I was about to give up, a soft voice drifted over.
"If it is unwilling, it is unwilling."
I looked at Clare, who was still staring at the sword.
"I'd like it to be willing, though."
"Things are not so simple. That sword is… strange. It reminds me of certain weapons of the Church's make I've seen, yet the energy flowing through and around it is of a vastly different nature."
"Energy?"
"It is… a difficult thing to describe to those who cannot experience it for themselves. Do you know of the weapons made by the Church's smiths?"
"I know of them, but I've never seen one in person…. Unless the guards' weapons are of the same make."
"They are similar, yes; made by the same people, but of a vastly lower quality. Regardless, the real weapons they create abound with a vibrant, flowing energy. It resonates with the user's own magic and amplifies it to a point where it is shocking the weapons themselves don't shatter. The energy in your sword… is not that, yet it is somehow similar. The energy in it feels much more refined, cold."
"What does that mean?"
"I'm not sure."
I could tell Lemon was listening to this since his expression changed slightly when Clare started talking, but at that comment, he stopped pretending to sleep and looked at her with rapt attention.
"The weapons the Church makes are pure souls, bursting with enthusiasm and eagerness for combat. In many cases, they get stronger during the course of a drawn out fight due to the resonance with their wielder increasing."
"Bloodthirsty?"
"That is one interpretation, yes. Regardless, this sword lacks that quality, and I'm not sure whether that means it is of lower or higher quality."
"What does that mean for me?"
"If I had to guess, it means the strength of the sword will be static; as it is now is as it will be forever. The quality of the energy in it likely has the property of retaining the quality of the sword, although that is just my own theory. Stable magic tends to lead to greater longevity. Ultimately, it will be up to you to best leverage the quality of the sword."
"I see."
There was a moment of silence before Lemon asked a question.
"Where did you even find that? Did you trade a favor to some powerful or mysterious figure?"
"I just found it in the ruins of my towns smithy."
Clare, who had been staring off into the space above the carriage, tuned back into the conversation.
"Ruins?"
"A wave came through the town and the smithy was leveled. My old sword broke killing the Lure leading the wave, I think, so I wanted to get a new one before we left for the capital."
The two of them looked at each other for a second before Lemon turned back to me.
"You killed a Lure? With a sword?"
"Um, yes?"
"Who else was there?"
"It was Erin, Owl, and Noah, actually, at the time. I forget he was there sometimes. They didn't help much though, left me to die, effectively."
Lemon looked at me for a moment with an incredulous expression.
"Well, shit. I guess I know why he wanted you on this team then."
"Sorry for us barraging you with questions Slate, but I want to clarify, you said Owl, Erin, the daughter of a Hero, and Noah were there and couldn't stop a wave only led by a Lure?"
"Well, Noah showed up with the cleaners. Someone they called Bear was also there, but he was at the fort when the wave hit, and didn't get back to the town until after the wave had come through."
The two of them once again looked at each other with expressions I couldn't quite place.
"Was the 'someone they called Bear' a mountain of a man that barely spoke?"
"Oh, is he also a Hero?"
It felt like everything I said caused the two of them a large amount of internal pain.
"Was the sword any different when you found it?"
"Physically? No, but there was a… I guess a field, for lack of a better term, of sadness and regret around it."
"It was so strong even you could feel it?"
"I could almost see it, actually."
"That… is interesting."
Lemon and Clare fell into silent thought. As we spoke, the sun had started to go down. It had started getting dark, but the type of dark where one had to do a double take at every shape to discern its true nature.
"Slate, may I see your sword for a minute?"
I looked at Clare and nodded while handing the sword over.
"Careful, it's sharp."
"I'd hope so."
She took it gingerly in just the tips of her fingers. She looked at it silently for a moment before turning back to me.
"Actually, can you hold the hilt?"
I took it, keeping the tip pointed at her. She then reached out and placed a finger on the flat of the blade just below the tip. After a moment, her finger began to emanate a soft, pale gold glow. Oddly, when she started doing this, Lemon started watching with a strange amount of enthusiasm. It was strange to me, since as far as I could tell, nothing was happening. After about a minute of this, the strength of the glow increased; another minute passed, and the glow grew stronger. The sword had no reaction, and I wasn't sure if it was supposed to or not.
More time passed and the strength of the light stepped up and up until the inside of the carriage was completely illuminated. At that point, it hurt to look at but had stopped getting brighter. It stayed at the same strength for a few minutes while we all watched in silence. Nothing changed in the sword even as the light faded, leaving us in darkness. The sun had set at some point during this, and with our eyes adjusted to the light, it felt especially dark.
After a few seconds, a soft light appeared in the space in front of Clare and floated to the ceiling of the carriage. It was dim; the light was just enough to see each other with, but it wouldn't take long for our eyes to adjust to the darkness outside.
I set the sword in my lap while I waited for one of them to explain what had happened. Lemon was staring at the sword with a strange look while Clare once again was staring at the opposite wall of the carriage. I ran my fingers along the length of the sword, feeling for any changes, but there was nothing. I assumed the light wasn't just for show, but I couldn't determine what she had done through just the sword, and it seemed no explanation was forthcoming.
"Do either of you want to explain what that was?"
There was more silence as Lemon looked between me and the sword.
"Clare, I'm going to have you take this one. You can explain the significance better than I can."
There was more silence as Clare continued to stare into space. As I was about to speak up, she took a breath and opened her mouth.
"I have no idea what that sword is."