Chapter 3: A Blade in the Rain
The sky wept.
It was not the gentle kind of rain that kissed the earth. This was an angry, howling storm that tore at roofs and bent trees into submission. The wind screamed through the academy's floating courtyards like it was searching for something lost. Most students remained inside, warm in their chambers, crafting spells by firelight or practising conjurations behind enchanted glass. But Kael had never belonged in their warm places.
He was in the woods below the academy.
No magic shield protected him from the storm. Mud sucked at his boots, and the wind lashed his face raw. But he didn't stop. His blade hung from his back, wrapped in oil cloth, his only companion. And something—he didn't know what—had pulled him here. A whisper, maybe. A silence too loud. A feeling in the pit of his stomach like a hook tugging at his spine.
The woods at the base of the academy weren't forbidden, but no one bothered with them. Too mundane. Too ordinary. Magic wasn't strong here. It thinned at the roots, unwilling to bend to command. And that, perhaps, was why Kael came.
Here, magic didn't watch him. Didn't judge him.
Lightning cracked above. Thunder snarled. Kael pushed deeper into the trees, his breath fogging the air, his heart beating harder now—not from exertion, but from something else. A pressure building in the back of his skull. An urgency that didn't feel like fear. It felt older than that. Like something waking up.
Then he saw it.
A circle of earth, blackened. Dead. The rain didn't touch this patch of ground. No grass, no roots, only ash and silence. At the centre, half-buried in the soil, a hilt protruded. Weathered. Rusted. Forgotten.
Kael stepped toward it, the world around him narrowing. The wind fell silent. The rain stopped before it reached the circle. Time itself seemed to hesitate.
He dropped to his knees before the hilt, mud soaking through his trousers. His fingers trembled as they reached for it. And when he touched it—
It screamed.
Not out loud. Inside him. A thousand voices, a clash of steel, the sound of worlds ending. Kael's vision went white, then black, then red. For a heartbeat, he could feel everything—rage, sorrow, despair so thick it threatened to drown him. Images flashed through his mind in shards:
—A blade cutting through a man's chest, not just flesh but soul—
—A warrior, eyes empty, body bathed in blood not his own—
—A mountain split down the middle, the sky torn open above it—
He fell back, gasping, his hand still wrapped around the hilt. His palm burned where he touched it, the skin searing with cold. Not ice. Something older than ice. Something that had been buried too long.
The sword came free with a shriek of metal against earth. It was hideous. The blade was jagged, covered in rust, its edge notched and pitted. The hilt was wrapped in rotted leather, dark with age. But as Kael held it, it vibrated faintly, like a living thing. Like a thing that had waited.
He stared down at it, soaked to the bone, heart hammering.
It was wrong, somehow. Wrong in a way that excited and terrified him all at once.
And then he heard it.
Not with ears. Deeper than that.
A whisper. A voice, ancient and hollow.
You are not ready.
Kael staggered back, the blade dropping from his hands. The moment he let go, the world returned—the rain, the thunder, the biting wind. He collapsed onto the mud, panting, staring at the sword as it lay there, inert once more.
He should have left it. Should have turned and run.
But something in him was screaming not to. A part of him that had never fit into the world of floating citadels and bloodline magic. A part that had always been missing something—until now.
He reached out again.
This time, the pain didn't come. Only a dull, deep thrum. Like a heartbeat answering his own. A resonance.
Kael clutched the blade and stood, cradling it as if it were a wounded animal. Something passed between them—silent, heavy. A bond. He couldn't explain it. He didn't understand it. But he felt it.
And it felt like home.
The rain didn't touch him anymore. It slid off his shoulders, his back. He stood in the storm's heart, untouched, sword in hand, and felt something he'd never felt before in the academy.
Power.
Not magic. Not spells or chants or runes.
But will.
Something had chosen him. Or maybe it had been waiting.
He looked up into the storm, the sword humming softly in his grip.
Lightning flashed behind him as he began the long walk back.
He didn't notice the small glyph etched into the blade's core, visible only in the lightning's glare.
A single character. Faint, but legible.
Ruin.
The sword had a name.
And Kael's fate had been sealed the moment he touched it.