Chapter 5: Of Swords and Madness
They began calling him "the Hollow."
Not to his face. They weren't that bold. But the whispers followed him down every corridor of the academy like a shadow stitched to his back. The Hollow-Blood. The Magicless. The Sword-Freak. The boy who talks to steel.
Kael said nothing. Not when they laughed, not when they sneered. Silence was easier than fury. Silence let the rage sit beneath his skin, coiled tight and clean.
He didn't bleed like the others anymore. Not for their words.
But still—he heard.
"Is it true?" a girl in crimson robes murmured to another, passing him on the marble steps. "He sleeps with it. Like... in his bed."
"Creepy," the second said, wrinkling her nose. "Bet it's cursed. He probably touches it at night and thinks it talks back."
They both giggled. Kael didn't look at them.
He climbed the steps slowly, one hand resting on Ashrend's hilt. He wore it everywhere now—over his robes, at his side in lectures, even during meals. Not just out of obsession, but necessity. When the blade was not near him, he couldn't sleep. Couldn't think. His bones would itch. His skin would prickle. And the world would blur until he could feel it beside him again.
The instructors noticed. Of course they did.
Instructor Moraine—a thin-lipped woman of wind affinity—called him into her study.
"You're being disruptive," she said, fingers steepled, voice as dry as old parchment. "Wearing that… thing. Bringing it to spellwork sessions. Sleeping during lectures. Ignoring assigned exercises."
Kael said nothing.
She leaned forward. "You're not a child anymore. This behaviour—it's delusional. Dangerous."
His hand twitched.
Moraine tapped her desk. "You've shown no magical aptitude in years, Kael. None. We've given you time. Too much, perhaps. But your obsession with this sword fantasy—"
"It's not a fantasy," he said quietly.
Her face twisted. "It's a rusted relic. It's not even alive, Kael. You've fabricated meaning where there is none. If you don't abandon this path, you'll be removed from the academy. Marked unsound."
That word.
Unsound.
It hit like a cold knife.
"That's what they said about the Blight-Marked, isn't it?" he replied. His voice was steady, but it came from somewhere far away. "Before they burned."
Moraine stiffened. "You will not threaten this institution with old myths."
"No," he said. "You've just forgotten them."
He stood and left before she could reply.
That night, he slept in the training chamber again, Ashrend pressed against his chest, the blade cold against his skin through the thin fabric of his robes. The cold comforted him. Grounded him. Every breath synced with the slow, ancient hum of the sword's intent. He didn't dream of fire or wind, as the elemental-blooded did.
He dreamed of steel.
Of endless battlefields. Of grey skies split by falling blades. Of screams swallowed by silence.
Ashrend whispered to him—not in words, but in pulls. Urges. Movements. Instinct.
Strike there. Step back. Watch the eyes. Read the shoulders. Breathe before the cut, not after.
It became his language. His prayer. His pulse.
The bullying worsened.
Loric Virell found him in the mess hall one morning, seated alone, sword resting against the bench. The frost-blooded boy sauntered up with his usual sneer.
"Morning, Hollow," he said. "You bring your little friend to breakfast again? Careful—it might chip a tooth."
Kael didn't respond. He dipped his bread into the bowl of broth, ignoring the snickers around him.
Loric's smile sharpened.
"I heard they're talking about transferring you to the ward. You know—the unsound one. With the screaming ones."
Still no reaction.
That seemed to bother him.
"You're not a warrior," Loric snapped. "You're not a mage. You're nothing. A mongrel muttering to a blade that should've been melted down with the rest of the trash."
Kael looked up.
Just once.
And Loric faltered.
There was nothing in Kael's eyes.
Not rage. Not grief.
Just... absence.
As though he'd sunk into something deeper than hate—somewhere colder.
Loric snorted, but didn't say anything more.
The next day, someone defaced the training chamber. Scrawled a crude message on the door in coal and spit.
| THE SWORD HEART IS A SICKNESS.
Kael read it in silence.
Then he opened the door and trained harder than he ever had. Blood slicked the floor by nightfall, dripping from his palms, his wrists, the soles of his feet. His muscles tore and screamed, but he didn't stop. He couldn't. Because every moment without the blade's rhythm in his body felt like drowning.
When he could no longer stand, he crawled to the corner, clutching Ashrend tight, curled around it like a dying animal. His breath came in gasps. The sword's hum was louder now—constant, like a storm rumbling behind the silence.
That night, something changed.
He heard it clearly for the first time—not in his ears, but in his bones.
A scream.
Low, broken, buried beneath centuries of silence.
Not of pain.
Of rage.
Of a thing that had once been beautiful, shattered and cast aside, forgotten beneath the earth like it meant nothing.
Kael wept.
Not for himself.
For the sword.
For whatever it had once been before the world buried it.
He pressed his forehead to its blade.
"I won't leave you," he whispered. "Even if it kills me."
Ashrend pulsed once.
Cold. Certain.
It would.