Chapter Five – Of Swords Once Lost to Time
Part One – The Flame That Walks Alone
The Riftborn screamed.
Not in pain. Not in fear.
It was the sound of something unshaped—unmeant to exist in this world—remembering a name it was never given.
And still, it screamed.
The village walls had long since fallen. Timber shorn into splinters. Resonant stones cracked and bleeding pulse-light. Families huddled behind shattered doorframes, clutching one another in silence, as if silence might shield them from memory.
And then it came.
A streak through the smoke.
No roar. No entrance marked by triumph or title.
Just pressure.
Like breath held by the world itself.
⸻
The Riftborn moved fast—two heads, four arms, and a tail like liquid bone. Its chest pulsed where a core should be, but the light there flickered wrong. Green, then violet, then gone.
A woman screamed as it reared up, ready to devour her.
Then a line of light cut through the dark.
Not from the sky.
From behind it.
A spear of lightning shadow split the creature's side—and for a moment, the Riftborn looked stunned. As if the attack wasn't supposed to work.
As if that kind of Veilmark shouldn't exist anymore.
The figure stood where the smoke parted. One hand loose at his side, the other raised in a stance too old to be taught at the Lyceum.
He didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
The sword on his back gleamed in the flicker of the flame towers—the symbol on its hilt barely visible, but unmistakable to those who still remembered ancient castings.
And those who saw it now?
They would.
⸻
He moved like thunder in reverse—each step ringing before the strike landed.
When the Riftborn screamed again, he was already behind it.
Another spear.
Then another.
Each one wreathed in shadow-light, drawn from pulse but cast through something older than Doctrine law.
Veilmark art.
Refined.
Unregistered.
The creature lashed out. Veil energy rippled through its talons—but the figure didn't block. He stepped forward instead. Let it strike the old armor on his left side. Sparks flew. The fabric tore.
No glyphs underneath. No insignia. Just scars.
Old ones.
The kind that weren't healed.
Only buried.
⸻
A child peeked through the window of a broken hut as the Riftborn shrieked again, its limbs folding inward.
It wasn't dying.
It was shedding.
Its new form erupted in black fire—Veil corruption surging like a flood. It towered, misshapen and glowing at the seams.
But the figure didn't flinch.
He walked into the light.
And drew the blade.
It was not a sword of this age.
It had no name in the archives. No record in the Doctrine. And no one alive in that village had seen it before.
But some remembered the stories.
The blade of the Crystal Monarch.
The last weapon said to hum in harmony with the memory of a flame that could not be extinguished.
The sword moved once.
The Riftborn didn't scream this time.
It fell.
Without sound.
Like the Veil itself had closed the moment.
And when it ended, he stood alone in the clearing—blade buried in the earth, hand pressed to the scorched symbol the Riftborn left behind.
Not to study it.
To burn it.
His hand glowed faintly. Not from Veilmark cast—but from pulse memory.
He touched the emblem.
It melted.
Then turned.
The child who had watched him whispered, "Are you one of them?"
He didn't answer.
He only looked up—toward the stars that could not be named, and the kingdom that had forgotten him.
Then walked into the dark again.
The flame that lingered.
Unnamed.
Unclaimed.
Unstoppable.