The landscape stretched out before Kael in infinite vision, a graveyard for kings and peasants alike.
Ground was pockmarked, scorched by fire and punctuated with bone-white remains of men long turned to dust. Rusty spears jutted like thorns, helmets shattered, half-sunken in mud, and pennants—proud, once, symbols of honor—were rags, their cloth rotting in the wind.
Kael had not meant to come here. He'd traveled for days, skirting villages and patrols, sustained by less than hunger and the necessity to go unnoticed. But the fields had brought him here, and now he strode as if through the racks of some long dead giant, the quiet crushing down upon his ears.
He stepped warily across a skull, jaw open in a soundless scream. His throat closed. He had walked through death—too much death—but there was something that was different here. This was not a slaughter of a village, not soldiers killing unarmed villagers. This was the slaughter of armies. A battleground where thousands had clashed and nobody had emerged victorious.
The air was heavy, as if the earth itself still remembered blood.
Kael's stomach growled, a harsh reminder that even here, amidst this ravaged land, he was merely a boy in search of leftovers. He wrapped his frayed cloak around himself, though it accomplished little against the gusts of wind screaming down the valley.
And then he noticed it.
Half buried in mud in the center of the field, a sword stuck out, its blade broken off jagged at the tip. Its hilt glowed faintly, not marked by rust since it was last held. The leather wrapping was loose but remained tight, as if someone had put it down yesterday.
Kael braked, his breath catching. The sight of it stirred something in him he couldn't identify—a tug in his chest, a hum in his bones.
The mark on his arm sparked once.
"No," he growled, backing away. But his feet wouldn't move far. His eyes continually returned to the knife, to the way it seemed to call.
Kael swallowed hard, then took another step forward. Each step was heavier than the last, the air closing in around him, compressing like unseen fingers. He didn't hesitate until he stood before it, looking down at the gun that had no right to shine in this scene of destruction.
Gradually, his hand went up.
The moment his fingers made contact with the hilt, night erupted from his arm, ravenous, alive, wrapping around the leather like snakes around prey. Kael inhaled as the brand seared, blackened veins climbing up to the shoulder.
The sword slid free with terrible ease, sliding out of earth as though it had merely been waiting for him.
Kael stepped back, grasping it. The weight was off—too light, too alive. The serrated edge glowed with a soft light in the dark, as though the metal itself remembered blood. The shadows enshrouded the blade, wordlessly sighing, a hymn of hunger, promise, home.
Kael's heart tightened.
"What are you?" he panted, but the wind took his words away.
He gripped it more tightly. The sword was made for his hand, too made, almost as if it had been specifically designed for him. He could feel its hum in his bones, the scar on his arm humming in rhythm. It wasn't a weapon—it was a bond, a chain.
He wanted to let it go, throw it back into the earth and run. But he couldn't. His fingers wouldn't let go.
For the first time, he understood: the shadows weren't inside of him. They were looking, seeking, constraining. And now they'd found a host.
The broken sword.
Kael dropped to his knees, the battlefield narrowing around him. He needed to scream, but the shout caught in his throat. The silence of the corpses looming over him, their empty eye sockets glaring, their bones listening.
The prophecy's words leapt unasked into his mind: The Heir of Shadows will not heal the world, but shatter it.
Kael clenched his eyes shut tightly, holding the sword against his heart. "I won't," he muttered furiously. "I won't be what you want. I won't be your tool."
But the shadows pulsed again, patient, certain. As if their words whispered: You already are.
The raucous call of a crow shattered the silence. Kael's head jerked upright. Across the field, its black shape perched at the tip of a spear, the crow stared at him unblinking. It called again, and its voice echoed back to him like laughter.
Kael shivered. He rose to his feet, still holding his sword. His arm trembled as he tried again to let it go, but his grip was still gripped.
He hipped away, forcing himself to walk. Each step became heavier, as if the dead themselves tried to keep him stationary. But he walked on, sword at his side, darkness licking at its rim.
The crow flapped its wings, flying overhead as if to guide the path that he should follow.
Kael did not look back. He knew that if he did, the battlefield would never let him go.
But as he left, silence seemed to whisper with every step. Not of peace, not of rest.
Of waiting.
Waiting for the boy with the broken sword.