Opening Verse:
What hums beneath a broken blade?
A memory, a vow, a song unplayed.
When silence breaks and steel takes wing,
Even lost edges learn to sing.
I. Into the Veiled Wilds
They had left the North Barracks behind three days ago.
The remnants of the conscripts—thirty-one in total—moved like shadows through the broken woods of Darnel's Reach, each footstep measured, each word kept to a whisper. Behind them, the smoldering husk of the barracks was still visible in dreams, trailing the smoke of those they couldn't save.
Rin kept near the front of the line, his shattered blade tied to his waist in torn linen. It still sang sometimes, faint and low, a ghost of the forge where it was born. The others didn't hear it—but he did. Especially now, when silence stretched too long.
He thought of Dario—the old man hunched beside the forge, hammering steel and spitting truth.
"You don't wield a blade, boy. You carry what it remembers."
Rin looked down at the wrapped steel. The jagged edge poked through like a crooked tooth.
Kael walked beside him, ever watchful. Behind them, Velza kept low, her side still bandaged from the wound she took escaping the Barracks. Her voice had returned only yesterday, but her eyes never stopped searching.
"Any sign?" Kael asked, pulling a leaf from his coat collar.
Rin shook his head. "Quiet. Too quiet."
"They know we're moving," Velza muttered. "They'll be watching the paths. And we have no maps."
"Maps won't help us," Brann called from behind, checking over his shoulder. "We're in Crown country now. Their patrols are constant."
Sera glanced back from the center of the group, her face set and eyes sunken from lack of sleep. "Still no word from the others?" she asked.
Kael nodded grimly. "Nothing. We move assuming we're alone."
II. The First Skirmish
It happened at dusk.
The woods narrowed into a low ridge, with uneven boulders marking the way forward. A bad place to be seen.
It was Velza who spotted them—three soldiers in full Crown armor, helmets sharp and gleaming like ceremonial fangs. They had taken up position on the far rise, half-hidden behind a fallen tree.
Rin didn't think. He moved.
One breath became two. His fingers unwrapped the blade from its cloth. The broken sword still held its weight like a live thing, as if it knew the rhythm was about to change.
Kael called out too late. "Rin, wait—!"
But Rin was already gone, a blur through the grass. The first soldier turned, only to catch a glint of steel as Rin dashed low and struck upwards, the broken edge slicing across his chest. The sound it made—not metal on metal, but steel against memory—was like a sharp breath through an old wound.
The second soldier raised his spear, but Kael was there then, shielding Rin and shoving the attacker back with a gust of wind. Sera's arc-blade followed, a flash of light in the growing dark.
When the last soldier fell, there was silence again.
Brann caught up, breathing heavy. "Crown scouts. Not a patrol."
"Which means a patrol's close," Velza added.
Rin sheathed the broken blade and exhaled, his hand trembling slightly. The steel had sung again.
"Three moons gone," he murmured. "And they're still here."
Kael looked over at him, his expression unreadable. "That blade… it's getting louder, isn't it?"
Rin didn't answer. But he heard it—clearer now than ever.
III. The Strain of Survival
They had no food left. No real weapons, save for Sera's light-etched sword and Kael's elemental staff, both burning more energy than they could replenish. The rest had salvaged spears and makeshift shields from the dead.
Velza stitched together a crude inventory from their dwindling supplies: five pieces of dried meat, three water skins, and two functioning bows. Not enough.
They camped by a ruined watchpost—an old Crown outpost stripped of banners, its walls blackened by time.
Brann reinforced the perimeter while Sera checked the wounded. Rin sat by the small fire, feeding it slivers of bark and thinking of his village again.
He remembered how the trees smelled in spring, the way Dario used to hum while shaping the blade that now hummed back at him.
"I thought we'd be safe there forever," he said aloud.
Velza sat across from him, her side tight with pain. "We all did. That's what they told us. The villages. The Barracks. Safety. Orders. Purpose."
Kael joined them, his face lit in flickering firelight. "They taught us to follow. They never taught us what to do when there's no one left to follow."
A long silence passed.
Then Rin stood, holding the blade up toward the darkened trees. "Then we write it ourselves."
Closing Verse:
In silence born and silence bled,
A broken blade still speaks the dead.
When fire fails and maps are torn,
The youngest voice may lead the worn.