A light sparked in Silius's eyes—faint at first, then growing brighter. The warm brown of his gaze was overtaken by silver, luminous and intense. Each clash of swords sent a ripple through the air, and that strange silver glow began to outline his body like a second skin.
The weight of months—no, years—of relentless training crashed down upon him. Every bruise, every cut, every shouted command from his father had carved away weakness and left only the raw shape of something harder. The tournament was fast approaching, and his body had long since moved beyond protest. It fought on memory and pain now.
Boom. Clank. Clash.
Every strike deepened the rhythm. Every block, every desperate counter, made his will flare brighter. The light grew with his resolve.
With each blow, something inside him was taking shape.
There were two kinds of cores in the world: Mage Cores and Sword Cores. Each had its own ranks, its own path. Mage Cores were often inherited—born of bloodline, affinity, or ancient talent. They came easily to those destined for them.
But Sword Cores… they were different.
They had to be earned.
Forged from pain. Tempered by will. Brought to life by the raw emotion of a soul unwilling to break.
They came from within—joy, sorrow, rage, hope, despair. Not from heritage, but from hunger. From clawing through the world with nothing but one's own strength.
Even slum-born children had awakened Sword Cores in moments of pure desperation—when the need to survive burned brighter than their fear. And now, the same fire flickered in Silius.
His memories surged.
A hallway dim with winter light. A hand once held in warmth, now lost to time. A woman's laughter, faint and ghostly in his ears. She was faceless in his memory, but not in his heart.
His mother.
He remembered her spirit more than her shape—the way she made everything feel safe, even when the world wasn't. The way her presence warmed the cold halls of the estate before they became tomb-like in her absence.
He pushed harder. Fought harder.
"For her… for her, I will be more."
Tears streamed from his silver eyes as his blade moved like lightning. But the tears didn't weaken him—they carried his will with them.
Gladus had yet to use his core. He didn't need to.
He saw the change in his son, but he met it with the same ruthless precision. He countered each strike, disarmed each flourish, knocked Silius back again and again with the force of a man who had seen battle tear entire kingdoms apart.
And then it happened.
A single blow crashed through Silius's guard and sent him flying. His body hit the snow-covered yard with a dull thud, the breath knocked clean from his lungs.
The silver light still flickered around him.
His tears, warm against the freezing wind, slid down his cheeks even as his limbs failed him.
The change was still happening—his core still forming.
But consciousness slipped from him like melting snow from his fingers.
He lay there, still and glowing faintly beneath the pale winter sky, as the training yard fell silent.
---
The silence held for a long moment after Silius collapsed—long enough for even the wind to still.
Then a voice spoke, low and uncertain.
"…Did you see his eyes?"
Another knight nodded, eyes fixed on the boy's motionless form. "Silver. And that light… it wasn't magic. Not the kind we know."
A third stepped forward, brow furrowed. "His core's awakening. That's no training glow. That's the real thing."
The senior knight—the one who had fought Silius earlier—watched with a grave expression. "It's a Sword Core. He's birthing it now, in the snow."
"But... the color," one whispered. "White."
That word made the others shift uncomfortably. White was rare. Too rare. It didn't belong to any rank they could name.
"Cores are forged in the rawest moments," the elder knight murmured. "Pain, hope, loss… all that we carry as men. Mages are born. Sword Bearers are made."
He glanced at Gladus, who stood in silence, watching his son with unreadable eyes.
"No one really knows what a white core means," the knight continued, "but I've heard it comes only when the heart is… unclouded. Pure. Not perfect—but honest. Whole."
A squire near the back of the crowd whispered, almost to himself, "Maybe it's because of her. His mother."
The elder knight didn't reply, but something softened in his gaze.
And in the center of the training yard, snow slowly gathered on the shoulders of the unconscious boy, silver light still pulsing faintly beneath the quiet breath of winter.