I've decided to go back to shorter chapters ~3000 words. Looks to be better for engagement as well as giving me a better release schedule for you guys, I should be able to do daily uploads now :D
[Yorz's POV - Flashback]
They say it's mercy that humans die young, so they never have to watch the world rot around them. But I never saw it as mercy.
I saw it as abandonment.
I was twenty when I buried my mother. The dirt wouldn't stay dry, no matter how hard I tried. I remember the way the mud clung to my hands, how it got under my fingernails and in the creases of my palms. My fingers were raw by the time I was done, but I didn't feel it. Not then.
She was barely forty. Still young by most standards. Her face had only just begun to crease at the corners, like parchment folded once too often. I remember staring at her as if waiting for breath to return. As if some cruel god might give her back just long enough to tell me not to be afraid.
She didn't.
I was twenty. But I looked twelve. That's the curse of elven blood. You wear youth like a mask while your heart curdles with age. The gravedigger offered me a pat on the head, told me some sweet nothings about "moving on" and "staying strong." He thought I was a child.
I let everyone think I was harmless. Quiet. Innocent.
Let them look at me like I was something fragile instead of the sharp edge I had become. Because grief doesn't soften you. It carves.
And I was hollowed.
She was the last tether. The last warm breath. And without her, the silence inside me became unbearable. That's the thing about time. When it stretches ahead for centuries, you either anchor yourself to someone… or you float.
I didn't want to float. I wanted roots.
I wanted someone I could shape. Guide. Keep.
I wanted something that would stay.
That's when I found her.
No, not found. Discovered.
She looked maybe 13-15. Maybe younger. Wild. Fierce. Filthy. A ball of rage wrapped in sinew and spite, swinging a broken sword at boys twice her size in some back-alley brawl that would've left most kids bleeding in the gutter.
But not her.
No, she stood tall on split feet. Nose broken. Knuckles raw. Screaming curses in a voice that hadn't yet figured out how to be a woman's.
And gods… she was perfect.
A storm in the shape of a child.
She didn't cry when she lost. Didn't beg. Just spat blood and stared up at me like I was the next thing she'd break.
I smiled at her.
And for the first time in years… I felt something move inside me.
This one wouldn't die easily.
She wouldn't fade like my mother. Wouldn't rot away in some hospital bed or burn out in childbirth or get cut down in some senseless raid.
Not if I had anything to say about it.
She was going to live.
I would make her live.
I followed her for days before I approached.
She lived in a ruin near the riverbank, with no roof or light. Just a tarp strung between broken beams, a chipped blade shoved into the dirt, and scraps of food that she likely stole from carts too slow to catch her.
She was feral.
But she was mine.
I don't mean that in the metaphorical sense. I mean it, mine. The way a sword belongs to its smith. The way a fire belongs to its spark. I saw her and I knew she would be the thing that outlasted everything else.
The first time I stepped out of the shadows, she nearly gutted me.
Fast, unthinking, pure instinct. The blade came out of the dirt like a striking viper and would've nicked my stomach if I hadn't twisted just so. She was so frail that I was surprised she said she was 18, to achieved such a frail figure was quite sad. She was 18, and she already had a killer's aim.
I smiled.
She didn't.
"You come for food, you fight me," she snapped, voice hoarse from sleeping cold.
I tilted my head. "I came for you."
She squinted, confused. Suspicious. Then spat.
"Pervert."
I laughed. It startled her.
And that's when I knew she could be taught.
The first lesson was obedience.
Not the pretty kind nobles teach their pups, where rewards come for good posture and pleasing.
I taught her to survive.
To kill.
To win.
My voice was the only one she listened to. Because I made sure it was the only one that stayed.
We trained in the cold. In the rain. In fields of broken glass and coiled roots. I made her fight with sticks. With stones. With her fists. I let her bleed. I made her bleed.
Because pain was honest.
Pain stayed when everything else left.
She hated me for it, but she never ran.
And that… that's when I fell in love with her.
Not the way people love each other in songs. Not even the way mothers love their daughters.
I had been beaten, too, once. Long ago. Not in training. Not in strength. My father never taught me to survive. He taught me that silence was safety. Those bruises didn't need explanation. That screaming meant you'd only suffer longer.
He was an elven noble. He said love was control.
I believed him.
Helga was different. She screamed and punched and refused to bow. But I saw it, the bones beneath her defiance. The brittle truth. She wanted to be loved. She just didn't know how to be wanted without being broken.
Just like me.
So I broke her.
But in the right way. I tore her down to the roots and rebuilt her from blood and steel.
Not because I hated her.
No.
Because I needed her. Because I couldn't stand to be left again.
A decade of blood and bruises had sculpted her into something breathtaking. Not in the way the city's little girls dreamed of, soft and pretty and delicate like porcelain.
I day that she began to defy me, she was sixteen when it happened.
Back then, we trained with live blades. Always. Anything less was an insult.
Our sparring ring was a gravel pit behind the guildhall, no glamour, no enchantments, just dirt and stone and the weight of everything we didn't say to each other.
I don't remember what started it.
A word. A gesture. A glance that lasted too long.
But I remember how it ended.
She caught me off guard.
For the first time in ten years, she moved faster than I could read. Her stance wasn't perfect. Her footwork was off. But her intent, gods, her intent was lethal.
She ducked under my swing, drove her elbow into my ribs, then pivoted and slammed the pommel of her sword into my temple.
I hit the ground.
Dust kicked up around me. Blood pooled in my mouth from where I'd bitten my tongue. And she stood over me, panting, eyes wide with something like disbelief… and something more dangerous.
Pride.
My chest heaved.
My vision swam.
I should've been proud.
Should've laughed. Embraced her. Told her she'd finally done it.
But instead, I snapped.
The fear came first.
Not losing to her. Of losing her.
Because if she could beat me…
She didn't need me anymore.
And that thought, that unbearable, choking thought, split me open.
I roared.
Grabbed her by the throat and drove her into the dirt with enough force to rattle her teeth. She gasped, choked, eyes flashing with fear for the first time in years. I straddled her, blade drawn, and struck.
Not once.
Not twice.
Seven times.
Blunt strikes. Hilt to ribs. Elbow to jaw. Knee to stomach.
I didn't stop until her lip was split, until she bled from the nose, until her fingers curled not into fists, but pleas.
"Stop."
She said it once, breathless.
That's all it took.
I froze, and the sword in my hand trembled.
Her blood was on my knuckles.
Her face was turned away, one eye swollen, her breath hitching in that half-silent sob people make when they think crying is a weakness.
I crawled off her.
Sat there, in the dirt.
Staring at the weapon in my hand as if I didn't remember picking it up.
My heart thundered against my ribs like it wanted to break free.
She didn't look at me.
She just pulled herself up, slowly, shaking, grabbed her blade, and walked away.
Not limped.
Not stumbled.
Walked.
I watched her go, something rotting in my stomach.
I wanted to call out.
Apologize.
Tell her it was a momentary lapse in judgment and control.
But the words wouldn't come.
Because deep down…
I hadn't lost control, I'd chosen to hurt her, and she'd felt it.
That was the day she stopped calling me anything.
Not a mentor. Not a friend. Not family. Just silence.
That was the day I realised...
She wasn't mine anymore.
...
After that day in the pit, something changed between us.
No, she changed.
She grew quieter around me, but not in submission. In calculation. Her eyes watched me differently, like she was measuring what I used to mean against what I had become.
She stopped flinching when I raised my voice.
Stopped asking for guidance.
She started making her own calls during missions and taking risks, trusting her gut instead of my word. The others praised her for it. Called her bold. Said she had fire in her blood.
They didn't know what it meant.
But I did.
It meant she was slipping.
Every time she stood tall, I felt a little shorter.
Every time she smiled at someone else, I felt a little colder.
Every night she walked past my door without checking in, I felt something in me crack.
I had carved her into something divine.
And she dared to become herself.
Then he came.
Kael'ven.
I remember the first time I saw him: leaning on a cane he didn't need, speaking to a crowd that didn't matter. He was half-laugh, half-voice, one of those pretty-tongued parasites who liked the sound of their truth.
He spoke like a preacher, but dressed like a drunk noble.
I didn't care. I didn't look at him, not really.
But she did.
Gods, she did.
He spoke of freedom. Cutting away expectation. Of shedding names, roles, rules, masters.
He said you could only become your truest self if you first destroyed who the world told you to be.
She hung on every word.
I saw it.
I felt it.
Like something was being pulled from my chest, as if she were being rewritten in real time, and I couldn't stop it.
I tried to brush it off at first. Told her he was a charlatan. A fool playing prophet. She smirked, said I sounded jealous.
Jealous.
As if I hadn't bled for her. Starved for her. Killed for her.
I'd raised her from nothing.
And now some poet with a flair for dramatics had her reciting lines about destiny and liberation?
She said he made her feel seen.
I laughed in her face.
She didn't laugh back.
She started spending more time with his flock. Listening to him speak in taverns and alleyways, watching him draw maps in the dirt and whisper about the weave beneath the world.
I followed her once.
He touched her shoulder as he spoke. Just lightly.
But her face…
She looked like she'd been struck by lightning.
And that's when I knew.
That's when I understood.
I wasn't her root anymore.
I wasn't her beginning, her compass, her goddamn shadow.
He had taken that.
With words.
She came to me not long after, told me she was leaving the guild.
Said she wanted to join his journey. Follow his philosophy. Help "build something bigger than both of us."
I didn't answer.
I couldn't.
Because my hands were already shaking. My jaw was already locked.
She touched my arm and said she hoped I'd understand.
I didn't.
What I understood was that he had taken her from me without ever drawing a blade.
And I hated him for it. No, despised him.
Because she was mine.
Mine to raise.
Mine to protect.
Mine to keep.
And just like my mother, just like everything else...
She was going to leave me, too.
I could've told her no, or stopped her, or even killed her right then and there,
But I didn't.
When she packed her blades, slung that worn-out cloak over her shoulder, and said she was leaving with him, I just stood there.
Still. Quiet.
Stoic, they'd say. Dignified.
What a joke.
Every second she walked further from me felt like skin peeling off the bone. But I gave her nothing. Not a word. Not a reason to stay. Not even a curse.
Because if I spoke, I wouldn't stop.
And she didn't deserve to see me beg.
They made a name for themselves quickly; The Reforged Path, The Free Flame, Kael'ven's Children, names changed depending on which halfwit you asked. But the symbols stayed the same.
So did the whispers.
And so did she.
Helga became a ghost in the mouths of others. People spoke of her like she were something holy. The Warrior of the Chainbreaker. The Sword of the New Dawn. Kael'ven's flame made flesh.
I stopped listening.
I stopped asking.
But I never stopped watching.
Every town that praised them made my stomach turn. Every noble that "vanished" after crossing their path made my fingers twitch for a blade.
She wasn't his weapon.
She was mine.
And yet every time her name was spoken, it was tied to him.
I told myself it was temporary. That she'd see through it. That one day she'd come back, tail tucked, eyes down, whispering that I'd been right.
But she didn't.
So I sent assassins.
Quietly. Careful. Professionals. Each with the same order:
Take her to her grave. Or don't come back at all.
None of them returned.
Not a single one.
At first, I thought it was her. That she'd grown too sharp, too ruthless.
That would've been easier to swallow.
But then I heard the truth.
Kael'ven protected her.
Not with love. Not with praise. But with walls, arcane, political, and personal. She was untouchable.
Every dagger I sent bounced off her skin like it had never been forged.
Every whisper I tried to spread withered in the air like smoke under a storm.
She wasn't his weapon anymore. She was his property.
And that, that was the final insult.
He hadn't just taken her from me.
He'd caged her in a prettier prison.
And the worst part? She didn't seem to mind.
I told myself it was mercy.
Every time I tried to end her.
Every assassin, every poisoned cup, every curse I paid coin to conjure, I whispered that it was mercy.
Better by my hand than his. Better she died as the girl I made, not the thing he twisted her into.
That's what I told myself.
Again.
And again.
And again.
They tasted like truth.
Decades passed, whole kingdoms shifted. Dynasties rose and fell, but I remained strong.
Yartar grew. The guild expanded.
Eventually, I stopped. Not because I'd forgiven her.
No. Never.
But because I knew she had become his creature. His sentinel. His perfect, soulless sword.
So I rewrote the story. Where others saw the cult as saviours, revolutionaries, prophets, I spun them into monsters. Terrorists. Fanatics. Traitors to the world's order.
I paid bards to twist songs. Scholars to dig too deep. Whispers turned into doctrine, and slowly, the world began to recoil from Kael'ven's vision like a body rejecting a poisoned organ.
The cult fractured under the weight of its image. I watched it burn from a distance.
And in that fire, I found peace. Or so I told myself.
But the truth?
I was waiting.
Waiting for the final blade to fall.
For her to lose everything.
And then, one night, nearly 2 decades after she'd left me, my spy crept into my office and whispered the words that shattered the silence:
"She killed him."
Kael'ven.
Dead.
Not by rebellion.
Not by coup.
By her hand.
And that would've been enough.
That would've been the perfect end to this story, if not for what came next.
"She took the child."
Those four words snapped whatever thread of sanity I had left.
A child.
Their child.
His blood.
I don't remember drawing my dagger.
Just the sound of the tip scraping across the wood of my desk as I pressed it too hard, too long, into the grain.
My jaw ached. I hadn't realised I was grinding my teeth.
She took him.
The boy.
The vessel.
And what? Raised him in secret? Hid him like a stolen jewel, pretending it was love?
No.
She took him because she couldn't stand to be alone.
Because she knew what I always knew.
That the only way to feel whole was to keep something close. Something yours. She made my mistake.
But she wouldn't get the chance to learn from it.
No.
This time, there'd be no letters. No warnings. No mercy.
I summoned the guild's old blades. The ones who owed me more than coin. The ones who had no names, only debts.
And I told them:
"Find her."
"Kill her and the boy"
Because after she destroyed me.
I was going to finish her.
And this time, no cult.
No machine.
No gods would stand in my way.
...
I gave the order at dusk.
By midnight, the assassins had already left.
I should have slept.
Instead, I stood by the window of my study, watching the wind rattle through the banners over Yartar's eastern wall. My fingers drummed against the stone windowsill until they stopped.
Because the shadows in the corner of the room were no longer shadows.
They moved.
I didn't flinch.
Didn't draw steel.
But the cold that sank into the room was something else entirely, not temperature. Presence.
And then came the voice.
Unbearably calm.
"Impressive. You still command a room like it owes you something."
I turned slowly.
And there he stood.
Kael'ven.
Not quite living. Not quite dead.
His form shimmered faintly, like heat-warped glass wrapped in dark robes, face half-cast in shadow and half in perfect clarity. Eyes like black stars. His mouth curved into a smile that didn't touch his eyes.
I said nothing.
He stepped forward, hands folded loosely behind his back.
"Yorz of Yartar. Bladekeeper. Guildmistress. But once, just once, you were a mother."
The air snapped.
"Don't," I warned, voice sharper than any knife I kept.
Kael'ven didn't stop.
Didn't blink.
He simply smiled wider. "You raised her well, you know. Helga. She was magnificent. She makes a fine tool."
"She wasn't yours."
"No," he admitted. "But she didn't belong to you either. She belongs to herself now, and isn't that the cruellest kind of freedom?"
I took a step forward, fists clenched.
"I should destroy whatever's left of you for what you did to her."
He tilted his head. "You tried. Many times."
"You're not here," I hissed. "You're dead."
Kael'ven raised one long finger.
"Dead in body, yes. But I have… contingencies."
The shadows behind him pulsed once.
"A hundred lives, stored in thought. In soul. In whispers and runes and desperate disciples. You think a man like me would stake everything on one beating heart?"
His grin widened.
"You stand before a messenger. A memory. A fragment of my will. One of many. But only one… who was meant for you."
I said nothing.
Kael'ven stepped closer. "You tried to kill her. Again. And again. And yet, she still lives. Protected. Watched. Loved by him, hated by you. And now you find yourself lost. No revenge. No purpose. Just a guild growing soft, a city slipping through your fingers."
"Get to the point," I growled.
His voice dropped to a near whisper.
"I'm offering you a place in the new world."
I scoffed. "You mean slavery."
"No," he said. "Control. Survival. Legacy."
He circled me slowly, his image flickering like a candle behind wet glass.
"You've already done the math, haven't you? If the world discovers what lies beneath Yartar's streets, if the Empire, the Temples, even the Weaveborn get wind of this place's history, you won't survive the year."
My jaw clenched.
"You're bluffing."
"I never bluff," he murmured. "I calculate."
He turned his head just slightly.
"You've kept the city out of war. Out of the fire. Out of ruin. You want to keep it that way?"
I didn't answer.
So he struck deeper.
"You want to keep her safe? The girl you tried to kill?"
"She's not a girl anymore."
"No," he agreed. "She's a weapon. And if she dies now… your name is already rotting in her memory. There's no redemption. No salvation. Just waste."
He finally faced me again.
"Help me come back. Keep the boy safe. Ensure the guild survives. And I will leave Yartar untouched."
"And if I say no?"
The shadows trembled.
His eyes glowed faintly.
"Then the world comes here first."
Silence fell.
I hated him.
I hated that voice. That smile. That truth he carried like a sword only he could wield.
But gods help me…
I couldn't stop seeing her.
Helga. Broken. Alone. One arm cradling a child.
Not looking for help.
Just escaping me.
Because I made her this way.
Because I never let her go.
And now the only way to protect the city… the only way to punish her…
Was to betray her.
"Fine," I whispered.
Kael'ven's image bowed faintly.
"Excellent. Then the pact is sealed. The city is yours. The guild will thrive. And the boy…" his grin grew sharp, serrated, "…will return when the hour is right."
Then he was gone.
Like smoke pulled into the floor.
And I was alone again.
Just the window. And the slow, creeping realisation that I had traded everything I was…
For revenge, I would never admit tasted like grief.
[End of Chapter]