Chapter2:The Boy and The Blade
1727 Words
Brin’s Hollow had never known silence.
Miners shouted, wagons creaked, hammers rang against stone. But the day after the fire was reversed—after the master returned—the silence hung like a funeral shroud.
Kaelin sat in the corner of the tavern, a hood covering his face. The tavern owner had offered him food, water, even gold. The villagers whispered, pointed, made signs of the old gods. Some bowed. Others fled. Most just stared.
Lysa sat beside him, kicking her legs, stuffing her face with bread. The girl had no concept of fear now. Not with him at her side.
“You’ve gone famous,” she said through a mouthful.
“I didn’t ask for it,” Kaelin replied, staring into his cup.
“You saved someone. And melted a sword. In front of half the village.”
He said nothing.
Lysa leaned closer, lowering her voice. “Does this mean… you’re going to fight them? The Dominion?”
Kaelin looked up. “You don’t fight empires, child. You outlive them.”
“That sounds boring.”
He allowed himself a faint smile.
Just then, the tavern doors creaked open. A group of travelers entered, cloaked and soaked from rain. Among them was a boy—tall for his age, perhaps seventeen, with a worn sword strapped to his back and eyes that carried the weight of someone who had seen too much.
He walked past Kaelin’s table and froze.
Then turned.
“You,” the boy said.
Kaelin tilted his head slightly.
“You were in the square. With the fire.”
Kaelin didn’t reply.
The boy stepped forward. “Are you really… one of them? A master?”
Lysa groaned. “Here we go.”
Kaelin gave the boy a measured look. “Who’s asking?”
“My name is Kero. I’ve been searching for people like you.”
Kaelin frowned. “People like me are dead.”
“Not all of them,” Kero said. “Some are hiding. Teaching in secret. Scattered. Weak. But they remember. And they say the last master would return. The one who stood at the Azure Temple when it fell. The one who carried the flame.”
He leaned forward.
“Is it true? Are you really him?”
The tavern went quiet again.
Kaelin stood, pushing his chair back slowly.
“Come outside.”
They stood behind the tavern, in the mud. Rain fell softly. The crowd gathered quickly, forming a circle around them—silent, expectant.
Kero drew his sword. It was chipped along the edge, poorly balanced, but he held it with both hands like it mattered.
“I challenge you,” he said. “Not to win. But to learn.”
Kaelin raised an eyebrow. “You want to fight me?”
“You’re the master,” Kero said, voice steady. “I want to see what that means.”
Kaelin sighed and pulled a stick from the firewood pile.
“Very well.”
The duel lasted less than six seconds.
Kero lunged, shouting. Kaelin stepped aside with ease, spun the stick once, and tapped the boy’s hand. The sword flew into the air, landing in the mud.
The boy stood still, blinking.
“Again,” Kaelin said.
Kero retrieved his sword. This time, he advanced slower—watching. He slashed once, twice. Kaelin blocked each strike with a single motion of his stick, turning the last swing into a pivot, sweeping Kero’s leg.
The boy fell hard, grunting.
The crowd murmured.
Kero rolled over, soaked in mud.
Kaelin crouched beside him.
“You have strength,” he said. “But no center. Your feet don’t belong to your breath, and your sword doesn’t belong to your body.”
Kero blinked. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you fight like a man who’s always afraid.”
Kero sat up. “I am afraid. That’s why I came. I don’t want to be.”
Kaelin looked at him for a long time.
Then he offered his hand.
“Then come with me.”
They left Brin’s Hollow before sunrise.
Kaelin, Kero, and Lysa—three travelers on foot, walking the old forest paths. Kaelin avoided main roads, sensing the Dominion’s scouts hunting for him. Already, news of his return had likely reached places he didn’t want it to.
Kero asked questions constantly.
“How do you channel flame?”
“What was the Azure Order really like?”
“Did you really fight a hundred soldiers during the Siege?”
Kaelin rarely answered. When he did, it was short.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t fight a hundred. I fought one. The one that mattered.”
Eventually, Kero stopped asking.
But he watched.
Every morning, Kaelin rose before the others and trained—slow, flowing movements, stances that mirrored animals or elements. He danced with the wind, hands tracing invisible patterns.
Kero started copying him from a distance.
By the third day, Kaelin said, “Your shoulders are too stiff.”
Kero looked over. “Then show me.”
And Kaelin did.
Training was brutal.
Kaelin did not explain everything. He showed only once. If Kero failed to copy it, he waited until the next morning. He did not praise. He did not scold.
He watched.
And Kero learned.
By the fifth day, he was no longer swinging with brute strength. He was moving with thought, breathing in patterns. The sword had not changed—but he had.
“You’re getting slower,” Lysa said one afternoon, chewing a berry. “I thought you were supposed to be good.”
Kero smirked. “It’s not about being fast. It’s about being right.”
Kaelin didn’t smile—but he heard the words. And they pleased him.
That night, around the fire, Kaelin spoke for the first time of the past.
“The Azure Order was not just warriors,” he said, voice low. “We were balance. Advisors to kings. Keepers of old knowledge. We did not conquer—we guided.”
Kero leaned forward. “What happened?”
Kaelin looked into the fire.
“My most trusted student believed the world needed order through power, not peace. He betrayed the temple. Burned it to the ground.”
“You’re talking about Vaerith,” Kero said.
Kaelin nodded.
“He’s dead now,” Lysa said.
“His bloodline isn’t,” Kaelin replied. “And neither is his vision. The Crimson Dominion rose from his ashes.”
Kero’s fists clenched. “They killed my father.”
Kaelin looked at him.
“He was a teacher,” Kero said. “Not a fighter. But he believed in the old ways. Said the flame would return. They called him a traitor. Hung him in front of our house.”
Silence.
Kaelin stood.
“Then it’s time we bring the flame back.”
Their next stop was a monastery ruin two days south—an ancient structure built into the cliffs, once belonging to the Azure monks.
Kaelin had heard whispers from the villagers that something stirred there.
When they arrived, they found the place desecrated. Walls defaced. Statues broken. But deep inside the stone chambers, Kaelin found what he had hoped for—a fragment of the Flame Archives. A crystal orb, glowing faintly in the darkness.
He knelt before it.
Kero watched in silence as Kaelin placed both hands on the orb and whispered something in the old tongue.
The crystal pulsed. Warmth filled the room.
Images flickered in the air—projections of old masters, of techniques, teachings, records of energy flow. Kero’s eyes widened.
“You could rebuild everything with this,” he whispered.
Kaelin shook his head. “This is only one piece. Most are lost. But it’s a start.”
Lysa tugged his sleeve. “There’s something else.”
She led him to a broken altar. Beneath it, hidden in dust, was a small black mask—metal, engraved with the sigil of the Azure Flame.
Kaelin picked it up slowly.
His mask. The one he wore as Grandmaster.
He stared at it for a long moment before placing it back into his cloak.
“The world doesn’t need a master right now,” he said. “It needs a teacher.”
Later that night, Kaelin found Kero outside the ruins, practicing alone under the moonlight.
The boy’s form was cleaner now—precise, deliberate. Still flawed. But improving.
“You’re impatient,” Kaelin said.
Kero didn’t stop moving. “I’ve waited my whole life to find someone like you. I’m not going to waste it.”
Kaelin approached, gently adjusting Kero’s stance. “Speed comes with stillness. Power comes with understanding. You’re trying to become strong enough to protect what you’ve already lost. That’s not balance. That’s desperation.”
Kero lowered his sword. “Then teach me how to move beyond it.”
Kaelin studied him. “You already are.”
They left the ruins the next morning.
Kaelin felt something stirring in the earth.
The flame was spreading—slowly, invisibly. People remembered the old ways. Some feared it. Others longed for it.
But word was traveling fast.
And so were the hunters.
At dusk, they were ambushed.
Ten Dominion soldiers blocked the path—armor red as blood, eyes cold, weapons raised.
“Kaelin of the Azure,” their leader announced. “By order of the Crimson Regent, you are sentenced to death for heresy, treason, and false resurrection.”
Kaelin stepped forward, cloak billowing.
“I’ve died once already,” he said.
“Then you’ll die again.”
The soldiers charged.
Kero moved to help, but Kaelin raised a hand.
“Stay with Lysa.”
And then he moved.
He didn’t fight with fury. He fought with grace. A dance of fire and wind. The soldiers didn’t stand a chance. Swords melted. Shields cracked. The ground itself shifted beneath his feet.
In less than a minute, all ten were down.
Not dead—but broken.
Kaelin turned, breathing slow.
Kero stared.
“You... you didn’t even kill them.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because the world has enough death. Let them carry their failure back to their masters.”
He turned away, eyes distant.
“And let them whisper this truth: The Last Master has returned.”
- Writer
