I. Ashes Among Children
The orphanage sat on the edge of the Warded Pines, a crooked house built from timber blackened by time, with shutters that never opened unless the sky was kind. Children called it home. Most others called it the waiting room for the forgotten.
Ashen didn't remember when he arrived—only that he'd always been the quiet one. Others called him "smokey eyes," or "ash rat," for the soot that always clung to him no matter how hard he scrubbed. He'd once asked the caretaker, an old, bitter woman with clouded vision and a voice like rusted shears, if he had any real name. She'd snorted and said, "Ash is all that's left after fire. Seems fitting for you."
That name stuck.
In the mornings, the children trained with broom-handles pretending they were swords, mimicking soldiers from the capital's parade square. Some of them dreamed of becoming chosen—picked by one of the sacred blades in the Selection Rite. The rest just played for warmth.
Ashen never played. He watched.
He watched the bladesmiths who visited once a year. Watched the children who bloomed with hope before their names were called. Watched the fires in the distance as war and famine painted the horizon red. And when the others slept, he sat by the hearth's ashes, drawing symbols in the soot—silent, patient.
The caretakers said he was born wrong.
He never cried, even when beaten. He never laughed, not even when the bread came warm. He never looked afraid—just… old.
But Ashen felt.
He felt the weight of being unloved. Of not being chosen year after year. Of being looked over like a broken dagger on a battlefield. It carved something deep in him—a silence that wasn't emptiness, but waiting. For what, he didn't know.
Until the night the blades came.
II. The Rite of Steel and Song
Once a year, every blade-bound orphan was gathered in the stone hall. The priests of the Crown arrived, each flanked by swords wrapped in white cloth, humming softly with dormant song. These were the Chosen Blades—spiritbound, ancient, awake. It was said they whispered to their destined wielder. They called out, softly, surely.
Only the ones they chose could hear.
The others, no matter how much they trained, were just wielders. Not bonded. Not true swordsmen.
Ashen had stood through four ceremonies. This was his fifth.
He did not expect his name to be called. He didn't even stand with the others, choosing a shadowed corner instead. The air was heavy with perfume and incense, but he smelled metal and something fouler—like old blood beneath stone.
One by one, the blades were unveiled. A child approached each sword, eyes wide with terror and hope. Some blades shimmered with light. One hummed louder. A few glowed. One pulsed and sang aloud.
Cheers followed.
Ashen turned his gaze away. The others would be chosen. And he would be—
"Ashen."
The priest's voice cracked through the hall.
Silence fell. Even the blades seemed to stop humming.
Ashen stepped forward slowly, unsure. This wasn't routine.
There were no blades left on the altar.
No cloth-wrapped hilts. No glimmering steel.
Only a single case remained, bolted in chains of black iron, untouched. It hadn't been meant for this ceremony.
"We had not planned to open this relic," the priest murmured with unease. "But the Blade... spoke."
Whispers broke out among the clergy.
They called it The Black Blade. Sealed for generations. A curse disguised as a weapon. No one knew where it had come from—only that when it had been found, it had already taken the lives of three men who touched it.
Ashen stepped forward, drawn by something deeper than fear.
The iron lock hissed as it unlatched itself.
Chains dropped. Slowly, the case opened.
Inside lay a sword unlike any other. Black as obsidian, with veins of red running through its edge like dying embers. Its hilt was wrapped in leather burned stiff. No inscriptions. No crest. Only a whisper.
"Finally..."
Ashen blinked.
The voice hadn't come from a priest. Nor from the crowd. It had bloomed inside his skull, cold and knowing.
"My name is forgotten. But yours… will be remembered in screams."
And then, the blade lifted itself.
Hovering.
Waiting.
The crowd panicked.
"Step away!" one shouted.
"That sword is cursed!" another screamed.
Ashen reached out—not because he chose to, but because the blade had already chosen.
His hand wrapped around the hilt. Cold. Then fire. Then silence.
"We begin again."
III. The Awakening Flame
The moment Ashen touched the Black Blade, the hall exploded in darkness.
But not emptiness.
It was a darkness alive with flame.
Black fire, licking the walls, not consuming but rewriting—etching runes into the stone, burning silence into the air. The priests ran. Children screamed. The other blades dropped to the ground, clattering as if afraid.
Ashen stood at the center of the inferno.
And he felt… seen.
The blade pulsed in his hand, as if breathing. Each beat of its will synced with his own.
Images crashed into his mind—battles fought in silence, gods with hollow eyes, a kingdom once ruled by shadows, and a flame that could burn fate itself.
The blade was not just a weapon.
It was a memory.
And it was sharing that memory with him.
When the flames died, Ashen stood alone in the scorched hall. The walls had blackened, the altar reduced to stone slag. No priests remained.
Only the sword. And him.
The caretakers never took him back in.
Word spread fast: the cursed child had bonded with the Forbidden Blade.
No one dared approach. The Crown forbade trainers from touching him. Even the clergy labeled him Marked.
But Ashen didn't flinch.
He had the blade.
And for the first time, he had a voice in his head that never lied.
IV. Of Fire and Silence
He slept beside the blade.
He ate in silence.
He trained in secret, wielding the Black Blade against air, against shadow, against his doubts.
And every night, the blade whispered.
"You are not the first to wield me."
"But you may be the last."
Ashen asked it questions. Who made it? Why was it sealed? What did it want?
But the blade answered with riddles.
"I was forged not to serve kings… but to slay them."
"My flame is not fire. It is judgment."
Sometimes, in moments of stillness, the blade would hum softly, like a lullaby remembered by war.
Ashen didn't sleep much.
Not because of fear.
But because his path had begun—and there would be no turning back.