Princess Elara's war camp sprawled across the desert's edge like a serpent coiled to strike. Phoenix banners snapped in the wind, their embroidered flames shimmering with threads of real fire. At its center stood a pavilion of black silk, where Elara paced, her silverthorn crown cutting into her brow.
"The gutter rat has my blade," she hissed to her general, a hulking man clad in charred Eldertree armor. "Bring it to me. Burn the rest."
The general bowed. "And the traitors? The disgraced noble and the girl?"
Elara's gaze drifted to a locket at her throat—a tiny portrait of her father, King Aldric, his eyes kind but hollow. "Leave Varyn alive. I want him to watch."
Ethan's camp was a hollowed-out ruin, its walls scarred by centuries of sand. Lira sharpened her arrows, the rasp of steel on stone grating in the silence.
"We can't outrun them," Varyn said, his stone gauntlets clenched. "Elara's phoenix riders will scorch this place to ash by dawn."
Ethan stared at the mythril blade, its surface rippling like mercury. "Then we don't run."
Lira snorted. "You're not a one-man army."
"Aren't I?" Ethan's voice was cold. The blade hummed, echoing his rage.
Varyn grabbed his shoulder. "That thing's eating you alive. Fight smart, or you'll end up like the first Swordmaster—a corpse in a glorified tomb."
Ethan wrenched free. "You think I don't know that? You brought me here. You made me this!"
"I gave you a chance," Varyn growled. "Don't waste it on theatrics."
Elara's tent reeked of myrrh and desperation. She unrolled a brittle scroll—a child's drawing of her family. Her father, Aldric, sat on the throne, Cedric and Dorian at his feet, Isolde clutching a doll. Elara herself stood apart, a tiny sword in her hand.
"You'll rule nothing," Cedric had sneered when he found it. "Swords are for soldiers, not princesses."
She crushed the scroll. The mythril blade will change that.
A scout burst in. "The gutter rat advances. Alone."
Elara smiled.
Ethan walked into the storm.
Sand stung his face, the mythril blade blazing in his grip. Elara's forces descended—a hundred phoenix riders on armored steeds, their lances tipped with Eldertree fire.
Lira loosed arrows from the ruins, each shot finding a gap in the riders' armor. Varyn carved through the flanks, stone fists shattering bone. But the horde converged on Ethan.
A rider charged, lance aimed at his heart. Ethan swung.
The blade's lightning erupted.
Varsak's blades clashed with mythril. "You're still gutter filth," he hissed. Ethan channeled lightning, burning the assassin's shadow aura to nothing. "And you're already dead."
Elara, watching from her steed, trembled—not with fear, but hunger. "Mine," she whispered.
Ethan's vision blurred. The blade's whispers crescendoed—More. Give us more.
He obliged.
Lightning arced in jagged forks, splitting the earth, vaporizing horses and men. He moved like a tempest, raw and unrefined, his technique crude but his power limitless. A phoenix rider swung a chain whip; Ethan caught it, the lightning reducing it to molten slag.
Lira shouted from the ruins: "Ethan, stop! You'll kill yourself!"
But the blade drowned her out.
Varyn tackled a rider about to skewer Ethan's back. "You're not a god, boy! Control it!"
Ethan didn't hear.
As a child, Elara had watched her father kneel before the Eldertree sapling, his hands bloodied from clawing at its roots.
"Why does it hurt you?" she'd asked.
"Because power demands sacrifice," Aldric said, his voice hollow. "Cedric thinks the throne is strength. He's wrong. The throne is a wound."
When Cedric poisoned their father's wine, Elara hid the body. When Dorian sold secrets to Vostra, she burned the evidence. When Isolde preached peace, Elara called her a fool.
"You're weak," Cedric told her. "Like him."
The mythril blade would prove him wrong.
Elara dismounted, her own sword—a shard of Eldertree core—igniting in her hand. "You stole what's mine, gutter rat."
Ethan's blade crackled. "It was never yours."
They clashed.
Elara fought with precision, her strikes honed by decades of repressed rage. Ethan was chaos incarnate, lightning scorching the earth with every wild swing.
"You think this makes you special?" Elara hissed, parrying a strike that rattled her bones. "The blade doesn't care about you. It'll chew you up and spit you out."
Ethan's scar burned. "Like Cedric chewed up your father?"
Elara faltered.
Ethan pressed his advantage, driving her back. "You're not saving Roudnam. You're just another tyrant with a crown."
Elara's sword flared. "You know nothing of what I've sacrificed!"
Her next strike drew blood, slicing Ethan's cheek. The mythril blade roared in response, lightning engulfing them both.
In the blaze, memories flooded Ethan's mind—Elara's memories.
A girl of twelve, hiding as Cedric's men dragged her father away.
A teen, forging alliances with rebels, her hands blistered from secret sword training.
A woman, kneeling beside Aldric's hidden grave, vowing to burn the throne he'd died for.
The vision shattered. Elara screamed—not in pain, but recognition.
The mythril blade slipped from Ethan's grip, its hunger sated—for now. Elara's forces retreated, their general dragging her onto a steed.
"This isn't over!" she screamed, blood streaking her face. "The blade will be mine!"
Varyn limped to Ethan's side. "You let her live."
"She's not the enemy," Ethan said, staring at his trembling hands. "The blade is."
Lira emerged from the ruins, her quiver empty. "What now?"
Ethan picked up the mythril blade, its glow dimmed. "We find a way to kill it."
In her tent, Elara clutched her father's locket. The mythril blade's power had shown her his memories too—Aldric's final moments, his hands clawing at the Eldertree's roots, begging for redemption.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.