The masked man moved as a whisper.
No wasted movement. No warning. No hesitation.
A blink, and the knife was already at my throat.
I managed to bat it away. Sparks illuminated the glass room as metal rang. The reverberation wasn't noise _ it was pressure. As if the world outside us flinched at the impact.
He swung at me again, and again — low, high, left, spinning — his movements more accurate with each one.
I was battling death itself.
My arms propelled themselves with a speed I didn't think I had. My muscles were screaming. I slipped on the black glass twice, rolled once, almost dropped the sword
Then the burn on my chest flared.
And everything slowed down.
"..."
For a moment, the world bent.
His blade sliced toward my ribs — too quick to parry — but I knew the angle. I saw it before it occurred. My body moved not out of fear, but assurance.
I parried through the strike.
His sword passed by a hair.
I struck up.
He parried — just barely.
He regarded me then. I couldn't see his face, but I sensed the shift.
Not rage.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
"So you've begun to awaken," he said.
I didn't respond. I couldn't. I had no idea what he was asking.
He tilted his blade a fraction, just far enough to talk.
"Tell me ... did the Primordials mark you before birth? Or did something older find you first?"
That froze me.
Primordials.
The word was chosen. In the shrines, it was spoken softly, half-prayer, half-threat. They were not gods. Not exactly. They were. founders. Forces of creation. Creation made flesh.
To be marked by one was to be chosen.
To be marked by something older was to be. wrong.
"I don't know," I finally said, voice raw. "I didn't ask for this."
"..."
"No one does."
"..."
Then he lunged again.
"..."
The battle grew vicious.
He started testing me. Not with strength — with accuracy. Each blow was meant to deconstruct me piece by piece. Not to kill. To dismantle.
I fought back with greater ferocity.
I didn't fight with technique or control. I fought with recall — the beatings from older orphans, the survival instinct that kept me going in the barracks, the anger of being cast aside like garbage and made it through anyway.
Steel collided with steel. Sparks rained down. Glass shattered.
Then he feigned — and I believed it.
His elbow hit my jaw. I crashed to the floor. My blade went skittering.
He leaned over me, blade pressed at my throat once more.
"The world doesn't want you, Kevin," he said. "And yet here you are. Still breathing."
"..."
I glared up at him, teeth smeared with blood, vision reeling.
"I'm used to it."
"..."
"Then prove it."
".."
And he shoved the blade home.
"..."
"..."
I rolled , not to avoid, but to access.
My hand struck something icy in the glass — my sword. I didn't think. I just acted.
I moved it up blindly, two-handed, and deflected his blade in mid-strike.
What followed was a sound that wasn't natural.
It was the sound of glass shattering under the ocean.
A wave of force exploded outward.
The reflected room shattered in a ring about us. The shockwave burst outward in every direction. The ceiling trembled. Cracks spread through the throne behind him.
He recoiled — not because he was hurt. Because he was shocked.
"Impossible…"
I stood up slowly, blade buzzing in my hand. My chest throbbed, the mark blazing white now, rather than red.
He gazed at it.
"That's not a Primordial seal," he said. "That's a brand of erasure."
"..."
"Meaning?"
"..."
"Meaning… someone attempted to erase you from the universe. And failed."
I didn't get it.
But I didn't have to.
He moved back toward the throne. Then he sheathed his sword.
"If you seek answers," he said,
"go east. Keep following the mark. But understand this with each step, something you don't wish to lose will be lost."
"And what of you?" I asked.
"Me?" He spun partway around. "I'm not your enemy, Kevin. Not yet."
Then, before I could prevent it, he plunged his sword into the foot of the throne.
The chamber fell.
"..."
"..."
I awakened buried in glass dust.
The chamber no longer existed. Or perhaps I'd been relocated. My body hurt in places I hadn't known I had. But I was alive.
The sword remained with me.
The mark… no longer burned. But it throbbed, faintly. A compass in my bones.
East.
I stood. I walked.
And this time, I didn't look back.
---