Chapter 4: The Path and the Price
The brown paper, stiff with age, tore under Yuta's trembling fingers. The rain against the glass seemed to fade, the entire world narrowing to the object resting in his lap.
It was a box of dark wood, unadorned and smooth. Inside, nestled in faded black velvet, lay two things: another letter, and a weapon.
It was a short sword, or perhaps a long, heavy dagger, sheathed in simple, hardened black leather. Yuta's hand, still grimy with dust, hovered over it. Lilia made a small, choked sound from the bed, but she didn't move.
Yuta's fingers closed around the hilt. He drew it.
The blade was unlike anything he had ever seen. It was not the dull, practical iron of a village axe or the gray-blue of a kitchen knife. This blade was a perfect, flawless, twenty-inch length of polished silver that acted as a perfect mirror. It had no color of its own; it held only the reflection of the gray, rainy room, of his own wide, shocked, sky-blue eye staring back at him. It was beautiful, sterile, and cold.
But the hilt... the hilt was warm.
It was crafted from a material that looked like polished, deep-purple stone, smooth and weighted perfectly for his hand. The cross-guard was simple, but set into its very center was a single, gleaming, heart-shaped amethyst. Carved into the grip itself was an intricate, inlayed design: a single, five-petaled flower, its petals a delicate, pale lilac.
Lilia gasped, a sharp intake of breath that was pure pain. Her hand flew to her mouth. "A Twilight Iris..." she whispered, her voice breaking. "Oh, Kael..."
Yuta looked at the second letter. This one was not sealed. He unfolded it. The same strong, dark-blue ink. The same hand. He began to read, his voice quiet and shaky, yet filling the terrible silence of the room.
"My son, Yuta."
"If you are reading this, it means you have found it. And it means I am gone. I am so sorry, Yuta. I am sorry for every day I missed, and for all the days I will never see."
Yuta's throat tightened, but he blinked back the sudden, hot sting in his eyes and kept reading.
"I know your mother. I know she will have hidden this. Lilia..."
He glanced at his mother. She was weeping silently, her hand tracing the empty air, as if imagining the shape of the flower on the hilt.
"...my love, I know you did it from fear. You are afraid he will follow my path, that you will lose him as you are losing me. I understand. But Lilia, that fire in him? That need to see what's over the next hill? He got that from me. It is who he is. You cannot protect him from himself, you can only make him unprepared for the world he is destined to see."
Yuta's gaze drifted to the window, to the forest beyond. Destined to see. The words vibrated inside him.
"Yuta, the blade in your hand is special. It is not for killing. It is for protecting. I call it the Blade of Reflection. It will not cut a tree, and it will not harm a person in a simple fight. But it has a secret: it can, and will, reflect any attack that is not purely physical. Any wave of energy, any strange power or unseen force... it will turn it back upon its sender. It is a shield that looks like a sword. Trust it."
"The flower carved into the hilt... it is a Twilight Iris. Your mother's favorite. I put it there so you would carry a piece of her with you, always. And so she would know, Lilia, that you are always in his heart, wherever he goes. Please, my love. Do not stop his passion."
Lilia let out a raw sob, finally reaching out, her fingers brushing the cold, mirrored surface of the blade Yuta was holding. She touched the purple flower, her thumb tracing its petals as if it were the face of the man she had lost.
Yuta read the last part, his voice hardening with a new, terrifying weight.
"This blade is not just for your adventures, Yuta. It is for her. You are the man of the house now. I leave your mother in your responsibility. Protect her. Protect yourself. That is my final request."
"I write this knowing my time is short. The path of a Hunter is a hard one, and my luck has run out. I'm sorry I couldn't watch you grow. Be strong, Yuta. Be brave."
— Your Father, Kael Vance.
The letter fell from Yuta's hand. He stared at the blade. It was no longer a gift. It was a burden. A responsibility. A legacy.
The room was silent for a long, long time. The sound of the rain returned, a steady, mournful drum against the roof. The gray morning light had faded, turning into the deep, bruised-purple light of a mid-afternoon storm. No one had moved. No one had spoken.
Yuta finally broke the silence. He sheathed the blade with a soft, definitive shing. He looked at his mother, his blue eyes clear of tears, filled with a resolve that was four years too old for his face.
"I'm going to take it," he said. Not a question. A statement.
Lilia looked up. Her face was a ruin of grief, her amethyst-purple eyes swollen and red. The fight was gone, replaced by a deep, bone-weary exhaustion.
"The Hunter Exam," she whispered. "That's what you mean. You want to follow him."
"I want to know," Yuta corrected, his voice quiet but unyielding. "I want to see the world he saw. I want to understand what he... what he died for."
"And what if it kills you, too?" she asked, her voice flat.
"It won't," he said, touching the hilt of the blade at his side. "He gave me this. To protect me. And to protect you."
Lilia stared at him. She saw Kael in his posture. She saw his stubbornness, his fire, his impossible, naive brightness. She knew, in that moment, that she had already lost. The lie she had told had only delayed this; the truth had made it inevitable.
She closed her eyes, taking a single, shuddering breath. When she opened them, the tears were gone, replaced by something hard. A cold, desperate bargain.
"One time."
Yuta blinked. "What?"
"You get one chance," Lilia said, standing up. Her voice was brittle, like thin ice. "You can go. You can take this... this test. And if you fail—if you are not chosen, if you are sent home, for any reason at all... you come home."
She stepped toward him, grabbing his shoulders. Her grip was iron.
"You come home, Yuta. And you never, ever speak of this world again. You never try again. You will put that blade in the box, and you will live your life here. Safe. Do you understand me? One chance. That is my price."
It was a terrible, desperate gamble. She was betting his entire future on the hope that the world's most difficult test would find him lacking.
Yuta looked at his mother. He saw the love and the terror warring in her eyes. He was twelve years old, and he had just been handed his destiny and an ultimatum in the same breath.
"I accept," he said.
The next morning, the world was silent. The rain had stopped, leaving the air crystalline and cold. The sky, an hour before dawn, was a deep, star-pricked indigo, just beginning to bleed to a pale, hopeful gold at the world's eastern edge.
In his small room, Yuta Vance moved with quiet purpose.
He pulled on the new hiking boots his mother had given him, lacing them tight. He wore practical, dark-green trousers and a simple, cream-colored wool tunic under a worn leather jerkin. The "Blade of Reflection" was strapped to his belt. The sheathed weapon looked too long and formal for his slight frame, a stark, dark line against his hip.
He finished packing a small, sturdy rucksack: a waterskin, the parcel of bread, cheese, and dried apples Lilia had packed, a coil of rope from his "explorer" kit, and the small, leather-bound pouch of money—the Association's stipend—that Lilia had pressed into his hand without a word.
He shouldered the pack. He looked at his small, simple room one last time, then quietly walked out.
Lilia was standing by the front door, a shadow in the shadows. She wasn't crying. Her face was pale and drawn in the pre-dawn light. They didn't speak. There was nothing left to say.
He stepped past her, onto the damp earth.
"Yuta."
He turned. She was framed in the doorway, her cascade of purple hair a dark smudge against the warm, dim light of the cottage behind her.
"Be safe," she whispered.
"I will," he promised.
He turned and began to walk. He walked past the woodpile, past the empty laundry line, and onto the muddy road that led out of Aethel Glen. He did not look back.
Lilia Vance remained in the doorway until his small, determined figure, crowned with its shock of canary-yellow hair, was just a speck on the horizon. Then she closed the door, walked to the window, and sank into her chair.
She watched the sun rise, painting the sky in hues of orange and lilac. And she did something she hadn't done since Kael first left. She prayed. Not to any god, but to the cold, indifferent concept of failure.
I'm such a bad mother, she thought, her hand pressed flat against the cold glass, My son is going into something he will be happy in, but still.. All I wish is that he will fail and back to me, I wanna him stay safe and have a peaceful life here..
.
.
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