From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman
Chapter 114: Echoes

Chapter 114: Echoes

Morning never came proper.

Just a pale glow through the clouds, enough to call it dawn. The wind that blew through the ravine no longer carried frost but ash—fine, grey, clinging to the edges of their cloaks and lashes. Tomas cursed as he packed, brushing dust from his boots for the third time.

"Smells like something burned and never stopped," he muttered.

Mira stood near the edge, peering through the low mist. "It’s the ash wind. Once it starts, it doesn’t stop until it finds what it wants."

Leon tightened his gloves. "Then we don’t give it a reason."

They left the hollow behind, ascending toward the distant silhouette. The path bent, narrow and slick with old moss, curling like a scar along the wall of the ravine. The Ash Court loomed higher now—a fortress of broken towers and jagged stone, burned black and grey as if fire had once tried to swallow it whole.

No banners.

No lights.

Only silence.

As they approached the final stretch, a sound broke the stillness—metal against stone. Faint, rhythmic. Mira motioned for caution. They ducked low behind a fallen ridge.

Across the clearing, figures moved in formation.

Six of them.

Cloaked in ash, faces masked in old bronze. They bore no crest, no colours. But their movements were sharp, rehearsed.

"Guardians?" Tomas whispered.

Mira shook her head. "No. Reclaimers."

Leon watched their path. The Reclaimers were sweeping the outer court—checking ruins, inspecting stone, speaking no words. One of them paused before a ruined arch and pressed their palm against it. A soft glow sparked from the contact. The stone trembled, then stilled.

"They’re reawakening the site," Mira said.

"Why?" Tomas asked.

Leon answered, "Because the last seal wasn’t meant to be buried. It was meant to be broken clean."

They waited until the Reclaimers passed out of sight before moving again. The outer court was scorched but still intact in places—wide stairs, fallen statues, a garden of blackened trees now bare of leaves. Every step stirred ash. Every breath tasted of cinders.

They reached the central chamber.

It was circular.

Wider than any room they’d passed.

And at its center—a throne.

Empty.

Behind it, the wall bore carvings of fire and roots twisted into crowns. Some broken. Some whole. And at the foot of the dais lay a shattered mask, black and rusted.

Leon stepped toward it.

The room darkened.

Not with shadow.

With the memory of what happened there.

A whisper unfurled from the walls.

"He chose ash over oath. Flame over chain. And in doing so, gave us silence."

Tomas froze. "Is that supposed to mean something?"

Mira knelt beside the shattered mask. "This was the last bearer. The Third Crown."

Leon didn’t touch it. His fingers hovered just above.

And then the wind changed again.

No longer ash.

Now heat.

The floor pulsed.

The throne lit.

And behind them—

Footsteps.

Someone else had entered the chamber.

The crown didn’t fall off, It hovered.

Suspended in the thick air above the throne, turning slowly as if caught in the breath of something ancient. The ash crown bore no jewels, no symbol of authority—just shape, weight, and the memory of the power it held. A thing made of choices no one dared write down.

Leon didn’t move.

The shard in his hand pulsed once. Then again.

Beneath his feet, the chamber shifted—not breaking, not collapsing, but rearranging. Stone slid against stone with the sound of grinding bone. The walls widened, revealing carvings buried behind false rock. Scenes, etched in pain. Cities burning. Men kneeling. A figure standing between fire and forest, arm outstretched, a blade pointed at the sky.

Mira exhaled. "These weren’t just bearers. They were bridges."

Leon looked to her. "Between what?"

The woman—keeper, mourner, whatever she truly was—raised her eyes to the floating crown.

"Between forgetting and becoming."

Tomas muttered, "Why do they always speak in riddles?"

But his voice held no jest now. Only fatigue.

The flames in the carvings settled into lines—three that ran vertical behind the throne. Each line ended in a broken circle. Except the last. The fourth.

That one was whole.

Leon felt the shard in his hand change. Not in temperature. In weight. It pressed against his palm like it wanted to return to something. Not to be kept. To be finished.

He stepped forward, eyes fixed on the throne.

The keeper said nothing.

Mira grabbed his arm. "Are you sure?"

"No," he answered.

But he didn’t stop.

The ash crown tilted as he approached, as if it watched him. Judged him. It descended an inch, then another, until it hovered just above his brow.

Leon knelt before the throne.

Not to wear it.

To place the shard on the steps.

He whispered, "Not yet."

The crown stilled.

The room held its breath.

And then—

A new light emerged from the wall. it wasn’t flame. It was a gate.

Carved of root and bone. Closed, but not locked.

The woman bowed her head.

"You’ve delayed the hunger. Not erased it."

Leon rose. "Then I’ll find the next seal. Before it does."

Mira stepped beside him. "We go together."

Tomas joined them, rubbing his eyes. "Do we at least get a nap before the next prophecy?"

None of them laughed.

The crown didn’t vanish. neither did it fade, It simply remained the way it was.

And the gate opened. The light beyond the gate wasn’t warm.

It didn’t welcome them. It revealed what lay ahead.

Veins of silver lined the root walls, pulsing slowly like breath. Bone-white arches stretched over their heads, curved like ribs. The air smelled of earth and something older—musk and rust and memory buried too long. No sounds followed them through. Not even the crunch of their boots. Only the faint echo of their breath against the tight corridor.

Leon led, hand close to his blade. The gate sealed behind them without a sound.

Tomas squinted upward. "Feels like we’re walking inside something’s spine."

Mira didn’t argue.

Ahead, the tunnel narrowed, then bloomed open into a hollow chamber. Not grand. Not sacred. A resting place. Walls curved like a cocoon. In the center—an altar carved of petrified wood. No throne. No seal.

Just a single object.

A sword.

Black, flat-edged, its blade split down the middle like something torn open. It pulsed faintly. Leon stepped forward slowly. "That’s not part of the chain."

"No," the woman said from behind. "It’s what they broke to make one."

Mira looked between them. "That’s not a weapon."

"No, it’s not" the woman said again. "It’s a vow."

Leon’s hand hovered over the hilt.

The sword called to him—not as a master, but as a mirror.

He remembered the seal in the first chamber. The iron hooks. The ash-bound throne. The crown that never settled. All of it began with this.

He gripped the hilt.

The chamber darkened again with vision.

A flash—hundreds of figures in robes, kneeling, the sword planted in ash before them.

A voice, distant.

"The wound was never meant to heal."

He released the blade.

The vision faded.

Tomas stepped up beside him, whispering, "What happens if you take it?"

Leon stared at the blade. "I think... I become part of it."

Silence.

Mira looked to the woman. "This isn’t a test, is it?"

"No," she replied. "It’s inheritance."

Leon looked once more at the crown he had left behind. Still hovering in the air behind the closed gate. Still watching. The weight of it hadn’t left his shoulders.

He turned back to the sword.

And took it.

The hilt was cold.

Then burning.

Then cold again.

No flare. No transformation. Just... understanding of its power.

A connection formed, raw and sharp.

His breath caught.

The blade hummed, Mira stepped back. Tomas tensed.

Leon opened his eyes.

And he saw, not the future. But the path they needed to take.

And the blood that would stain it. The blade’s hum quieted, but it didn’t vanish.

It sank into him—not into his body, but into his memory. Into the places thought couldn’t reach. For a heartbeat, Leon stood frozen, rooted deeper than flesh. Then the moment passed, and the sword in his hand stilled.

He turned to the others.

"This isn’t over."

Mira nodded once, her voice quiet. "It never was."

Tomas looked between them. "So... is this where something tries to kill us again? Because that’s usually the part that follows grand destiny speeches."

No one laughed. But the mood shifted. Not lighter. Sharper.

The chamber behind them sealed without warning. Roots grew like fingers over the archway, knotting shut. No exit that way now.

Leon moved forward.

The path beyond the altar wasn’t stone—it was bark and bone and silence, laid like steps toward something unseen. The deeper they walked, the more the air changed. No longer stale, or burnt. Alive. Listening.

The woman followed, her presence faint now, like a trailing ghost. "The next gate won’t open unless you offer something."

Leon didn’t ask what.

He already felt the weight settling. The sword knew.

And it wasn’t asking for blood.

It was asking for truth.

They reached a fork in the living tunnel.

To the left: a path dim with blue light, where whispers bled through the bark like steam. To the right: nothing but pitch. Not dark. Hollow.

Leon looked both ways.

Mira stepped toward the right. "No light. No sound. That’s the harder path."

Leon nodded. "Then that’s ours."

Tomas sighed. "Why do I even bother hoping?"

They stepped into the black.

And behind them, the vow-blade glowed once.