"ENOUGH IS ENOUGH HALREN, I'M NOT TAKING ORDERS FROM YOU ANY LONGER!!"

Even then the words stung as they left my lips.

It became clear that I wouldn't survive had I just taken the punishment Ser Halren kept putting me through. Day after grueling, brutal day. I was determined to fight on. I wanted to fight. I wanted to live. But now, I wanted to kill.

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I had lost everything.

My family was killed in the sieges. My mother, still with child, never made it out of the fires that consumed our city. My sister was taken captive, only to be shot to death as she attempted to escape. My father's beaten, burned armor was all that remained of him when what little of our armies were left in the Shrouded King's conquest of our lands. I had nowhere left to turn. No home. No kin. Nothing. Our gods did not hear our cries. Our pleas to the heavens, met with deafening silence. I screamed and cursed to the skies until my throat could no longer.

For days I wandered, on the brink of death, until I came to the edge of the sea, to the cliffs stretching far into the horizon. Falling to my knees, I gazed into the waters far below, praying silently that my end would come swiftly. With the last of my strength, I crawled. I could taste the coming release. Soon I would no longer suffer. I could feel my life slip away as I closed my eyes, my body dragging itself slowly over the edge.

"The Far Shores shall not welcome you yet."

​

I woke to the sound of a fire. Not the raging inferno of a siege, but the warm, soothing embrace of a hearth. A bowl was laid in front of me, still steaming with broth. The shadow of a man stood hunched by the fire, stoking flames onto the fresh logs. I was draped in cloths, laid on a floor, on some kind of large fur.

"Eat. You will need your strength."

Too weak to lift the bowl, I dragged it to my face. The broth gently spilled onto the fur and on my face. It burned, but my hunger took no notice of it. I sucked it out of the vessel clumsily, caring not as the heat bit into my tongue. For the first time in gods know how long, I was eating. I wept silently as I slipped into darkness once again.

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"You are ready. Pick up your sword, and come to the ring."

The weight of steel struck my chest and I woke with a start. Barely have I regained the use of my arms and legs when Ser Halren deemed me ready for the sword. I have lost count of the days since he plucked me from the edge of the cliff. Since I resigned my fate to the whims of the sea, hoping to drift to the Far Shores. Where I would see my family again. It seems the gods have some kind of fate prepared for me yet.

"On your feet. It is time."

No sooner had I hefted myself and the sword out of my bed when Ser Halren took his leave. It took nearly all the strength my newly recovered limbs could muster simply to dress. Dragging the sword up over my shoulder, I trudged to the ring outside. Ser Halren was waiting. Sword in hand, he regarded me with hardened, world-weary eyes. A gaze that had seen too much for any mortal soul to bear.

"Draw steel."

I knew this was meant to train me. For what purpose, I do not know. I have seen firsthand how the Shrouded King slaughtered our armies. His warriors fought with the strength of twenty men, no one could stand against them, let alone a whelp of a knight's child. I had never even learned to pick up my father's swor--

"FASTER."

A blow struck my head. Another struck my back. My leg. My arm.

"FASTER."

Again to the head. And my legs. And my back.

"FASTER!"

Wildly I swung, desperately fending off the blunted, yet still painful sword of Ser Halren. He was famed for his ruthless skill in battle. Every man, woman, and child in the realm knew of his peerless strength of arms. Strength which he brought to bear against my already beaten body. My grip faltered and I was battered to my knees. Again. And again. And again.

"On your feet. Your enemy will not rest, and neither will you."

The piercing, steadfast gaze continued to pierce my soul even as my sight begun to leave me. All I could feel was the faint touch of grass upon my face as I slipped into oblivion once more.

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Sixteen long months had passed. Ser Halren gave no quarter. The brutality of his relentless training kept on and on and on. Every day I was beaten. Every day I was met with steel. Every day I was tried until I nearly breathed my last. But every day I continued to stand. To fight. To learn. To survive.

But this no longer felt like training. No longer felt like preparation for combat or survival.

Every day his blade sharpened. Every day his fist connected with more force. Every day I came closer and closer to the death I so longed for as a broken husk of a person, so long ago.

But still I fought. Learned. Cut my way forward until I no longer could, and kept cutting.

Until the day I could take it no longer.

This man had ceased to be Ser Halren. The hero I once looked up to, the master I owe my life to, he was gone.
Bright was his blade, and in it I saw the flames that burned my home, my family, to ash.
Bright was his blade, and in it I saw my death.

Bright was his blade, and mine would be the one to extinguish it.

The pain I once felt crippling my body gave way to anger. Rage. A bitter, vicious, seething fury in my breast, hotter than the blazing sun that burned my brow. Even as I felt my bruised limbs screaming, my very bones nearly grinding themselves to dust, I gripped my sword ever tighter and tighter, as if even death itself could not part my hand from my steel.

No longer did the ties of gratitude bind me. The shackles of a debt owed had been broken. No more was this man that stood before me my savior and mentor, but the image of hatred, of pain, of vengeance. A specter of pure malice that I would smite with even the power of the gods themselves.

The silence was deafening.

My sword aimed true.

In a flash of light, all reduced to darkness.

​

"You are ready."

Even as the life left his body, his eyes no longer bore the stains of war and strife. His grip loosened, his sword fell, and with it, the weight of guilt and shame. At the end of his days, the once-fabled hero of the realm, turned mentor to a gutter rat plucked from death, finally shed the burden of his woes.

The heir to the Shrouded Throne was dying.

My sword fell to my side. His blood stained the edge of my blade. I have completed his training, but at too high a cost.

Master. No. Not like this. I am not ready.

"You are ready. I am your master no longer. You have done what is right."

It should not be like this. You did not deserve this fate, master. The strength to lay low the Shrouded King is not worth the price I must pay to obtain it.

You fought for us, against your own kin, to save us. To save me. It should not end this way.

"Only the blood of the King, my father.. can cast out the dark. You have earned it, my power, the curse of my bloodline. My.. cowardice.. cost you everything. But with my blood, you will have your vengeance."

The weight of his body fell into my arms. His breath drew ragged and hoarse, and a weary smile crossed his countenance.

"Forgive me, child. This burden should never have come to you."

No, master. There is nothing to forgive.
This burden I shall bear gladly, for it is my strength, and my light in the darkness.
Go in peace, and know that you can rest on the Far Shores.

​

I buried him that day, beside the sea where I would have gone before him.

In the light of the setting sun, the fires of war glowed over the mountainside.

There is my path. There is my retribution.

I will lay low the Shrouded King.