12. First Seal
First Seal
More time blurred together.
In the months that followed I’d stopped pretending that exhaustion slowed me down.
The other children learned to give me space during drills, the way smaller animals cleared the path for something that didn’t belong in their weight class.
Kasimir found easier targets for his cruelty after our last encounter left him with bruised ribs and a reputation he couldn’t repair with words alone.
By eight, we all carried real steel. Maise earned hers after pinning two older boys in quick succession, her flame-red hair wild and her grin savage enough to make the instructor look away rather than intervene.
Perrin’s knife appeared one morning, tucked under his sleeping furs with a note reading “For services rendered.” Grit showed up with one and offered no explanation. We didn’t ask.
The knives stayed hidden most days. We used practice swords for public drills and saved true steel for the private hours when Rulfen taught us killing strokes behind the armory where no instructors came asking questions.
Then came nine. I was tall enough now to reach the higher shelves in the armory and strong enough to hold full gear without my arms trembling.
My voice cracked occasionally, betraying the grown man trapped in a body that was finally catching up to what it contained.
The cull loomed closer with every season.
Four years remained until the final test, and the older children vanished regularly now.
“Discharged to lesser houses,” the instructors claimed.
We knew better. Empty beds told truer stories than official explanations ever could.
My blade work improved daily, the Red Gale’s muscle memory translating into a body that was finally growing into something useful.
Maise matched me stroke for stroke now, her temper sharpened into a weapon as reliable as the sword she carried.
Grit moved without sound, appearing and vanishing between one heartbeat and the next in ways that made even Rulfen narrow his one good eye.
Perrin knew every secret passage in the compound, every loose stone and unguarded door, every servant whose loyalty could be purchased with a stolen pastry.
We were becoming something dangerous, the four of us. The younger children whispered about how we moved together during conflicts, how problems disappeared when they threatened our interests. The smart ones sought our protection. The stupid ones learned painful lessons about crossing us.
The cull would take none of us. We’d make certain of that.
◇ ◆ ◇
Sleep came hard after midnight drills. My body dropped onto the straw mattress with all the grace of a grain sack, muscles screaming from another session where Rulfen pushed us past reasonable limits.
The others were already unconscious. Maise snored softly in the next bunk, and Perrin lay curled tight around whatever he’d lifted from the quartermaster today.
I closed my eyes and fell through the world.
The cold arrives instantly. One moment I’m breathing barracks air thick with sweat and woodsmoke.
The next I’m standing on black ice that reflects nothing, breathing air that tastes of iron and old snow.
The darkness stretches endless in every direction, broken only by pale fire that burns without heat in skull-shaped braziers lining an unseen path.
“Nine winters.” Her voice arrives before she does, carried on wind that cuts through wool and flesh. “You’re ahead of schedule.”
Hel steps from the darkness, half-living beauty and half-corpse horror bound in shadow-silk that moves without wind.
Her copper-gold hair falls heavy across one side of her face while exposed bone shows through on the other.
Her dead eye socket burns brighter than I remember, pale fire crackling with what might be amusement.
Frost forms patterns on the ice where she walks, and the temperature drops with every step she takes.
“I didn’t know there was a schedule.”
“Everything has a schedule.” She circles me, her living hand trailing through air that freezes in her wake. “Birth to death. Seed to harvest. Investment to return.”
The platform beneath us is lake ice, and black water shows through cracks that spiderweb outward from where she steps. Each footfall causes new fractures across the surface. The air smells of iron and winter and something else beneath it all, funeral flowers left too long in a cold room.
“You’re wondering why I’ve come.”
She doesn’t phrase it as a question. The dead half of her face can’t smile, but the exposed muscle twitches in ways that suggest she’s entertained by whatever she sees in mine.
“Did you think I’d hand you a new life and vanish?”
“The contract was simple. Find your daughter’s killer. ”
“Simple.” She repeats the word like she’s testing its weight. “You carry three cards woven into a soul that shouldn’t exist. Did you think they’d sleep forever?”
“Why me?” The question I should’ve asked years ago surfaces without permission. “Of all the dead, why choose a failed mercenary?”
Her living eye meets mine while the dead socket flares brighter. For a moment I think she’ll refuse to answer.
“Because you were dead when I needed someone.” The admission comes without shame or grand meaning. “A soul between worlds, still fighting when the flesh had quit. Most who die surrender to it. You didn’t. That made you available.”
“That’s it? Convenience?”
“Would you prefer a prophecy? Ancient bloodlines?” Her laugh sounds like breaking ice. “I needed a blade in the living world. You were dying with skills I could use. The transaction was simple commerce. I bought what was for sale.”
I find honesty in her words rather than offense. She didn’t choose me for greatness. I was simply dead at the right time with the right stubborn refusal to stop fighting.
“Simple commerce,” I repeat.
“Everything is.” She resumes circling me, her living half catching the pale fire from the braziers while her dead half swallows it whole. “Your particular brand of stubbornness served my needs. The rest was negotiation.”
Heat flares between my shoulder blades. The Knight of Swords responds to her attention, the Brand pushing against boundaries I didn’t know existed, warmth spreading down my arms and into my fists.
“They’re waking up.”
“Only the first one.” She stops directly in front of me. “My daughter’s killer sits at the highest seat in the Temple. You remember the vision?”
Priest robes trimmed with wolf fur. Signet ring of twined towers. A chalice spilling black sand.
“I remember.”
“Good. He moves in circles your sword can’t reach yet. When you’re older, stronger, bearing all three awakened aspects, then you’ll be what I paid for.”
She touches my chest.
The Knight ignites. The sensation isn’t the slow burn I’ve grown used to but white-hot agony that races from between my shoulder blades down every nerve in my body. The card’s nature floods through me: relentless motion, the charge that never ends, the refusal to stop while an enemy still stands.
I bite down on a scream and taste copper.
「First Seal: Intact → Cracking」
「The first seal cracks.」
“There.” She steps back, satisfaction clear on her living features while the dead half shows nothing at all. “The first seal cracks. Tomorrow brings interesting times.”
The ice gives way beneath me. I plunge into the black water, and the cold burns through every inch of my body. I fall through nothing, lungs filling with liquid night .
The last thing I see is Hel’s face through the surface, both halves showing the same expression: anticipation.
◇ ◆ ◇
I woke gasping. The sheets were soaked with sweat that steamed in the cold air, and the Knight’s Brand burned steady between my shoulder blades, a coal lodged against bone. Every heartbeat fanned it hotter.
My skin showed no marks, but something had shifted in my bones that I couldn’t name and couldn’t ignore.
Dawn was still hours away, and sleep wouldn’t return.
I dressed quietly and strapped on my practice sword and shortened spear, my hands trembling with energy that gathered in my limbs and searched for release.
The body wanted to move. The Brand wanted to move.
For once, both of them agreed on something.
The door creaked when I eased it open. Grit’s eyes tracked me from his bunk, alert despite the hour.
“Can’t sleep,” I whispered.
He nodded once. No questions, no judgment. He understood that sometimes the body needed what it needed. I envied his ability to accept things without requiring an explanation.
Outside, ice made the stones treacherous beneath my boots.
The night air bit at exposed skin, carrying the smell of woodsmoke and frozen earth from the training yard.
I started with stretches, working through forms to loosen muscles still sore from yesterday’s session.
The movements felt different now, faster and cleaner, the spear landing exactly where I intended it to land.
The sword followed natural arcs that would’ve required conscious effort yesterday .
My body responded as if it had been holding back, waiting for permission to become what it actually contained.
Time blurred into repetition and sweat and the steady burn between my shoulder blades that sharpened every thrust and parry into something closer to the Red Gale’s technique than this body had any right to produce.
When I finally stopped, the eastern sky showed the first hints of gray. I’d been moving for hours without pause. My muscles burned and my lungs ached, but the exhaustion felt earned rather than crushing.
「The Knight of Swords stirs. Heat blooms between your shoulder blades.」