Chapter 10 – The Weight of a Twig

My brain struggled to catch up.

The alley was silent except for the sound of my own ragged breathing. The boy who called himself Leo stood there, holding my broken sword like it was some kind of holy relic. He ran a thumb over the strange, wave-like patterns in the steel, his expression unreadable. Master? Sword chose me? None of it made sense.

“I am Leo of the Ashen Guard.”

He said it like it was supposed to mean something to me. He held the sword out, offering the hilt. I just stared at it, confused.

“My mission was to retrieve this sacred blade.”

His eyes were cold, boring into me. They made me feel small, insignificant. Like a bug he was deciding whether or not to crush.

“It was forged by the Great Master’s own hands. It contains a sliver of his divine power.”

I reached out slowly, my fingers trembling again, and took the sword. The familiar warmth flowed into my palm, a stark contrast to the cold fear coiling in my stomach.

“I do not understand why it would choose a weakling from the underworld.”

Leo’s lip curled in a small sneer. It wasn’t like Kael’s sneer. Kael’s was just mean. This was different. It was a look of genuine, deep-seated disgust. Like he was looking at something filthy.

“But the Master’s will is absolute, even when it is incomprehensible.”

He turned away for a second and bent down. He picked up a thin, brittle-looking twig that had fallen from a scraggly weed growing between the cobblestones. He stripped a few dead leaves from it and then faced me again, holding it loosely in his fingers.

A twig. He was holding a twig.

“However, I cannot allow you to wield it in such a pathetic, disgraceful manner. Your technique is an insult. Your very existence is an insult.”

He settled into a relaxed stance, the twig pointed vaguely in my direction.

“I will test you. Show me if an insect like you has any right to hold a piece of our world.”

My mind went blank. This was insane. He had a twig. I had a sword. A sword that had, just minutes ago, turned me into something else. Something dangerous.

“What are you waiting for? Attack.”

The sword in my hand pulsed with that strange warmth. The cold, calm focus from before began to seep back into the edges of my fear. My body moved before my brain could protest.

I lunged forward, swinging the blade in a wide arc.

Leo didn’t even flinch. He met my attack with his twig. The sound of steel hitting wood should have been nothing. The twig should have snapped. It didn’t. There was a sharp thwack that vibrated up my entire arm, and my blade was knocked aside as if I’d hit solid iron.

“Is that it?”

His voice was flat, bored.

“That is the full extent of an underworlder’s strength? You are slower than a child.”

Anger, hot and unfamiliar, flared in my chest. The sword seemed to respond to it. A fresh wave of energy surged through me. I was faster this time. I swung again, and again, a flurry of strikes aimed at his head, his chest, his legs.

Each and every blow was met by the twig.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

He moved with an effortless grace that was infuriating. He sidestepped, parried, and blocked, his feet barely seeming to touch the ground. He wasn’t just defending. He was guiding my attacks, forcing me into clumsy, off-balance positions. The twig was a blur, a flimsy brown line that was somehow an unbreakable wall.

“You have no discipline. No form. You just swing, letting the blade’s power do all the work.”

He flicked his wrist. The end of the twig lashed out like a snake and struck me sharply on the knuckles. A bolt of pain shot up my arm, and I almost dropped the sword.

“You do not deserve it.”

“Shut up!”

I screamed the words, my voice raw. I channeled all my fear, all my anger, all the years of being nothing, into one more attack. The sword blazed with a faint light. My body felt weightless as I spun, putting all my momentum into a single, final blow aimed to cut him in half.

This had to work.

His eyes narrowed. For the first time, he looked almost serious.

The twig shot forward, not to block, but to strike. It slipped past my blade and tapped me lightly on the chest. It felt like nothing. A gentle poke.

Then the world exploded.

An invisible force slammed into me, lifting me off my feet and hurling me backward. I crashed into the dumpster at the end of the alley with a deafening bang of metal. The sword flew from my hand. Every muscle in my body seized up. I slid to the ground, gasping for air that wouldn’t come.

I lay on the ground, every muscle screaming.

I couldn’t move. My lungs burned. Leo walked over slowly, the twig still held loosely in his hand. He looked down at me, his face a mask of cold disappointment. He nudged the sword with the toe of his boot, pushing it closer to me.

“Pathetic.”

He stood over me, a silent judgment. I tried to push myself up, but my arms wouldn’t obey. I was just a kid on the ground again, surrounded by the smell of garbage. Tears of frustration burned my eyes. I had failed. Even with a magic sword, I was still just me.

He was quiet for a long time.

I finally managed to roll onto my side, my body shaking with effort. I looked up at him, expecting to see that same look of disgust. But it was gone. It was replaced by something else. Something thoughtful. He was looking at my shaking arms, at the sweat and dirt on my face, at the way I was still trying, impossibly, to get up.

“You are not completely bad.”

The words were spoken so quietly I thought I had imagined them.

“You have no talent. You have no training. You have no strength. But you do not quit. The Master values effort above all else.”

He stared down at the sword, then back at me.

“And since the sword recognized you, I will take you to the Upper World.”

My head swam. Upper World? What was he talking about? I pushed myself up onto one elbow, my vision blurring at the edges.

“What… what do you mean?”

Leo let out a soft sigh, the sound of someone whose patience had just run out.

“It is not a discussion. It is a waste of time to argue.”

He stepped forward. His hand moved in a blur, too fast to see clearly. It wasn’t a punch. It was something else. Something precise.

The edge of his hand chopped down lightly on the side of my neck.

There was no pain.

Just a sudden, silent, and complete darkness.