Glade sat alone in front of the Harmony’s Namola tree. It was late at night, and Vayra, Nathariel, and Pels had all fallen asleep. All of the lanterns were dim, and the Namola fruits cast a faint pink glow around the ship’s cargo hold.
The swordwyrn hovered beside him, outside of his corespace. It fluttered a little, then dropped down on Glade’s lap.
“Get you some metal filings soon,” he said. “Alright, bud?”
“Sword friend!” the wyrm replied. “Agreed!”
He crossed his legs and shut his eyes, trying to tune out the rushing water outside the hull and the faint footsteps of a patrolling sentry from the current watch.
He drew himself into his corespace for absolute silence. Everything was complete, but it wasn’t the same. He needed the revelation.
He knelt at the center of the patch of gravel, right where the two different hues of leaves met. His mind drew him back a few years, after a hard training session where he’d worn the skin right off his hands.
Elder Eman-Fa had brought Glade to the estate, as there had been disturbances on the planet, and rumours of a weak God-heir were circulating around the star system. Elder Eman-Fa, being a Quartermaster whose permanent residence was in the system, was best suited to the task.
He had brought his Disciple along, but Glade had only spent the time training. He didn’t expect to be able to use any techniques for years, and he couldn’t even cycle Arcara, so there was no point in trying to face a God-heir unless it was desperate.
But when the God-heir killed three other Order of Balance Adepts who had travelled along to investigate, Glade began to wonder what their purpose was.
“We aren’t useful…” he had said.
“We are not useful,” Elder Eman-Fa had replied, walking a circle around Glade. He was an aging braadling, a race with a ring pair of black horns at the front of their head and skin that cracked and broke in a pattern like dry sand in a desert. He twirled his sword beside him. “Everyone wants something, whether you are sworn to an Order or not. Find what you want, and focus on that. The Order can help you achieve it.”
They had been sparring, and Glade was kneeling at the center of the pit—in his memory, as well as in the present recreation inside his core. Glade had asked, “What do you want?”
“To believe in a cause,” Eman-Fa said. “The Order has not given that to me yet, but a man can hope.”
“So why do we try?”
“I do not have anything better to do,” Eman-Fa said. “I have no family, no parents to look after or farm to tend to. If I die tomorrow, I will die satisfied.”
It had still seemed pointless.
Then, the next day, before they could hunt and kill the rampaging God-heir, the God-heir had pushed himself too far. He had become a Ko-Ganal. He had only been a Quartermaster, too, but he became a leviathan large enough to snap up fishing boats in its jaws. It couldn’t destroy a planet, but it would cause massive damage.
So Elder Eman-Fa and Glade had sailed out on a tiny sloop and attacked the beast.
As they battled it, Glade sailing the tiny ship as best as he could and Eman-Fa slashing through the rain and steam, they smashed through the wreckage of fishing boats and drowned, bloated bodies.
Glade had started to understand why—and it wasn’t like what his master had told him. The Order of Balance may have been the weak, mediocre-spirited and long forgotten descendants of the Gods, but there were people weaker than them still. The mortals of the galaxy wouldn’t survive on their own in a world that seemed to abhor their existence.
When Elder Eman-Fa had finally slain the beast, the mortals of Pana rejoiced. There was an enormous party in a fishing village, and Glade had joined them to celebrate. That was the first time he ever felt dutiful.
Presently, he stood up and walked a circle around his corespace “Why?” he still asked, but his Elder wasn’t here to give him an answer anymore.
He tried variations on the almost-relevation that had caused his core to tingle earlier. Autumn, ending eras, ends in general…
“I end things?”
Too dark. Too simple. He didn’t bring about the end. He fought to save what was left.
He focussed on nostalgia. The faintly sweet smell of the maple wood brought him back to an earlier, simpler time, when he was just a boy learning to swing a sword.
Nathariel had suggested focusing on who he was. Vayra had told him to think about his potential.
But the Order wasn’t exactly the place where potential flourished. They didn’t have the resources they once did. They’d even kept tight restrictions on how he should speak.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Still, every second of every day, he trained to improve aspects of himself—his swordsmanship and his ability to serve the Mediator. But there had to be more to life than that.
“Elder, can the Order give me freedom?” he breathed, still in the present.
But he reigned himself back in. He couldn’t just abandon his duty now. What would the point of all this be if he threw his hands up and indulge his every desire in the name of freedom? It wouldn’t even last. Karmion would destroy Velaydia, and the few months of freedom he bought for himself would be worthless.
“So duty and freedom are not—aren’t—opposites…” he whispered. “They cannot be.”
He turned and looked back at the pattern of leaves across the floor of the pit. Red and white. There was a duality to him—even subconsciously, he’d known that. He blew an amused puff of air out his nose, but his core trembled. He’d brought himself closer to the insight.
Glade walked along the thin line where the two patches of fallen leaves blurred together, tracing the subconscious Arcara flows through his body with his perceived consciousness.
The question remained: “What is my duty?”
He’d always thought it was to die for Velaydia, or for the Mediator, or in an unwinnable battle against a God-heir.
But Vayra needed a true friend more than ever, and pointless self-sacrifice was just suicide. He knew that much. There had to be be a point to it all. He needed there to be.
His duty was to raise up those around him and bring hope. Ameena had told him as much. His freedom was to choose what that duty was and assert it through his own will.
There was nobility in raising up others and helping them reach their potential.
With a soft chuckle, he drew himself out of his core. A chill ran along his skin, and his hairs stood upright.
Staring up at the Namola tree, he whispered, “I can choose consciously to do my duty and raise others up. I am the dawn and dusk. I am the edge of autumn.”
His Arcara burned inside his core, fuelling a bonfire. Without control, his body began to advance. The air compressed above his skin, then, after a few seconds of trembling, it burst away from him, scattering dust and cargo in a wave away from him. His mana and Arcara blended into one, then burst into golden sparks inside his core.
They didn’t stay there. Blasting outwards, they surged out of his body. They whirled into a cyclone and flashed around him.
For a brief second, his muscles felt like water and his bones like pudding, but the whirlwind supported him.
He concentrated his willpower, crafting himself in accordance to the Path laid out for him: a body best suited for wielding swords, for protecting, for taking hits, and to raise up others. His Arcara channels meshed with his body, turning more physical than ever and branding the sting of his current spiritual strain into his flesh.
His was the Path of the Autumn Edge.
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Vayra heard the boom and a shudder, and at first, she thought it was cannonfire. She bolted upright in her hammock and fell onto the floor.
But it had just been a single boom.
Then she realized that Glade had succeeded. She had been lying in her hammock in the officers’ quarters, staring up at the ceiling and trying to sleep. Phasoné had already fallen asleep (or at least, the Goddess had stopped talking to try to let Vayra sleep).
When Phasoné didn’t respond to the thought, Vayra had her answer. She sat up from the floor slowly. Adair had been curled up on her chest while she slept, but now he was in her lap, still sleeping. She placed him gently into the hammock as she stood up.
Then she ran down through the ship, hunting for Glade. They were sailing on the Stream, and it had been a few days since they had left the port of Tavelle. His advancement was bound to happen sooner than later—he had been meditating almost non-stop.
The moment she reached the gun deck, a spiritual tug drew her in from below. She couldn’t say for certain what was happening, but it was something arcane.
She ran down the stairs to the cargo hold, only to find the swordwyrm waiting for her. It spun in a circle, then raced off down the hold with a metallic whine, as if trying to guide her to him. “Sword friend friend!” it called.
It had taken to calling her that—friend of sword-friend.
Vayra scrambled over fallen boxes and crates and scattered barrels. There had been a pulse of air and an explosion of raw force, and though it hadn’t broken anything, it had made quite the mess.
At the end of the cargo hold, right in front of the Namola tree, Glade stood in a cyclone of dawn-coloured sparks, his arms wide. Vayra shielded her eyes and pushed against the wind, drawing closer. A spark hit her hand, but it was just Arcara, and it didn’t have any blazing hot aspects.
Then the sparks stopped. Glade fell to his knees, and she ran over. “Are you alright?”
There was no need to ask. She remembered how she felt after her own advancement to Captain.
“I feel…fine,” Glade said. He looked up and smiled. “Mentally exhausted, and physically too, but…I also feel like I could run a marathon.” Right now, the only difference she noted was his colour lock of hair—it alone had grown down to his shoulder, and it glowed with a sunset-like light after the advancement.
“The exhaustion will wear off,” she said. “You just reforged you body.”
He stood up all the way, and her eyes widened. He was slightly larger in every possible way—taller, broader shoulders. Now, she had to crane her neck up to look him in the eyes. “Oh,” was all she could muster.
He let out a soft laugh, then stepped back. Like after her own advancement, his face had become more refined and angular. The swordwyrm danced around him, then gleefully took position hovering behind his back, like it had been tucked into an invisible sheath.
Before either of them could say anything else, Nathariel raced into the hold. A team of Redmarines and officers followed closely behind, holding their muskets ready as if there was a threat to face.
Nathariel held up his hand as he ran across the hold. He looked both of them up and down, then nodded. “Very good, Glade.”
He and Vayra both bowed to the Admiral. “Thank you for your teachings,” Glade said, and Vayra nodded.
Nathariel raised his eyebrows, then rubbed his chin. “Aye, indeed, you’re welcome.” He tucked his hands behind his back and turned away. “Spend tomorrow resting,” he said as he walked away. “Then use the rest of the time on our journey to recover your Arcara base. You need enough to fight in a tournament. Good work.”