I was 17 years old when I died for the first time.

I parried the guard's cut, feinted high, then swung Swerfalster, blade of the fallen star, low for a slash at his unarmored thigh. I scored, a line of blood dripping down his leg, and danced back before his counterstroke landed.

He favored his leg, his footwork suddenly awkward, but his swordplay still top notch. I danced in and out of his range, circled towards his weak side, exploited his poor movement. I went for a slash for his strong side, pulled in my sword as I jumped for his weak side, then brought up my blade to slice his neck before he could bring his sword to bear. He fell as blood spurted from his carotid artery.

It was then I felt the blade pierce my abdomen from the back, running clean through to poke out of my guts. A second guard had remained hidden, and my dance had put me in the perfect position for his backstab.

I jumped forward over the dead body of the first guard. The blade pulled out of my back with a wet squelching sound, and my adrenaline still blocked the pain even as blood spurted from my wound. I spun around and brought my blade, Swelfalster, to bear.

There was no time for the sweet art of swordplay; I would bleed out and collapse shortly. I repeated the same attack I'd done on the first guard, a high feint into a slash to the thigh, but this time, telegraphed my blow, bringing Swelfalster down from above two-handed with a whistling arc. As expected, the second guard anticipated and blocked it, and I brought down my blade crosswise to his with all my might, and sliced through.

In his moment of shock at his broken blade, I continued Swelfalster's arc around my body and upward. My sword sang as it swung towards his unprotected head. He brought his blade up to block, but not far enough, not yet adjusted to its shortened length. Swelfalster cleaved his skull, and he fell.

All was quiet. I dropped the blade, suddenly aware of my injury. As I gripped my bleeding wounds to staunch the flow of blood, Aloree's head popped out of the vent.

"All clear?" she asked, then saw the blood dripping down my leg and grew pale.

"A deathblow," I said softly, and kicked my fallen blade towards her. "Take it, take the escape glider, and live. Find my brother."

Aloree was no fighter, but her spirit was strong, and she trusted me without question. She took Swelfalster, opened the emergency closet, and broke the glass on the glider housing with one swift blow of the sword.

A pull of a lever and the glider unfurled for her. She sheathed my sword in one of the compartments, lay face forward in the housing, and prepared to launch.

"Goodbye, Velwin, my love," she said as she kicked off to fly to safety.

Veldin paused the playback and turned to speak to his retainers. "A girl--Aloree--she is to be found and given every assistance." He described her image from the recording. "Bring us together as soon as possible." He turned back and continued the playback.

Aloree was out. Time to sell my last moments of life as dearly as I could.

I let go of my wounds and took up the guards's swords, one in each hand. I strode to the mana core and examined the conduits plugged to it. Then I turned away, raised my two swords, and sliced downward, one sword into the output line, one into the positive feedback terminal. A chakra art stiffened my arms and swordgrips as mana flowed through me, searing my heart with its power.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I knelt, head bent forward, hoping my body would shield my brain long enough to do what must be done, hoping my brain would live long enough, my heart burned and no longer pumping. I saw a guard rush in from the stair below, sword upraised, racing to bring it down upon my skull. He was too late.

The world turned white with a flash that seared my retinas, and a jolt of thunder and searing heat hit my back. I felt my body go flying. My life flashed before my eyes as my brain went into overdrive to write these, my dying words.

Let's back up.

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I had awoken that morning to torture. My handler heated the needles under my fingernails, lashed me with with a whip, and poured water on my rag-covered face as I was tied to a board, blindfolded.

"Tell me her true name. Tell me, and this will all stop."

I didn't moan, beg, or cry. I didn't say a single word. Perhaps my calm unnerved him, because he soon gave up in disgust.

Then came the next stage--boredom. I was left, hands manacled, to stare at a blank white wall, nothing in my cell but a hard white bench to sit upon. White noise played loudly, drowning out any thoughts and any pretense of speech. Next, I knew, would come the good cop act, the one who promised to get me out of here, reason with my torturers, if only I would tell them. I had heard it all before. I hadn't broken yet, so why did they repeat this act, day after day?

I sat nonchalantly on the bench, outwardly slumped and unmoving, inwardly coiled to spring and awaiting a chance. A guard on patrol occasionally passed my cell, club wrapped in barbed wire in hand. Every quarter of an hour, he would make his report.

I knew each guard and his shift well. The first walked a precise line, well out of reach of the bars. The second carried his club in his left, and circled the cells clockwise, giving me no opportunity. The third... he liked to swing his club back and forth by its leather strap, boredly swinging it in one hand or the other. This one now came, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as he began to swing the club--I knew this time, too close.

I sprang silently as the club approached the bars. My manacled hands grabbed, pulled. My legs braced against the bars and I straightened them as the guard snapped towards me, pulled by the strap fastened round his wrist, and his skull crunched into the wall of bars. I jerked back toward him and hit him precisely in the neck as he fell, assuring his unconsciousness. I grabbed at his pockets. No keys.

I knew I had but little time before the guard was due to report in. I quickly unwrapped the barbed wire from around the club, and hoped my dexterity with locks would serve in time.

I torqued the lock on my manacles with one barb, pushed a pin with another, and they snapped open. The door got the same treatment, but its tumblers and pins were more complex. Listening to the mechanism, opening it by feel from the other side of the bars, I eventually set the last pin and turned it. I pushed my cell door open, and I was out. One minute gone.

I ran out of my cell and looked around. I found Aloree one door down from my cell. Had they put her so close, hoping to break her with my screams? I was glad I had been stoic.

Working from the correct side, her door unlocked faster. She ran to me and kissed me with her hands still manacled. I pulled away and snapped the manacles off, and her arms went around me.

"There's no time," I said, "We must escape."

We ran out of her cell and searched around. The fools had left our possessions, including my sword Swelfalster, in a storage locker that popped open with barely a pin set. The cells were empty but for our two, and there was but one exit: a door which no doubt led to more guards. I considered my odds of taking them all down sword in hand and escaping the direct way, but did not like them, not with a girl to save.

I pointed up, above our cells: a ceiling vent. I threw the club and sword above the cell and clambered up the bars. Aloree followed behind.

The vent was 12 feet above us, out of reach.

I tied one end of the barbed wire to the club, one to my sword, and flung the blade upward. Swelfalster stabbed its way between the vanes of the vent, and I gave the club a mighty yank. The vent popped off. I tied some loops in the barbed wire and repeated my sword fling, this time with a bit of a twist to it to arc the sword point down as it flew into the vent. It managed to bite into the metal and catch on something, and I clambered up the wire, loop by loop.

Aloree stood on the club below. I looped the wire around my sword hilt and pulled her up inch by inch. As her hands reached the vent and I took her hand and begin to pull upwards, the door to the cell block flew open.

"Stop!" rang an order from the crossbow-wielding guards now entering, "or we fire!"

A crossbow bolt whistled past Aloree's legs as I pulled her in. We scrambled onward into the blackness of the vent.