The Blessed Blade
Ten years, I struggled. Ten years, I learned. Day after day, month after month, year after year, I studied, practiced, and mastered sword technique. When you drill so hard so much, you start dreaming about it, and nights become as exhausting as the days. But after ten years, I had reached the final test.
I was twelve years old when I came to the Order of the Blade, asking to be inducted into its mysteries. The Order was not unlike other schools where they teach you to handle a sword, but those that survive its rigorous training are renowned for their skill and mastery of the blade such that they are named for it. Ever since I was little, I wanted to be a Blade. Not just a master of the sword, but a Blade.
And today might be the day. No, not might, will. I had not only excelled, I had surpassed other adepts in our lessons. I worked hard to succeed and did. I would pass the final test because I had done so well in everything else. The Order of the Blade holds and protects a mystical sword, called the Blessed Blade. It is said that for the final test, an adept approaches the Blessed Blade and, if deemed worthy, upon simply beholding the sacred sword, would acquire the strength and wisdom of all the past Blades. With this final test, the adept is allowed to wield the name of Blade. If the adept is not worthy, he would die. The Order does not countenance the weak.
I was led to a wing of the building I had not seen before. In an anteroom, I took off my harness and handed it to the Grandmaster, who walked through a side door. In moments, he returned, and I was ready.
I followed him through the main door, twin ornate doors that opened into a small room with a decorative chest in the center. The walls were lined with swords of all shapes and sizes. The Grandmaster walked to the opposite end and gestured me to kneel before the chest, so I did.
My heart beat faster as I placed my hands on the lid, noting the intricate goldwork on the chest. The Blessed Blade. I was going to see it! I was going to know what kind of sword it was! I was going to be a Blade!
I lifted the lid.
My heart stopped for a moment.
Lying amid black velvet was a sword.
The sword was my own.
Not a mystical blade.
I stared as if it was a trick, and the Blessed Blade merely looked like the same broadsword I had favored for the last four years. But no, there was no mistaking the adorned hilt; it was undeniably my own sword. "This... this is my sword?" I asked, looking up at my master with slow movements.
The Grandmaster looked down at me with old eyes. "You have failed."
No.
No, why! No, how!
"I... I don't understand." The words were hard to force out of my mouth. My tongue felt heavy. "Where is the Blessed Blade?" The Grandmaster shook his head sadly. "A sword is... just a sword. Its power is in the skill of the one who wields it. A true Blade knows this, and does not expect to find a magical sword when he opens the box." I felt cheated and lied to.
"Why... tell me this... after I failed?" I choked out.
"So that you may choose the manner of your death. If you accept that you failed, you will die here, and your sword hung on the wall in all the honor of one who passed all our tests but one.
"If not... well, you die here."
A part of me rebelled, disbelieving his words, knowing that my training would allow me to wound if not kill the Grandmaster and maybe I wouldn't die here, now. And I would be forsworn, going against all of the teachings.
I couldn't stop the tears, knowing that I had come so close and yet, the training was that ingrained. Deep down, I knew I had never possessed that understanding, had never had a chance of passing the final test. I looked around the room at the different blades hanging on the wall, thinking of those other adepts who had failed here too.
Ten years to learn I was not a Blade after all.
Author's Note
Written during a time of stress.
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