The Weight of Intention

Gaël leaned forward, fingers clenched around the sword's hilt. The worn leather bit into his palm. Cold crept into his muscles, gnawing at every exposed inch of skin, yet he no longer noticed it.

Brann was nearly out of sight now. A lone figure walking away, already swallowed by the ruins and shadows of the dead city. But the young man wasn't looking ahead anymore. Every second felt like a century. Each heartbeat was a hammer blow against his bones.

He tried to lift the sword.

No, it barely moved, too heavy, too dense. The metal scraped against the ground with a high-pitched shriek that set his teeth on edge. He stepped back half a pace, bent his knees… and almost collapsed, gasping. His arms screamed. The pain dulled, spreading, sinking into his very marrow.

'I can't… I can't give up.'

His breath, once steady, grew erratic and jagged. He sucked in air in greedy gulps, fighting the invisible vice tightening around his chest. His vision blurred. He blinked, but the dust and sweat clinging to his lashes wouldn't go away. He was on the verge of letting go.

'No. Push it away…' he thought, teeth clenched. 'Erase the failure. Forget the pain.'

A shiver, not from the cold, ran down his spine. Yes, exhaustion weighed heavy, but something else… something else was stirring beneath the surface. A whisper. A low vibration, somewhere between fatigue and willpower. What am I still missing? The question spiraled through his thoughts.

'I broke the doubt. I chose this path… So why… why isn't it enough?'

He closed his eyes. His chest rose and fell in jagged, unsteady rhythms. A drop of sweat slid down his temple, mixing with grime and dust.

'What am I still missing?' he wondered, desperate.

'Speak to me… Severance.'

His grip tightened further, knuckles turning white. Guide me… show me what I fail to see.

He screamed in his mind, a cry echoing off the crumbling walls of his own resolve. I refuse to stop!

But nothing answered. No mystical voice. No divine revelation. Only his ragged breathing… and that vast, deafening silence.

Until... A memory. A phrase passed down by the Severance, never truly understood, until now.

'Irel was the first to hold a training blade and realize that the weight of a sword wasn't in the metal, but in the intention.'

His mind froze. Those words… They rang differently this time. Not as a vague teaching, but as a key he'd never known how to turn. The phrase held many meanings, but one now stood clear as day.

'The weight… it's not in the steel. It's in the intention. It's in me.'

He rose slightly, not with force, but with awareness. Intention. The word pulsed within him, spreading like ripples. It wasn't brute will, nor rage. It was something subtler, deeper: the very thing that had brought him here. That had driven him to leave Kernéval. That helped him endure the solitude, the stares, the exclusion.

Not to shine. Not to prove anything.

'I want to move forward.' A breath. 'I have to move forward.'

Something stirred. A quiet warmth, like embers glowing beneath the ashes. He couldn't tell if it came from within… or from the blade. But it was there. A rhythm, slow and steady, beating in time with his heart.

He tightened his grip.

His arms trembled, but it was no longer weakness. It was tension. Controlled. Focused.

'I want to wield you. That is my will. I am a Brother of the Blade. A disciple of the Severance!'

He pushed with his legs. A strained groan tore from his throat. The sword, this weight that had seemed immovable, finally yielded. Slowly, like a stubborn beast, it rose from the ground. Not over his head, no. But to his waist. High enough to carry.

His breath hitched. His muscles screamed, but he held.

And then, with one last shudder, the blade fell. A deep thud shook the gravel. Dust rose in a cloud. Gaël collapsed to his knees, panting. Sweat poured from his drenched hair, his shoulders heaving violently with every breath.

But… a smile slowly broke across his cracked lips. Tired. Aching. Triumphant.

'I lifted it.'

It wasn't perfect. It was only a beginning. 'But… I felt it. What he meant… that intention, stronger than steel, I felt it.'

His chest convulsed with laughter. Not lighthearted joy, something deeper. A victory wrested from pain.

He stood again, staggering. The sword lay before him, massive. He gripped it once more, this time, not to lift it…

But to walk. It didn't matter if it dragged. It didn't matter how it screamed against the stone.

And so he walked.

Gaël dragged the blade behind him, the steel scraping the ground with a shrill metallic wail, carving his resolve into the ruined city. Every screech, every spark flying from its collision with rubble, became a statement.

'I won't let you go.'

One step. The scrape rose, sharp and sinister. A flash of light burst from the friction.

'Not today.'

Two steps. Sweat flooded his brow, streamed into his eyes, mixed with dust and blood. His arms were little more than trembling pillars, sculpted in pain. But he moved forward.

'Not tomorrow.' 

Three steps.

Brann had vanished beyond the ruins, swallowed by shifting shadows, but Gaël could feel him. Present. Somewhere ahead. Maybe he had stopped. Maybe he was listening. Maybe he was simply waiting, a silent figure standing at the edge of the trial.

'Not as long as I still draw breath.'

The wind, cold and fickle, swept behind him, erasing his footprints, brushing away the traces of flesh and sweat. But it could do nothing against the cry of dragging steel. That sound, relentless, unyielding, outlasted the gusts. It tore through the air. It left a mark.

And the ruined city, this place frozen in stone, gnawed by time and shattered by past conflicts, seemed to hold its breath.

The fallen arches, the half-buried statues, the cracked walls, all became silent witnesses to each step, to this raw persistence, this exposed will, this naked flame that refused to go out.