Staff of Selection (2)
Merlin had pictured it countless times over the past few centuries: the day she would finally meet Arthur’s successor. The timber of a hero chosen by Excalibur. Of course no one could ever surpass Arthur’s greatness… yet being selected by the sword at least meant they possessed the proper qualities.
Even if they fell short of Arthur, they would surely carry the stature of a hero.
So when the sword had been drawn not long ago, the candidates Merlin conjured in her mind were only those this age already called heroes.
The greatest Sword Master of the era? The Sword Saint who led the Sword Church? Or the captain of some proud order still clinging to the ancient knightly codes?
Honestly, none of them had thrilled her. Still, they scraped by with a bare passing grade. They possessed the renown, the skill, and the character required to grip Excalibur.
But.
Merlin looked at what stood before her.
A boy holding a shining sword, wearing the most irritating expression imaginable.
He had not reached the realm of Sword Master. He was no great paragon of virtue. He possessed none of the finished stature of a hero. Renown and achievement? Nonexistent.
The only mark in his ledger was a history of insulting Arthur—and that was a demerit, not a credit. Merlin scored the boy in her head.
Not a pass. A flat failure.
It was like hauling a candidate into an interview hall only for him to flip off the examiner with a string of provocations. Her temples throbbed.
This… is the successor?
She wanted to scream that this thing was no heir of Arthur’s and fling him from her sight.
Why, for heaven’s sake—
Her gaze flicked to the blade in Najin’s hand.
The Sword of Selection. Excalibur. The single blade that had come to speak Arthur’s will after King Arthur’s death.
Why a brat like him…
Her king, long dead and gone. Recalling the living Arthur, Merlin exhaled a long sigh. The Sword of Selection chose the timber of heroes. But choosing the path that hero would walk—that belonged to the Staff of Selection. To Merlin herself.
She looked at the boy again. The irritation refused to die, yet she set aside the insult to Arthur and every private grudge, steadying her breath. Like it or not, the damned brat before her had drawn the sword. That fact would not change.
The boy who had shattered centuries of silence and pulled the blade free.
What had Excalibur seen in him? What possibility had it glimpsed that it would select him? She needed to know.
Merlin closed her eyes, then opened them. Eyes like a deep blue lake. Stars rose across their surface, as though constellations that had long sunk into the depths were surfacing at last.
“Brat.”
She fixed Najin with a hard stare.
“Can you handle that?”
A warning. Advice. And a trial Merlin was laying down.
That is no sword a human should hold.
It means a sword you cannot bear.
You’ll break. Without question.
The same trial Arthur had faced centuries earlier—the question Merlin had once thrown at a youth not yet called hero, not yet risen to glory. She cast it now at the boy before her.
“You’ll break. You’ll definitely break.”
To test him.
And to select him.
Select what?
His quality. His possibility.
“You’ll break. You’ll definitely break.”
Najin frowned at Merlin’s words.
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
“You don’t seem to understand what it means that you pulled Excalibur.”
Merlin pointed a finger at the sword in his grip.
“Drawing Excalibur isn’t simply about becoming Arthur’s successor. As long as you hold that blade, you must walk the path of a hero. Excalibur will force you to.”
The Sword of Selection. A blade that chose the timber of heroes and then compelled its wielder to become one. Fairy tales painted the process as noble and beautiful…
“But the road you walk with that sword is thick with obstacles. Trial after trial after trial.”
Reality was nothing like the stories. Hardship and ordeal forged heroes. Those who walked thorn-choked paths and danced forever on the razor edge between life and death—that was the true face of those called heroes.
“The cursed things of Kamran. The knights of rebellion and their followers. The dragon at the world’s end. The Witch of the Abandoned…”
Merlin stepped forward. Wherever her foot fell, heat-haze shimmered into being.
“Filthy existences that drove countless heroes to death and defiled their souls and flesh. Every one of them will fix their eyes on you. And that’s only the beginning.”
She sighed.
“How many of the constellations in the sky already find you distasteful? How many of those who walk the earth below want nothing more than to erase you?”
Malice without number.
“Can you endure that?”
The things that always accompanied a hero’s road.
“If you were even half-finished I wouldn’t bother saying any of this. Sword Master, established hero, leader of some order, scion of some lofty bloodline…”
A Sword Master who had stepped onto the path of transcendence. A hero who had already piled up deeds and fame. Followers who believed in him. Even a solid foundation that would not easily crack.
“If you’d drawn the sword with even one of those things behind you, everything I’ve said would be simple advice.”
With any one of them, a man could weather the storms that would come. Even if he staggered, he could find his footing again.
“But you don’t have them.”
Merlin looked straight into Najin’s eyes.
“You have nothing. The first wind will knock you sideways. You might lose the road entirely. You’ll make perfect prey for the strong—an easy toy, a convenient puppet.”
The future already written for the boy.
“Can you—”
“Do you always talk this much?”
Najin cut her off.
Merlin’s brow furrowed.
“What?”
“I said, do you always talk this much? The point is simple. I pulled a sword I had no right to pull, and you’re asking if I can handle the consequences. That’s what you’re saying, right?”
The tone was insolent, yet the summary was accurate. Merlin gave a grudging nod. Najin exhaled a short breath and met her gaze.
“You’re right, Constellation. I have nothing. I’m nothing special—that’s a fact. If someone wants to crush me, they probably can. Who doesn’t know that?”
No one needed to tell him. Najin knew it better than anyone. How many times had he nearly died just clawing his way to the surface? Without Ivan’s sacrifice he would already be a corpse rolling somewhere in the undercity.
The strong would come after him? Countless things would try to bury him?
Najin snorted at Merlin’s warning.
As if he didn’t already know. The moment he reached for the sword he had staked his life on the outcome.
“I didn’t pull it without that resolve.”
From the instant he crossed the line, he had been ready. The only thing a boy with nothing could ever claim was longing for the stars. Better to be crushed to death than to flinch and quit before he even started.
He studied Merlin. He was beginning to understand how this constellation thought, how she reacted. Backing down or showing fear would get him nowhere. So he chose the opposite: pure, unapologetic defiance.
“King Arthur wasn’t magnificent from the start either, was she? She climbed from the very bottom with no foundation at all—that’s why she became a great hero.”
Najin had read the fairy tales a hundred times. The first meeting of Arthur and Merlin, the scenes where Merlin guided the future king—he had turned those pages over and over. Perhaps that was why a thin thread of disappointment colored his next words.
The Merlin of those stories would never have spoken like this.
She had been the one who saw possibility in someone with nothing and raised that nobody into a great king.
“For the one who guided that King Arthur to speak this way now… isn’t it a little unfair?”
“Are you trying to provoke me?”
“I’m stating facts.”
Merlin barked a short, incredulous laugh. Had he seen through the trial? No—probably not.
“Anyone can talk big.”
Still, it wasn’t bad. Far from cowering, he was meeting her head-on. That spark of spirit was almost interesting. Merlin flicked her fingers.
Snap.
The heat-haze that had been coiling around her steps surged into Najin’s eyes in a single rush. Talk was cheap. Proof always came through action, never words.
“If you can still say the same thing after seeing this,” she said, coming to a halt, “then I’ll acknowledge you.”
The haze clouding Najin’s vision showed him the road he would have to walk and the battlefields he would have to reach—the trials that, having drawn Excalibur, he would inevitably face.
The same visions she had once shown Arthur centuries ago.
If he could look upon them and still speak the same words, she would reevaluate the boy. With that thought Merlin watched Najin go rigid.
Landscape after landscape tore through Najin’s sight.
He was only watching, yet he felt as though he stood inside every scene. His body trembled. A vibrating stench stung the bridge of his nose; searing heat licked his skin as if it meant to burn him alive.
A battlefield of the wicked and the wicked things that served them. A dark domain where demons and their contractors ran free. He watched countless strong men and women torn apart and eaten alive by those demons.
The moment his eyes met a demon’s, he was forced to offer up his own flesh. Devoured, broken, denied even the rest of death—turned into their thrall. Before he could even shudder at the horror, the vision wrenched sideways.
A battlefield where stars were born and stars fell. A stage where constellations could intervene in earnest. He saw the established stars of the heavens enforcing their turf. He watched hero after hero toyed with and finished off by them.
They trampled those who sought to become stars. They shattered those who merely dreamed of stars. They stole the stars others already possessed. Corrupted constellations, swollen with greed, growing ever larger. The instant they noticed Najin, something vast crushed him flat. The foundation of his very existence felt denied.
And beyond all those scenes—
Najin saw the last of them.
The land of death that lay past the horizon. A place where existences so immense they dwarfed everything before them made their home. This time he did not stand among them; he only watched from a vast distance.
Something heaved beyond the horizon.
It looked like mountains rolling like waves—until Najin understood. A dragon. A dragon so vast its end could not be seen. He never even met its gaze, yet the mere recognition of its existence pulverized his soul into fine dust.
Kamran. The land of the Abyss.
The moment he brushed even a fragment of that place, Najin’s soul collapsed. The process repeated again and again until the light that had still glimmered behind the haze in his eyes guttered out.
“…”
Merlin, watching, sighed.
Wrong after all.
He was broken. Of course he was. No brat’s mind could endure those sights. Even seasoned powerhouses would spend months bedridden after a single glimpse; some would simply snap.
Arthur had looked upon the same visions, stood up at once, declared herself ready, and snapped back at Merlin…
That was only possible because it was Arthur.
Who else could ever be like her?
The boy’s fearless words had raised a flicker of hope, but in the end it had been nothing but talk. Disappointment settled over Merlin as she reached toward his forehead.
She would withdraw the haze, wipe the memory, reclaim the holy sword. If he crumbled here, he had no possibility left. Better to end it now than leave him as a plaything for the corrupted.
Her fingertip was a breath from Najin’s brow when a voice came.
“I… know.”
A hand shot out and clamped around Merlin’s wrist. Her eyes flew wide as she stared at the boy gripping her.
Focus was returning to the dull eyes. The haze was already thinning.
By his own power, Najin had forced his way free of the vision she had shown him. When the haze vanished, his eyes still shone.
…How?
Before Merlin could finish feeling the shock, Najin spoke.
“I know I’m nothing special. I know I’m not noble or lofty like King Arthur. Of course I don’t measure up.”
He dragged in air, breath ragged, bloodshot eyes locked on hers.
“When I said Arthur was just a child of destiny who happened to be born into the right age—I didn’t mean it. I don’t believe that. King Arthur was greater than anyone… the most brilliant existence who hung her star highest in the night sky. I know that.”
The great hero who had swept away humanity’s dark age, crushed demon after demon, cast down every false constellation, and finally frozen the very time of Kamran.
“That’s why.”
Because she shone so brightly—
“I have to go as high as King Arthur. No—higher.”
A target worth aiming for. Not a child of destiny, but a great hero who had led an age—that was why the challenge had meaning. That was what Najin was saying.
“Whatever stands in my way, I’m going. I have to hang my own star in the highest place.”
He had promised a knight who had never lost his pride. He had sworn it in a land where no stars could be seen.
“So I can’t give this back.”
Najin’s hand tightened around Excalibur. The sword still shone.
“…”
Merlin watched him in silence. Those blue eyes saw Najin—and at the same time did not see him. In the boy she glimpsed a past long gone.
“I don’t care what stands in my way.”
“I’m going to be the hero who leads this age.”
“I’ll hang my star highest and become a landmark for everyone who comes after me. For that I need a symbol—exactly like this sword.”
Their first meeting.
Arthur, unbowed even by the future Merlin had shown her.
“So I can’t return it.”
“From now on this sword has to become a symbol with me.”
“A symbol of victory, glory, and hope.”
Remembering the Arthur who had declared those words, Merlin let out a long, long breath. Her bowed head and falling hair hid her face from Najin, but a faint smile touched her lips.
“That claim.”
The smile vanished as Merlin raised her head. For the first time she took a step back, no longer pressing the boy.
“That claim that Arthur was merely a child of destiny.”
“I told you—I didn’t mean—”
“You’ll have to prove it, you cheeky little brat.”
Najin blinked. Merlin’s entire demeanor had shifted. She shrugged and brushed hair from her face.
“Honestly, there’s not a single thing about you I like… but I’ll give you credit for willpower and spirit.”
Far from a passing grade. Yet she had seen possibility. And because she had seen it, Merlin hesitated. The choice before her might require her to stake her own star.
The hesitation was long, and also short. In the end, what rose to mind at the moment of decision was the last will of the king she had served.
“If a new master of this sword ever appears—”
“Guide them.”
“Don’t trust whatever choice my will might leave behind. Do as you please. Look with your own two eyes and judge—just as you once did with me.”
And then, smiling, Arthur had added:
“If you see even a little light—”
“Even the faintest possibility—”
“Then making it bloom is your role.”
“That’s why you are the Staff of Selection.”
She had seen possibility.
She had seen light.
Remembering the past, Merlin looked at the present.
I still don’t like him…
But she could not deny the possibility. Gazing at the boy’s still-shining eyes, a smile curved Merlin’s mouth—interest, or perhaps expectation.
“Listen carefully, kid.”
She extended her hand toward Najin.
“You’re going to take responsibility for every word you just spat out. You’re going to prove them. With your life you’ll prove whether Arthur was merely a child of destiny or not.”
Merlin grinned.
“Fail, and you die by my hand. I’ll put off the divine punishment I owe you until then. The moment you give up or run, lightning goes straight through your skull—so don’t even think about backing out.”
Her hand stopped in front of him—not at his forehead or collar, but at a height perfect for clasping another hand. Najin squinted at the offered palm.
What now? His look made Merlin scowl and snarl.
“You gonna take it or die?”
Reluctantly, Najin clasped her hand.
The instant their palms met, his vision reeled. The same sensation as when he had first been dragged here—yet subtly different.
In the shaking world he saw it: a constellation etching itself across the back of the hand that held Merlin’s. Eleven stars forming a single pattern. The constellation of the Staff of Selection.