The Broken Sword, A Name Newly Written
The door to the early-morning inn room creaked open from within.
“……You crazy bastard.”
Hugo looked like he had not slept a wink. His gaze dropped to Kyle’s cheek, the dried blood streak, the torn shoulder of his tunic, and the sword sheath at his waist—still carrying only its hilt.
“The sword…… Hey, where did your sword go?”
“At the bottom of the river.”
“At the bottom of the river?! You said you used that sword for ten years! Who in the world could— ”
Hugo stopped short. He had found the answer himself. The sword that had snapped the canyon’s grey energy still lay in the capital— the sentence he had heard last night, now proven true.
“……It’s a relief you’re alive. Come in. I’ve warmed the water.”
Not arguing was his anger. The warmed water was his relief. Kyle accepted both and added something that almost sounded like an excuse.
“It wasn’t a place to die.”
“You show up with blood on your face and say that?”
“It’s the cheek. If it were my neck, I couldn’t have stopped.”
“Stop picking at me!”
Kyle glanced around the room and paused.
The wooden sword meant for Finn had been finished. The sanding was so thorough the blade gleamed. Beside it lay two packed bundles—Kyle’s and Hugo’s.
“……Why the packs?”
“If you don’t show up by morning.”
Hugo poured the warm water into a basin, back turned as he spoke.
“I’ll report to the captain, then send Finn and the merchant leader to Valk first. Then…… I was going to look for you. Even if it was only a corpse. I had the whole order planned out. All night.”
“The order is precise.”
“Who else would I have learned from?”
Steam rose between them. An apple and a thank you were somewhere in that vapor, but neither knew how to pull them out and simply left them alone.
***
After washing, Kyle wrote a single sheet of paper.
No recipient. The sword that snapped the canyon’s grey energy lies in the capital. Grey energy coats the blade. Metal that touches it rots. I shall watch the Martial Arts Festival.
Instead of a signature, he drew a small, cracked sword at the bottom of the page.
“Where shall I send this?”
“To the 7 Swords’ quarters. Iron Geralt.”
“……Ah, the man. But what about this drawing?”
“A signature. Only those who recognize it will understand.”
Geralt arrived before the half-day was over, rather than sending a reply.
The ground floor of the merchant base had been turned upside down by the 7 Swords’ visit. Dorte stuttered for the first time in her life, while Finn peered only from behind a pillar, stealing legends.
“Come upstairs. The talk will be long.”
In the second-floor room, Geralt looked once at Kyle’s cheek and the empty sword sheath, then asked before he even sat.
“The words on the paper. You lived it yourself.”
“Yes.”
“How much can you tell me?”
“It depends on how far you wish to stop asking.”
Geralt studied Kyle a moment, then neatly summarized the matter without further questions.
“Good. I won’t ask the source. Only the facts.”
“Grey-haired swordsman. Above Master level. He coats his blade with grey energy rather than aura. Metal that touches it rots—and my iron sword shattered after fifty strikes.”
Geralt’s shoulders dropped a full inch. Fifty strikes. Anyone who had seen a single steel blade cut in half understood exactly what that number meant.
“……You took fifty strikes from me, shattered my sword, and walked away of your own will.”
“Yes.”
“The name.”
“Marcus.”
Geralt’s brows tightened. Not the face of a completely unknown name, but the face of one he had heard somewhere before.
“……I heard it long ago. Very long ago. In the old knights’ drinking circle. There were two forbidden sword stories: one about the grey one—and the other about a disgraced someone. Both were said to belong to the same sect.”
“Correct.”
“That man said he would watch the Martial Arts Festival.”
“Yes. One out of a hundred thousand spots—something like that.”
Geralt rose and looked out the window at the Grand Arena. When he turned back, his expression was final.
“Do not list my name in the guard roster. Three of the 7 Swords will appear in this Martial Arts Festival. For the remaining two—I will pass the grey energy story to them, minus the source.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you for what? It’s simply the interest on a ten-year debt.”
“……Who will participate in this Martial Arts Festival?”
“Me, Rohan of the West, and the youngest, Yulian. Rohan wields an axe; Yulian uses dual swords. We shall meet on the field—well, we can check then. Ah, and.”
Geralt gave a small, knowing smile over his shoulder.
“Crown Prince Albert—Empire’s First Sword—is not competing. He guards the throne. It means he will stand on the finals platform. If he reaches the championship, he will receive a title before that blade. Go as far as you can. See for yourself how uncomfortable that seat is.”
At the door Geralt added one last thing.
“And about the sword. The preliminaries are coming up. You plan to walk out empty-handed?”
“I’m going to the smithy this afternoon.”
“Third alley on the eastern street. Find the one-eyed old man. Gruff, charges double—and only he in the capital knows how to give a sword to someone who can use one. My own trial came from there.”
***
The one-eyed old man lived up to the rumors—gruff and stranger still.
“I don’t sell to anyone who broke a blade.”
“Not broke. Rotted.”
“Same thing.”
“No. One breaks steel; the other rots flesh. Mine endured fifty strikes. I took what I could not receive.”
The old man’s good eye finally focused—not from top to bottom, but hand to hand. The calluses, the length of the fingers, the thickness of the wrist.
“……Hold out your hands.”
After gripping and releasing, he went inside for a long time and returned with a single sword. Straight, undecorated blade. Not new—yet it held no brand-new edge.
“Ten years ago. I kept it polished because it had no owner. I have seen hands that seek exactly this weight—whether light or heavy—once every ten years.”
Kyle took the blade and swung it once as if testing. The weight settled into his palms. Deeper than the iron sword he had held for ten years.
“May I swing here?”
“Go ahead. But don’t break it.”
In the smithy’s back yard Kyle swung one hundred times exactly as instructed. Feet at shoulder height, blade tip at eye level. Around the fiftieth swing the sword began to speak to his hand; around the ninetieth the hand answered.
The sound of the blade cutting air changed once. First it was the unfamiliar ring of steel, then slowly it became familiar. Kyle remembered anew that the broken sword had once been held the same way.
“……What name did you give that blade?”
“I don’t name them.”
“No name at all?”
“Names are given after the work is done. When you know what the sword has accomplished.”
The old man’s good eye narrowed once, whether in approval or not, and he cleared his nose.
“The price.”
“Tell me what it fought instead. What it rotted.”
“……Then pay the price.”
“Hmph. Twenty gold coins. And one condition—I go to watch you use that sword at the Martial Arts Festival. A ten-year-forged blade shames its keeper, and my smithy suffers.”
Kyle paid. The old man silently slid two coins back. When asked why, he jerked his chin toward the yard.
“I watched you swing one hundred times. It was not ten years of use, but ten years of waiting. The cost of that wait, I pay.”
***
On the walk from the smithy, the streets hummed.
A procession had entered from the northern boulevard—eight mounted guards, two black seven-emblazoned carriages. The crests were hidden, yet the hidden parts revealed themselves unmistakably: carriages of the North.
“Hey, look at that…… again, some high-up. A festival parade?”
Hugo raised his spyglass. Kyle needed no such tool and simply watched.
The carriage curtains were parted by half a span. Through that sliver walked silver hair.
For a single instant—time measured by the distance of two carriage wheels—whether eyes truly met or not, the curtain fell again and the procession moved on down the boulevard.
Kyle kept staring at the spot the silver hair had vanished. Even as the carriage turned into the next alley, his gaze remained fixed.
“……Kyle? Why are you like that? You know the carriage?”
“……No.”
The lie came half a second late. Hugo recognized that a late lie was no longer a lie but a confession, yet he asked no further. Instead he pointed at the new sword.
“Let’s go train with the sword, Number 712.”
As they walked, Kyle erased one line in his mind.
The North does not move—had been his report. The carriage moments ago had been Northern, its crest Northern, its silver hair Northern. No reply had come; the answer had walked in first.
Whether this was a place for anger or something else, he could not decide. Only one certainty remained: though the warning had failed, there was no feeling of being ignored. All reports over ten years had been either accepted or rejected. This direct, frontal answer was the first of its kind.
His chest stirred again, and this time the hand that pressed it down came half a second late.
Back at the base Finn was swinging the hundredth time in the yard. Hugo slipped up behind him, new wooden sword hidden, and gave two false coughs.
“Kid. Hand over the old sword and close your eyes.”
“……Why?”
“Just close them.”
Two breaths later the old sword became new. When Finn opened his eyes he stared at the one in his hands a long moment, then rubbed the sanding marks with his thumb and sniffled.
“……This is Mr. Hugo’s work. The cutting is crooked.”
“Hey! Give it back!”
“I won’t! It’s mine!”
Finn hugged the new sword and ran; Hugo chased; Dorte, wielding her ledger, shouted, “If the yard breaks, both of you are porters!” Kyle ignored the noise and rubbed oil into his new blade. Training a sword—or a person—demanded time.
***
That evening the Martial Arts Festival registration office.
Two hours before closing it was nearly empty. The registrar, chewing a yawn, was sorting the last papers when he looked up at the shadow standing at the counter.
A hooded woman. Two plain-clothes guards behind her.
“Registration? I know the deadline is near—name.”
“Elysee.”
“……Elysee. Next.”
“Family name.”
From beneath the hood came a half-breath pause, then a clear answer.
“None.”
The registrar opened his mouth to ask more when he caught a glimpse of silver hair beneath the hood—and the guards’ Northern stance. The capital’s registrars lived by their instincts.
“Signature here. And the oath of ideological exemption—the Empire takes no responsibility for thoughts during this competition. Do you agree?”
The woman’s pen paused above the oath.
“……May I see the participant roster?”
“The roster? Private. Until the opening ceremony draw—well, seeing it is fine.”
The registrar slid the roster over with practiced ease. The hooded gaze raced across the dense names, then stopped at one line.
712. Kyle. No affiliation, no family.
The hand holding the pen moved along that line once, silently. The registrar pretended not to notice and continued sorting papers; behind him one guard gave a small false cough—not an urgent one, but the kind that masked a choked title.
“……Done. Sign here.”
The pen raced across the roster.
Participant number 999. Elysee. No affiliation, no family.
Exactly the same two words as 712. Kyle. No affiliation, no family.
For the first time in a decade, two names that had somehow missed each other now appeared together in the same roster under identical conditions.