Chapter 7: The Shadow Between Trials
The arena floor had barely cooled before the competition was halted.
A formal announcement echoed across the continent: "The prince has fallen. The heir of Caedros has been bested. The Virelion Tournament shall enter a state of pause—one month—to preserve political neutrality and ensure the safety of all contenders."
But everyone knew the truth.
They weren't pausing because of fairness.
They were pausing because of Andrew.
The victors' wing became quieter after that.
Where once the other champions trained together, sparred, and drank in the moonlight, they now scattered when Andrew entered a room. Conversations halted. Glances sharpened.
No one confronted him—but no one got close, either.
Even Kaelira, once so bold, kept her distance. Her fire flickered less fiercely when he passed.
Serin simply watched.
And always, in the halls and corners of Caedros, the whisper traveled:
"The shadowborn lives."
Andrew said nothing.
He didn't care for fame. But he cared about what Ashren was beginning to show him.
He trained alone in the forgotten shrines below the city—deep vaults where magic no longer pulsed cleanly, where the walls bled mana that was raw and unstable. It was there Ashren whispered best.
The sword drank shadows.
But it also gave memories.
Each day, Andrew pushed his body until it burned. Then meditated until the visions came.
Some lasted moments.
A flash of war in a golden desert, where his past self slew seven men with one breath.
A ruined palace where kings once begged for mercy and were given rebirth as shadow-knights.
Others lasted hours.
One night, he dreamed of walking through a silent battlefield, thousands kneeling before him—some weeping in gratitude, others screaming in hatred. He offered them a choice:
"Die as you were. Or rise as mine."
Most chose the blade.
The power within Ashren wasn't like elemental magic.
It didn't roar. It remembered.
And as Andrew trained, he started to draw on fragments of those lives—brief surges of skill, instincts not his own, but eerily familiar.
One moment during sword practice, he caught himself fighting with an ancient stance, his hands moving before his mind. When he stopped, he realized he had sliced through stone.
And there were whispers again—new ones.
Not from outside. From within.
Voices of his past selves.
Some calm. Some cruel. One, in particular, always just behind his shoulder—older, colder, calling him "The Inheritor."
On the final night before the one-month break would end, Andrew stood atop the highest tower in Caedros, Ashren sheathed and silent across his back.
He looked down at the kingdom that feared him.
He didn't feel pride.
He felt warning.
Because with every vision, he saw it more clearly: the other him—the Grand Swordmaster, the Endblade—had not been a hero.
He had been a force.
And now that force was beginning to wake up again.