The entrance was nothing—just a collapsed cliffside covered in vines and frost.
No archways. No symbols. Not even a whisper of the legendary Sword Tomb it was said to hide. But as Tikshn stood before the rocky maw, he felt it again.
The humming.
That same low vibration from the blade he carried—the nameless sword wrapped in cloth that had never spoken to him with words, but with weight. Memory. Grief.
Now it thrummed like a heart that had found its echo.
Lian Xue stepped up beside him, crimson robes trailing in the frost. She, too, seemed to sense it—though her sword remained silent.
"It doesn't want to be found," she whispered. "This tomb. It was never meant to be uncovered."
Tikshn glanced at her.
"Then why are we here?"
"Because it called us."
She wasn't wrong. No map, no guide, just rumors and instincts had led them here. But beneath that was something deeper—an unspoken truth that only those who had lost everything understood:
Power, when stripped from you by force, creates a void that nothing else can fill.
They stepped inside.
---
The interior wasn't a tomb.
It was a **graveyard**.
Hundreds—maybe thousands—of broken weapons lined the stone walls like bones. Rusted sabers. Splintered spears. Cracked bows. No names. No markings. Just death, buried in iron.
The air was thick with silence, heavier than any battlefield.
Lian's breath fogged in the cold. "This is where swords come to die."
Tikshn ran a hand along a shattered hilt. It pulsed. Briefly.
"Not just die," he said. "They're sealed."
He looked up. And there—high above them—a fresco stretched across the domed ceiling. Faded, fractured, but visible:
A warrior knelt in prayer, dozens of blades floating around him. Not pointed outward—but **inward**. Toward his own chest.
"This... isn't a tomb of conquest," Tikshn said slowly. "It's a prison."
---
Hours passed as they navigated deeper.
Traps triggered. One wall collapsed behind them. Shadows moved where no fire burned.
Once, a voice called Lian's name from the dark in her brother's voice.
Once, Tikshn saw his mother's hand reaching out to him from a pile of broken hilts.
Both times, they stepped forward.
Both times, the illusions broke.
This place tested not strength, but will.
---
At last, they reached the **heart chamber**.
A circular hall of silent stone, its center occupied by a single pedestal. Floating above it—untouched by dust or time—was a sword unlike any Tikshn had ever seen.
It was simple. Elegant. A blade of unmarked silver, without guard or inscription. Yet the moment his eyes fell on it, his own sword—slung across his back—began to scream.
Not with sound.
With memory.
He fell to his knees.
---
Visions exploded across his mind.
**Fire.**
A child screaming.
**Steel clashing.**
A warrior in black robes standing before a burning village.
**A sword buried in ash.**
He saw himself—but not himself. A boy holding a blade too heavy. A figure watching from the hills. The same sword now floating before him, buried once in his family's blood.
He gasped.
"This is the blade," he whispered. "The one they used."
Lian turned sharply. "What?"
"This sword—it was wielded by the one who led the massacre at Rihn. The one who destroyed my home."
He stood slowly, trembling.
"And it's here. In this tomb. Like the others. Sealed away."
Lian stepped forward. "That means... your sword—the one you carry—"
"Was part of it," Tikshn said. "A twin. Or a fragment."
The truth burned through him. His blade—his companion in grief, his edge in survival—was not just a remnant of tragedy.
It was a relic of his enemy.
A silence fell between them.
Then Lian asked, gently, "Will you take it?"
Tikshn stared at the silver blade.
"I don't know if I want to."
"But you must."
He looked at her.
"Why?"
Her eyes didn't waver. "Because the only way to defeat what destroyed you... is to wield it. And master it."
---
He reached out.
The sword trembled.
His blade—his old blade—shattered in its sheath.
The new one fell into his hand like it had always been there.
Cold. Light. Silent.
And in its silence, Tikshn heard a final echo:
**"Become more than the blade. Become the one who decides what it cuts for."**
---
They left the tomb in silence.
The frost had begun to melt.
But war was coming.
And Tikshn now walked with a sword that remembered everything.
---