[Even a sword, if given meaning, can become more than a weapon.]
The frost hadn't melted. Not yet.
Kaavi's boots sank slightly into the snow-dusted earth as he stepped outside the cabin, breath rising in pale plumes. The sky was still the colour of steel, lightless, with only the faintest crack of gold edging the east. Gavril followed a few steps behind, bundled in his thick cloak, arms crossed.
Neither spoke at first.
Kaavi bent down by the woodshed and tugged free a heavy log, brushing off the frost with a gloved hand. The brittle bark crackled in the silence.
"You think it's right?" Gavril asked softly.
Kaavi didn't look up. "What?"
"Using kids like this. The Hollow Swords. Sending them to do what grown men flinch from. Is that… okay?"
Kaavi exhaled through his nose, his fingers pausing on the woodpile.
"They're not being used," he said at last. "They chose this path. Each one. They are not tools; they are fire. They know the burden they carry, and they've made peace with it."
Gavril's boots shifted slightly in the snow. "But don't you the Baron… is he not moulding them into weapons? Training them too young, pointing them where he pleases?"
Kaavi turned this time. His eyes were sharp but not cold.
"You know that I can see inside a man's thoughts," he said quietly. "And I've looked—into the Baron, into the Hollow Swords. What I found wasn't manipulation."
He paused.
"It was grief. Determination. And yes, guilt. But no malice. No deception. Just a vow. A land that has burned too many times, and men willing to burn with it, if that's the cost to protect this land."
For a while, neither spoke. Snowflakes drifted down in gentle spirals, settling on Kaavi's shoulders like forgotten prayers.
Gavril nodded eventually. "Still seems like a damn heavy burden."
Kaavi smiled faintly. "Burdens shape us Gavril."
They turned back toward the cabin; wood stacked in their arms. The smoke from the chimney curled upward into the dim light.
Inside, warmth greeted them—but not silence. The Hollow Swords were already awake, seated around the low table, their cloaks draped over chairs, steam rising from their tin mugs.
Kaavi's eyes scanned the group: Liran, sharpening his twin daggers, crouched near the hearth, Veyl lost in thought. Tannic speaking in low tones with Corren. And the leader Joren…standing at the far wall, arms crossed, gaze distant.
Kaavi dropped the logs near the hearth. "Sit. Eat," he said.
"We're ready to move," Tannic said immediately, his voice low and clipped.
Kaavi's tone brooked no refusal. "Breakfast first."
Though their tension hung in the air like smoke. They obeyed.
As the bread and soup were passed around, Kaavi lowered himself onto a stool beside Joren. Viktor entered moments later, hair still damp from snowmelt, his cloak slightly open at the throat. He nodded to his grandfather before sitting beside Liran.
"Any leads or suspect you have in mind, we can follow?" Kaavi asked softly, looking at Joren.
He swallowed a mouthful before responding. "One Man. Brian Havlik. Former scribe to Commander Roen. Been asking the wrong questions. Visiting officers alone. Moved bunk three times this week. He's clean on paper but something smells wrong."
Kaavi gave a slow nod.
"Good," he said. "We move, just you and me. Rest of the team stays here. Sudden group movement could alert other. We don't want to draw any attention right now."
Viktor straightened. "I'll come too."
"No," Kaavi said gently. "Your part comes later. Watch. Learn. Guard."
Viktor's jaw clenched but he said nothing.
Joren stood. "Understood."
As everybody was eating their breakfast, Kaavi finished his and fastened his sword to his belt, the hilt catching the firelight.
"Gavril, stay close to Viktor. If anything shifts here…send word fast. You know how"
Then, without ceremony, Kaavi and Joren stepped into the snow, disappearing into the pale grey light of early morning.
BACK AT THE CABIN
The silence left in their wake wasn't peaceful. It was tight. Watchful.
Viktor poured hot soup into his bowl; his fingers coiled around the tin like a vice. Across the table, Liran broke a crust of bread and offered him half without looking.
He took it.
"Joren trusts him," Tannic murmured to Corren.
"He trusts no one," Corren replied. "But he respects him. And that is enough for us to work."
Viktor listened without speaking. The fire popped in the hearth; its rhythm steady.
He looked around at the Hollow Swords. Each carried the same weight. The same tightness in the shoulders. The same haunted stillness in their eyes.
They were focused.
"Why'd you join him?" Viktor asked suddenly, breaking the quiet.
Corren looked up. "The Baron?"
Viktor nodded.
Corren shrugged, but there was a slowness to it. "Because he's the one who looked at us and saw more than damage, gave us a reason to live"
Thise was a silence after that. Viktor didn't press, he understood.
The wind had stilled, replaced by a quiet. Even the birds had fallen silent. In the cabin, the fire had burned low, casting only faint shadows across the walls. Viktor, the weight of his thoughts too large for his twelve-year-old frame. Across from him, the Hollow Swords sat in disciplined silence, as if their rest was another form of duty.
Except Liran.
The Fifth Blade sat near the hearth, legs pulled to his chest, arms wrapped around them. The flickering embers lit the curve of his cheekbone, the shallow dents near his temple, and the thin, pale scar running from his ear to the corner of his jaw. He looked more like a lost boy than a trained killer.
Gavril stirred but said nothing. He saw the boy too.
Viktor finally rose; the wooden floor cold beneath his feet.
Viktor sat beside him, watching the flames. "Can I ask you something?"
"You already did."
Viktor smiled faintly. "Something else."
Liran gave a tiny nod.
"How did you become one of them? A Hollow Sword."
Liran was quiet for so long Viktor thought he might not answer.
But then, softly: "I was six when my village burned."
There was screaming. Constant screaming, for days. Liran had learned to recognize the pitch of it—the wail of someone who knew death was near, and the hollow echo of those who had already given up on living. He had not screamed. He remembered that clearly. He had hidden beneath a grain cart, hands over his mouth, eyes wide and burning from the smoke.
The men came with torches and knives. Not soldiers. Just barbarians who came to loot, men who wanted to take what wasn't theirs, raping, murdering innocent, burning everything in their way.
The town tried to resist. But it was a small town consisting of farmers. His father had taken up an axe. His mother, a kitchen knife.
It hadn't mattered; the enemy outnumbered them.
By the time the Baron's soldiers arrived, everything was ash. They did what they came for and left, leaving only death.
Liran didn't speak for days. One of the soldiers gave him water, another bread. But he never asked questions. Only watched. When the Baron himself came through the ruins, inspecting the damage, Liran had stared at him like a wolf cub. Something about that gaze had stopped Edric in his tracks.
the Baron had said. "Make sure he has somewhere to live."
Somewhere, as it turned out, was beneath the capital. Beneath stone and silence
There were others there. Dozens. The unwanted. The broken. The orphaned. Edric had created a place for them, not only out of kindness, but need. The kingdom needed blades it could hide. Blades that didn't question the hand that swung them.
Liran remembered his first kill. He was nine.
The man had been a deserter. He was Caught torturing innocent villagers and killing children. The instructors had lined up the children and chosen three. Liran had been the smallest. The one with the quietest steps. They gave him a dagger and told him where to cut, where to stab.
The fire crackled, its glow painting Liran's face in flickering gold and shadow.
Viktor sat beside him, his breath shallow, as if afraid to disturb the weight of the words hanging between them.
Nine years old.
Liran's voice was detached, as if recounting the weather. "The man begged. Not for his life. For mercy. For a quick end." His fingers flexed, then stilled. "I gave him neither."
A log shifted in the hearth, sending up a spray of embers. Viktor's throat tightened.
"Why?"
Liran turned his head slightly, just enough for Viktor to see the hollows beneath his eyes. "Because they told me to make it slow. To prove I could follow orders, even when my hands shook." He exhaled, long and quiet. "And maybe, because part of me wanted him to feel it. To know what it was like."
Silence settled again, thicker this time. Viktor stared at his own hands…small, unmarked by blood. He wondered if they would stay that way.
Across the room, Corren shifted, his chair creaking. "We've all got our firsts," he muttered, sharpening his knife with deliberate strokes. "Mine was a smuggler. Knife in the ribs. He laughed when he saw me… thought a kid couldn't do real damage. Died confused."
Tannic snorted, though there was no humour in it. "Mine cried. Called for his mother. Still dream about it sometimes."
Viktor's chest ached. These weren't just soldiers. They were graves, walking.
Gavril, who had been leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, pushed off and walked to the window. The glass was fogged with condensation, but beyond it, the world remained still…snow-blanketed and silent. "You ever regret it?" he asked, voice low. "Taking the Baron's offer?"
Liran didn't hesitate. "No."
Corren and Tannic echoed the sentiment, their voices overlapping.
Viktor frowned. "How?"
Liran's gaze returned to the fire. "Because the world isn't kind. It doesn't care if you're a child. It doesn't care if you're scared. The Baron gave us teeth. Taught us how to bite back." His fingers traced the scar along his jaw. "I'd rather be the blade than the flesh it cuts."
Something in Viktor's stomach twisted. He thought of Kaavi's words earlier. They are fire and for the first time, he understood. These weren't just orphans. They were embers, forged into something sharp enough to carve their own justice from the dark.
A gust of wind rattled the shutters. Gavril turned. "They're back."
Footsteps crunched in the snow outside quick, purposeful. The door swung open, letting in a burst of cold air and the scent of iron.
Kaavi stepped inside; his cloak dusted with snow. Joren followed; his face grim.
"We found Havlik," Kaavi said, stripping off his gloves.
Gavril stood. "And?"
Joren's jaw tightened. "Dead. Throat slit."
The Hollow Swords exchanged glances. Tannic cursed under his breath.