From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 44: Blood That Binds

Marien didn’t move.

Neither did Leon.

The courtyard between them stayed silent, moonlight sharp as blades on the old stone.

Her crest burned darker now—no colour, just shadow. Like it absorbed the light instead of casting any. It curled above her like a halo turned upside-down.

"You’re not supposed to be here," he said.

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. "Neither are you."

Leon took a step forward.

Marien matched it.

Ashveil pulsed at his side, its weight cold and steady. Thornblade still hung from his belt.

She tilted her head. "Did you think they wouldn’t bring me? That House Thorne’s last mistake wouldn’t be tested too?"

"You vanished. Before the Awakening. No one’s seen you since."

"No," she said. "I was taken."

The air between them cracked. The ground under Leon’s boots shifted, not from quake—but pressure.

Marien stepped closer. Her aura flickered. "The Unbroken Mark suits you. But you’re still trying to make the walls forget who we are."

"And you want them to remember the shame?"

Her hand reached for her blade.

Leon’s breath caught. The cold that rose wasn’t fear. It was memory. His sister had always been the better swordsman among the children of house Thorne.

When she drew her weapon, the edge shone with reversed runes—sigils of the Crest long since outlawed. The Exile Glyph.

Leon’s voice hardened. "Who gave you that mark?"

She didn’t answer.

Instead, she lunged.

Their blades met in a crash that echoed across the empty courtyard, striking stone, steel, and soul.

Ashveil hissed against the cursed sigils. Sparks showered around them, glowing brief, then vanishing into the cold.

Marien moved like a phantom—faster than her weight, lighter than her presence, almost inhuman.

But Leon had forged his pace in silence, not speed.

He met her strikes with calm brutality, each parry was an answer, each counter tighter, closer, more precise.

The wind turned against them. It howled, then froze.

She caught him once along the ribs. A shallow cut.

He answered with a sweeping backhand that sliced her shoulder.

Both stood still.

Both bled.

And neither stepped back.

Marien’s voice wavered now. "They told me you died."

Leon didn’t blink. "Then they lied to both of us."

She lowered her blade slightly. "So what now? Brother against sister until one of us is carved into the Hall?"

Leon didn’t answer.

Because someone else did.

A figure emerged from the shadowed hall behind them.

Roth.

His voice was iron.

"No. Not brother against sister."

He looked to Leon.

"You wanted to change fate, Thorne?"

Then he turned to Marien.

"Then she’s your first chance to do it."

The wind picked up again.

—

Marien’s blade didn’t lower.

Neither did Leon’s.

But the pressure in the courtyard shifted.

Roth stepped between them, not to separate—but to bind them. He unsheathed a narrow blade from his back, longer than regulation, older than academy steel. The edge shimmered faintly, not with magic—but with something..different. Older.

He stabbed it into the stone at their feet. It didn’t clang. It sank, like the ground made space for it.

"This is the Line of Accord," Roth said, voice low. "Cross it, and you’re no longer cadets. You’re blood. And blood fights clean."

Marien narrowed her eyes. "So you’re invoking rite combat?"

"I’m invoking the Rite of Remembrance," Roth replied.

Leon straightened. His voice low. "That’s banned."

"Only when both heirs still serve the Crest."

Silence.

Then Marien sheathed her blade.

Not surrender. Ceremony.

Leon followed.

The two stepped closer, until only the ancient sword between them remained. Its hilt hummed slightly, resonating with something neither could name.

"Two Thornes," Roth said. "Born of the same house. Divided by absence. One forged by fire. One forged by exile."

He turned to Marien. "State your claim."

Her voice came like frost. "I claim the right of return. And the memory of what our name meant before the wall turned its face from us."

Roth turned to Leon.

"State your counter."

Leon’s voice was steel. "I claim the right of change. And the memory of what our name can become."

Roth stepped back.

"Then carve that memory into each other."

Both stepped past the line.

And the rite began.

—

There were no formalities. No signals.

Just blood, and what it meant.

Marien moved first. Not fast—precise. Her blade came in low, a sweeping arc meant to disarm, not maim. But Leon didn’t parry.

He stepped into the blade. Let it slice shallow across his outer thigh. And struck upward, the pommel of Ashveil clipping her jaw.

She reeled.

But didn’t fall.

Leon turned with the movement, reversing Ashveil’s grip, swinging the flat of the blade toward her temple.

She ducked under, sliced a line across his side.

Each strike was a message.

Each wound, a letter written in flesh.

Marien shouted now. "You were always chosen! Even when we were children!"

Leon didn’t answer with words.

He answered by breaking through her guard, his elbow smashing into her collarbone. She stumbled back.

He stopped.

"Chosen? I begged to be ignored," he said, breath thick. "You don’t know what they did to keep me out of the dark."

Marien’s laugh was hollow. "And you don’t know what they did when the dark took me in."

Then she screamed.

And attacked without rhythm.

—

Roth didn’t interfere.

The courtyard watched in silence. No other eyes, but all walls saw.

Leon caught her next strike. Locked blades.

They pressed forehead to forehead.

"I thought you were dead," Leon whispered.

"I was."

Then Marien twisted her blade. It sliced across his fingers.

He let go.

And she stepped back.

He didn’t fall. He stood.

But the sword—Ashveil—remained on the ground.

It didn’t call to him.

It waited.

Marien looked down at it.

Then turned her blade, offered it hilt-first.

"I was taken," she said. "But I’m choosing to return."

Leon didn’t take her weapon.

He picked up Ashveil.

And pressed the blade flat across her shoulder.

"Then let the rite end here."

For a moment, peace hovered.

Then a scream tore from beyond the walls.

Roth’s eyes snapped toward the eastern path.

Smoke was rising.

The bell didn’t ring.

Because the bell tower was burning.

"Get inside!" he said.

Leon and Marien didn’t hesitate.

Because some trials weren’t chosen.

They came when your back was turned.

And this one wasn’t a duel.

It was a siege.

—

The eastern path was already drowning in smoke by the time they reached the gate.

Flames licked the sky. Not wild, chaotic fire—but precise, deliberate tongues of heat that burned only what needed to vanish. The signal flags. The bell cords. The observation windows that had always stayed open, now blackened glass and silence.

Marien didn’t wait for orders.

She ran.

Leon followed.

And Roth—he didn’t chase. He stepped, calm as a tide rising, his sword now strapped to his back like a promise too large for moments like these.

They reached the outer yard in time to see the first breach.

Not a wall torn down—but the gate seals undoing themselves. Sigils that had been etched in bronze twisted in on themselves. Old magic undone like it had been waiting for permission.

Marien froze at the sight.

Leon didn’t. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

He drew Ashveil and kept moving.

Figures poured through.

Not soldiers.

Not bandits.

Cadets.

At least, they wore the crest sigils. But not the right ones. Inverted marks. Burnt into their skin, not stitched on their tunics. Their eyes gleamed too bright in the firelight. Too empty.

One of them screamed Leon’s name.

Not shouted.

Screamed.

And charged.

Leon met him with a sidestep and a clean horizontal slash that caught the attacker across the stomach.

But there was no blood.

Only smoke.

The body disintegrated before hitting the ground.

"What in the—"

"They’re husks," Marien snapped, rejoining him. "Crest echoes. Empty souls carved into flesh. Whoever’s behind this... they’ve cracked the binding code."

Roth arrived behind them, eyes scanning everything—not surprised. Grim.

"Contain the breach," he said. "Do not kill unless you must. These might still be reclaimed."

Leon tightened his grip. "And if they’re not?"

Roth looked at the burning tower.

"Then they’re warnings for something far worse."

—

The courtyard turned into a battlefield.

Each attacker bore a face too familiar—former cadets. Some long gone. Some supposedly expelled.

Leon fought one who had taught him drills two years prior. The woman screamed without voice, her eyes empty but her form still perfect.

He parried, dodged, broke her grip, then kneed her into the stone.

Smoke. No blood.

Each clash made the air tighter.

Marien fought beside him.

But not like before.

Now her blade didn’t dance—it hunted for prey.

Targeted the points that would’ve undone her. Not just in the flesh. But in the spirit.

"Leon!" she called once. "North flank!"

He turned too late.

A blade slammed into his side, sliding between ribs.

His breath caught—

Ashveil dropped—

—but the blade didn’t sink.

Something caught it.

The Thornblade.

It had moved on its own.

Hovering in the air for half a second, then dropping straight into Leon’s hand.

He didn’t question it.

There was no time to think.

He turned the blade.

And stabbed it backward without looking.

The attacker stopped. Fell. Vanished.

Behind him, Roth stood still.

He hadn’t helped.

Only watched.

—

Then the bell sounded.

From below.

A new signal.

Emergency evacuation of the inner sanctum.

Fena’s voice echoed from a raised guardwall.

"All surviving cadets: retreat to the Vault Ring!"

Leon stepped forward. "We hold here!"

"No," Roth said, grabbing his shoulder. "That’s not your fight."

Leon turned. "They’re killing our own!"

Roth’s grip didn’t loosen. "You’ve just forged a name, Thorne. Now it’s time to protect what it means."

He turned to Marien. "Get him inside."

"I’m not leaving—"

"You’re the Unbroken," Roth growled. "But you’re still not ready to break this."

Another explosion lit the sky.

Something behind the walls had fallen.

Marien grabbed Leon’s wrist. "Come on. We’ll fight again. But not here."

And though every part of him screamed to turn back, to wade into the tide and fall if he must—

Leon followed her.

Because sometimes, retreat wasn’t surrender.

It was preservation.

And war had just found its way to the academy gates.