Ash was seven now.
Tall for his age, composed beyond his years, and possessed of a quiet gaze that made even seasoned knights glance twice. To most, he was simply a prodigious young noble with good manners and a sharp tongue—nothing more.
But inside, he was anything but ordinary.
And no one knew that.
Except Mai.
---
The memories of that day in the garden—the day he accidentally summoned phantom blades—still echoed in her mind.
Not real swords. Not even full projections.
Just echoes.
She had known the moment they appeared—those blades weren't forged of metal, but of memory, soul, and something deeper. Something ancient. The way they shimmered into existence and vanished like smoke… no steel clanged, no heat, no sound.
Just presence.
And the air... the air had trembled.
---
Mai never told Baron Elric or Lady Elara. Not even the priest, who had long suspected there was something strange about Ash. She kept it hidden, buried like a secret prayer in her chest.
Because even she didn't fully understand what she'd seen.
But she believed one thing with all her heart:
If the world knew what stirred in Ash, they would burn everything he loved just to be safe.
---
"Ash," she whispered one morning as she brushed his hair by the window, "If… if you ever feel something strange again, you come to me first. Before anyone."
Ash glanced at her through the mirror. "Even Father?"
Her hand froze for half a second.
"Especially your father," she said gently.
He nodded.
And said no more.
---
Ash never summoned the blades again.
Not really.
But sometimes, late at night when the moonlight slipped through his window, they would appear—half-formed outlines, shadows of blades not yet returned to the world. They never stayed more than a few seconds. They never made a sound. But they were there.
Watching.
Waiting.
---
Ash knew they weren't real.
He could feel it.
These were just reflections of the real swords. Distant echoes across time and space. Weapons forged for a war that had long since ended—or had yet to begin.
He'd read it in the scroll he stole years ago. The name no one spoke anymore:
The Incursed One.
A legend. A myth. A heresy.
A being said to wield both Light and Dark. Said to have ruled over Death Valley—the cursed land where the light never shone and shadows whispered to the wind. A place erased from maps, forgotten by time, and feared by kings.
The last place his true swords waited.
---
Mai watched him one evening from the shadows of the manor garden. He stood by the old fountain, hands behind his back, just… watching the water.
Silent. Still.
As if listening to something no one else could hear.
Her heart ached.
"You're just a child," she whispered.
But he wasn't. Not really.
---
That night, Ash opened a book of fables in his room. But behind the book, tucked deep between the pages, was the scroll.
He'd read it dozens of times.
"Only once has one been born of both Light and Dark…"
Ash traced the old ink with his fingers.
Then, in a whisper only the night could hear, he spoke the words that had haunted his soul since that day in the garden.
"I am the Incursed One."
He didn't say it with pride.
He said it with truth.
---
Far away, beyond the edges of the kingdom—past the mountains, past the abandoned forts, past the line where no caravans dared go—lay the broken land known only in forbidden scriptures.
Death Valley.
Ruins of a fallen kingdom.
And beneath its ash and bones, buried in silence, the swords waited.
Real. Ancient. Bound to his soul by fate itself.
They pulsed once. Just once.
Then fell silent again.
---
Ash closed the scroll and blew out the candle.
No one could know.
Not yet.
Because the moment the world discovered who he truly was… they would try to kill him.
And Ash wasn't ready to fight.
Not yet.