Chapter 51: The Two Fragments

Chapter 51: Chapter 51: The Two Fragments

Theon’s fingers tightened around his storage ring.

The pulse that had surged through the Eternal Frostblade moments ago had faded, but the feeling it left behind stayed with him, sitting cold beneath his skin.

Something was calling to it.

He looked at Eiralyth.

"What exactly is pulling at the sword?"

She studied him for a moment, then let her gaze drift toward the floor.

"It’s other half."

Theon’s brow creased. "The other half?"

She nodded. "The Eternal Frostblade in your possession was never whole."

Lyra’s eyes widened. Lazeria expression slid from curiosity into confusion, and Ifrith’s face darkened by degrees, like a cloud passing over him.

"Five thousand years ago," Eiralyth said, "long before this academy existed, there were two beings who reached the Primordial realm."

The corridor went quiet enough that Theon could hear the wind pressing against the windows.

"One was an ancient elf. The other, a human."

He listened without moving.

"Both stood among the strongest of their kind. They’d already surpassed nearly every warrior and mage their generations had produced, and each carried a blade worthy of that strength." Something softened in Eiralyth expression. "The elf wielded PYRO, the Phoenix Flame Sword."

A pause.

"The human wielded NIVARETH. The Eternal Frostblade."

The moment the name left her lips, the ring on Theon’s finger gave a faint pulse. He glanced down at it without meaning to.

Eiralyth noticed but kept going. "Those weapons were legends even then. Their wielders were no less legendary."

She drew a slow breath. "They met on a mission. Both clans had sent their strongest to wipe out a group of demons who’d turned against them, and the human and the elf ended up leading that assault side by side."

Her voice dropped, quieter now. "And when they met" a faint smile touched her mouth "they fell for each other on sight."

Lyra blinked. "Seriously?"

"They didn’t understand it either, not at first. Their races had been enemies for generations enemies by blood, by history, by everything they’d been raised to believe. But after that first meeting, neither of them could put the other out of their head."

Theon said nothing, but he was already imagining how everything looked like in his head.

"They started finding reasons to see each other again after the mission ended. The meetings turned into friendship. And eventually neither of them could keep pretending it was only that."

"They fell in love," Eiralyth said simply. "And when their clans found out, everything changed."

Her expression hardened.

"The humans wouldn’t accept it. The elves wanted it dead even faster." An ancient elf and a human two races that had spent generations hating each other on principle. To their clans, the two of them marrying wasn’t just improper. It was unthinkable.

"They were told it could never happen," Eiralyth went on. "That humans and elves didn’t mix. That an ancient elf marrying a human would disgrace both bloodlines."

Theon’s hand curled slowly into a fist.

"They refused to let go of each other anyway," Eiralyth said. "So they chose each other over their clans. Deserted both of them."

Lyra’s face softened. "They just ran?"

"They ran together. Believed that if they left everything behind, they could finally live somewhere no one cared what they were." Eiralyth voice thinned. "What they didn’t know was that their clans had already reached an agreement of their own."

"What agreement?" Theon asked.

"The human clan reached out to the elves in secret. Two races that hated each other agreed on exactly one thing."

She let the silence sit there a moment before finishing it.

"They had to die."

Ifrith’s eyes narrowed to slits.

"Both Primordials were closing in on the Demigod realm," Eiralyth said. "Their power was climbing fast enough to frighten anyone watching it happen. If they stayed together, that climb wouldn’t stop." Her voice lowered further. "And if they married if their bloodlines actually joined neither clan could guess what might come out of that. So they put their war with each other on hold and hunted the two of them down instead."

A chill crept over Theon’s skin.

"They found them," Eiralyth said. "And what followed wasn’t a fight so much as a slaughter waiting to happen."

The human stood against the combined armies of both clans alone. Even at full Primordial strength, he was outnumbered by warriors and mages who’d came prepared and willing to die to kill him. He cut down one after another, blade flashing through the dark, but there were always more behind them. His mana bled out faster than he could recover it. Wounds opened across his arms, his chest, his back. And somewhere in the middle of it, he understood there was no way through.

"He knew he wasn’t walking away from that fight," Eiralyth said quietly.

Theon’s chest tightened.

"He looked at the woman he loved and understood that if they both stayed, they’d both die there. So he made a choice."

He pulled NIVARETH from his own grip and pressed the hilt into her hands.

"He told her to take the sword and run."

"She refused. She wanted to stay and fight beside him."

"He didn’t care what she wanted anymore. He told her the clans could never be allowed to get their hands on that sword." Eiralyth face turned solemn. "If either side ever claimed both NIVARETH and Pyro, they’d hold enough power to break the world open. He told her to protect it. Then he shoved her back and raised the last of his strength into a barrier sealing himself in with both armies, sealing her out."

"He fought them alone," Eiralyth said.

The woman ran. Every step felt like a betrayal, but she’d seen what he’d given up to buy her that distance, and she kept moving.

Then the screams reached her.

She stopped and Looked back through the trees.

And saw him already gone.

Lyra’s hand rose to cover her mouth as lazeria face darkened. Even Ifrith, silent through most of the story, lowered his eyes to the floor.

Theon stared down at the stone beneath his boots.

"She wanted to turn back," Eiralyth said. "Wanted to go to him. But she remembered what he’d told her protect the sword, keep it out of their hands and she ran instead."

Through forest. Across mountains. Through rivers that nearly swept her under. For days the combined hunters chased her, and every day she was more exhausted than the one before, and every day she refused to stop.

Eventually she reached a mountain buried under fog thick enough to blind her, and at its base she found a cave. With nowhere else left to go, she went in carrying only NIVARETH and whatever relics she’d managed to keep on her. What became of Pyro, no one ever learned. She’d hidden it somewhere no record could reach.

She pushed deeper into the dark until the tunnel opened into a massive chamber, and for one breath she believed she’d finally found somewhere to rest.

Then she looked up.

Mages lined the upper level of the chamber, waiting. They already knew she was coming.

An old man stepped out from among them with silver robes moving like something alive around him, white hair drifting loose over his shoulders, eyes a blue so sharp they seemed to cut straight through whatever she tried to hide behind.

She spun to run and found human soldiers already closing the way out behind her.

Surrounded while Her mana nearly gone and Her body barely answering her anymore.

The mages lifted their hands, magic gathering at their fingertips.

She looked down at NIVARETH. Then across the chamber, to a platform sheathed in Eternal Ice.

If she couldn’t get out with the sword, she’d make sure none of them ever got their hands on it either.

She ran for the platform.

"Stop her!" the man in white shouted.

Spells tore through the air behind her. She reached the ice first.

She raised Niveret over her head and drove it straight down into the Eternal Ice.

The chamber shook. She began chanting, and the seal that formed around the blade wasn’t an ordinary one it was pulling from her own remaining years, burning her lifespan to make it hold. The ice spread, climbing up the blade, swallowing it inch by inch.

"Faster!" the man in white barked.

The mages finished their casting a heartbeat too late. Lightning came down anyway, catching her full in the chest and throwing her across the stone. She went dark before she hit the ground.

When she opened her eyes again, the leaders of both clans were standing over her.

But the damage was already done. NIVARETH was sealed. They tried to pull it free but they Failed. Whatever she’d spent to bind that blade to the ice had bound it there for good.

For five thousand years the Eternal Frostblade had stayed split in two one piece in the Imperial Palace, the other sealed beneath the Imperial Academy. Now the two halves had found each other again.

And somewhere deep under the school, inside a chamber buried beneath the Eternal Ice, two pairs of blue eyes opened slowly in the dark.