"The sword does not choose the brave.
It waits for the broken to remember who they are."
(The Weeping Forest – The Tomb)
The mist writhed at the forest's feet, thick and choking.
Every breath felt like it scraped against the lungs.
The hollow beneath the uprooted tree waited —
stone split, veins of rot creeping out like tendrils.
And there it lay, gleaming with an impossible innocence:
The Lionheart Sword.
It was not a relic.
It was an accusation.
No one spoke.
Even Francesca, who often hid behind her sharp tongue, kept her silence.
Alberta felt a strange chill running under her skin, though she didn't know why.
Cornelius moved first,
but not like a man approaching a treasure.
It was a confession — quiet, broken, hesitant.
Symbols etched around the tomb seemed to pulse faintly.
lion, crown, oath.
He stood there, inches from it.
The blade shimmered, as if sensing his hesitation.
Waiting.
Francesca shifted, uneasy.
Alberta inched closer without realizing.
Dantes stood still.
His eyes, unreadable.
He didn't look at the sword.
He looked at the void it left in the air.
Cornelius reached out —
his fingers trembling as though the sword would tear through his very soul.
And then, he stopped.
His arm fell like it was dragged by invisible chains.
He stepped back from the tomb like he'd taken a step away from his own judgment.
Francesca's voice cut through the oppressive silence:
"You're not taking it?"
Cornelius shook his head, voice ragged:
"I'm not worthy of it.
Not now. Not ever."
A heartbeat.
A breath of pure, open space between them.
And then Dantes laughed.
But it wasn't a laugh.
It was jagged.
It sliced open the air, raw and bitter.
Dantes (mocking):
"Of course you wouldn't.
Prince of hesitation.
Heir to the waiting."
Cornelius flinched, his shoulders taut with the sting.
Alberta's voice snapped, sharp:
"Dantes. That's enough."
But Dantes wasn't listening.
Not to her.
Not to anyone.
His voice cracked, but not from anger —
from something far worse:
Empty rage.
Dantes:
"You travel this far.
Through blood, through fire.
You carve your path with prophecies and ashes.
And when it's time to act, you bow out?"
Cornelius didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Dantes spitting the word:
"Coward.
Maybe you are his son, after all.
Always waiting for someone else to bleed first."
Cornelius' jaw tightened.
"You don't know what it means to be his son."
Dantes took a step forward.
Closer.
Closer still, until his breath was a fire on Cornelius' skin.
Dantes raw:
"Oh, don't I?
I watched a kingdom crumble beneath its king's guilt.
I screamed for a world that didn't care.
You think worth is some hand-me-down from a bloodline?
You think the sword will wait for you to decide who you are?"
Alberta held her breath.
Dantes whispering:
"Some of us were forged in the flames of failure,
born before we were buried."
The words struck like a gut punch, invisible but undeniable.
Alberta's chest tightened.
Francesca's hands stilled on her blade.
Cornelius stepped forward, voice barely a murmur:
"What do you mean by that?"
Dantes blinked —
for just a second, something flickered in his eyes.
Not rage.
Not even pity.
Just pure, broken grief.
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
"Forget it."
With that, he turned away,
his coat whipping through the fog like a piece of lost memory.
The mist, as if alive, reached for him —
first his boots, then his coat, then the fury in his eyes,
until all that remained was silence.
And Dantes, gone.
(Days Later – Edge of the Forest)
The fire sputtered.
The smoke curled upward like the last memory of something long lost.
Francesca's blade was sharper than necessary.
Alberta watched the embers, lost.
Cornelius stood apart, his eyes hollow.
And Dantes —
still gone.
The Wane seemed to grow heavier.
Like something was about to snap.
Finally, Francesca's voice broke through the suffocating quiet:
"Why didn't you take the sword?"
Cornelius barely turned, his voice hoarse:
"Because I don't want to become what it demands.
Because it remembers blood.
And so do I."
Francesca's gaze lingered on him.
Her voice softened:
"Dantes is grieving too."
Cornelius gave a brittle laugh:
"For who?"
Francesca didn't reply at first.
Her gaze turned to the trees —
the place where Dantes had vanished.
"That sword...
it didn't just terrify you.
It terrified him."
Cornelius didn't ask what she meant.
But the heaviness settled in his chest anyway.
Francesca continued, quieter:
"He looked at it like it was a mirror.
And he saw what he could've been.
Or what he still might become."
(That Night )
She moved in the dark,
silent, like the forest itself was holding its breath.
The fire was down to embers.
The mist pressed on her skin like a drowning thing.
She didn't pack.
She didn't think.
She just moved toward the silence.
The place where everything was waiting.
Where grief hadn't yet moved on.
Where she followed without knowing why.
Because he never said goodbye.
And in his absence,
he had taken something of hers,
something she couldn't name.
Not her heart.
Not her hope.
But that part of her that still believed he wanted to be saved.
(Alberta's Inner Monologue – Walking Through the Mist)
What if he doesn't want to be found?
What if I'm not enough to save him?
Still, she moved forward.
The mist swallowed her.
The trees leaned in, closer now.
The air smelled of rot.
And ahead, something waited.
Darker.
More real than the ghosts that haunted them.
— End of Chapter 39 —