Rise of the Peerless God of War

Chapter 2

Three months had passed since the ceremony, and Draven was getting real tired of people looking at him like he was a kicked puppy.

"Careful with those," Elena said from his doorway, watching him stuff clothes into his travel bag like he was trying to murder them. "They're the only good clothes you have."

"Does it matter?" Draven muttered, shoving a shirt into the bag with more force than necessary. "I'm the family embarrassment anyway."

Elena's face softened. "You're still an Ashworth, young master."

"Am I?" Draven held up another shirt, this one with tiny burn holes from his brother Garrett's training accidents. "Ashworths have power. I don't. I'm just... here."

Elena opened her mouth like she wanted to argue, then closed it again. That hurt more than if she'd just agreed with him outright.

The academy letter sat on his desk, already wrinkled from being read too many times. "Report to the Imperial Academy on the fifteenth day of the Fire Month..."

"It's not exile," he told himself for the hundredth time. "It's opportunity."

But it sure felt like exile.

His brothers had stopped talking to him completely after the first week. His father barely looked at him anymore, like seeing Draven reminded him of his greatest failure. And the servants? They'd upgraded from pitying looks to active avoidance. The hollow prince was bad luck, apparently.

Maybe leaving is better. Maybe starting over somewhere else will help.

But first, he needed his grandfather's old sword. It was probably the only weapon he'd be allowed to carry at the academy, since he couldn't exactly fight with magic.

The armory was in the basement of the estate, covered in enough dust and spider webs to outfit a haunted house. Nobody came down here anymore. Not since Grandfather died five years ago.

"Where is it?" Draven muttered, moving boxes and old pieces of armor that probably hadn't been touched in decades. "Come on, old man. Help me out here."

His grandfather had been the one person who never made him feel broken. Even when Draven showed no signs of magic as a kid, Grandfather just smiled and said, "Power comes in many forms, boy. Don't be so eager to fit into someone else's box."

Easy to say when you're not the one living in the box.

Draven was pulling down a particularly heavy crate when he noticed something odd. There was a scratch in the stone wall behind it that didn't match the others. It was too straight. Too deliberate.

What the hell?

He pressed against the scratch with his finger. Nothing happened.

He pushed harder, putting his shoulder into it. The stone shifted slightly, like it wasn't quite solid.

No way.

Draven grabbed a crowbar from the tool rack and jammed it into the crack. Stone scraped against stone with a sound like nails on a chalkboard, and suddenly a whole section of the wall swung inward on hidden hinges.

"Holy shit," he breathed.

Behind the false wall was a small room, barely big enough for a man to stand in. And in the center of that room sat an old wooden chest, covered in dust but still intact.

Grandfather, you sneaky bastard. What were you hiding?

The chest was locked, but the lock was old and rusty. Draven broke it with the crowbar after a few solid hits, the metal crumbling like it was made of paper.

Inside were things that made his breath catch in his throat.

War medals. Battle reports signed by the king himself. Letters of commendation. A diary filled with Grandfather's careful handwriting.

Grandfather wasn't just a soldier. He was a hero.

But at the bottom of the chest, wrapped in black silk like it was something precious—or dangerous—was something that made Draven's skin crawl just looking at it.

A pendant. Black as midnight and cold as death, hanging from a chain that looked like it was made of the same dark metal. It was roughly the size of his palm, carved with symbols he didn't recognize.

There was a note tied to the pendant with thin string, written in Grandfather's familiar scrawl:

"To the reader - When all seems lost, remember that the dead never truly die. Their echoes live on in those brave enough to listen. Use this wisely, but use it well. The family's honor may depend on it. - Colonel Marcus Ashworth"

"Echoes of the dead?" Draven picked up the pendant, surprised by how heavy it was. The metal was warm to the touch, like it had been sitting in sunlight. "What's that supposed to mean, Grandfather?"

The pendant felt... wrong in his hands. Not evil, exactly, but not normal either. Like it was watching him. Waiting for something.

Probably just my imagination. Stress makes you think crazy things.

Draven tried to examine the symbols more closely, holding the pendant up to the light from the doorway. His fingers slipped on the smooth surface, and he felt a sharp sting.

"Damn it!" Blood welled up on his fingertip where he'd cut it on one of the pendant's edges. The thing was sharper than it looked.

A drop of blood fell onto the pendant's surface.

The world exploded.

Pain. So much pain.

Sword through his chest. Can't breathe. Blood in his mouth.

Enemy soldiers standing over him, their faces twisted with hate.

"Tell my son..." the dying man whispered. "Tell him I'm proud..."

But the sword techniques. The footwork. The way to read an opponent's stance. The perfect angle for a killing thrust. All of it burning into memory even as life faded away.

"I won't let them win," the dying soldier thought. "Someone has to remember. Someone has to carry on."

Draven hit the stone floor hard, gasping like a fish out of water. His whole body felt like it had been turned inside out and put back together wrong.

"What... what the hell was that?"

His hands were shaking so hard he could barely hold himself up. His head felt like someone had stuffed it full of cotton and then set it on fire.

But he knew things now. Things he'd never learned.

How to hold a sword properly, with the grip firm but not rigid. How to shift his weight for a lightning-fast thrust. How to parry a downward strike and counter in the same motion. Footwork patterns that would let him dance around a slower opponent.

It was like... like I lived someone else's death.

And not just lived it. Absorbed it. Made it part of himself.

Draven pushed himself to his feet on unsteady legs and grabbed his grandfather's sword from where it hung on the wall. His hands moved without conscious thought, falling into a perfect fighting stance he'd never been taught.

"I know this," he whispered, moving through a basic sword form with smooth, practiced motions. "But how do I know this?"

It was like muscle memory for muscles he'd never used. Knowledge that felt older than his own life.

Draven looked down at the pendant again. There was no blood on it now. It had absorbed every drop, leaving the surface clean and dark as ever.

"The dead never truly die. Their echoes live on..."

"You've got to be kidding me." Draven almost laughed, but it came out more like a sob. "I absorb dead people's memories? That's my power?"

It was insane. Impossible. The kind of thing you read about in fairy tales, not the kind of thing that happened to powerless noble sons.

But the sword felt right in his hands now. Like it belonged there. Like it always had.

For the first time in three months, Draven felt something other than shame and despair.

Hope.

Maybe I'm not powerless. Maybe I'm just... different.

He slipped the pendant over his neck and tucked it under his shirt. It felt warm against his skin now, like it was alive. Pulsing gently in time with his heartbeat.

"Alright, Grandfather," he said to the empty room, his voice stronger than it had been in months. "Let's see where this goes."

"Young master?" Elena's voice came from upstairs, worried and sharp. "Are you alright? I heard a crash."

Draven quickly shoved everything back into the chest except the pendant. "I'm fine!" he called back. "Just... knocked something over."

"Your father wants to see you before dinner."

Of course he does. Probably wants to give me another lecture about not embarrassing the family.

Draven took one last look at the hidden room, then swung the false wall back into place. The stone sealed seamlessly, like it had never been opened.

This stays secret. At least until I figure out what it really does.

As he climbed the stairs back to the main floor, the pendant bounced gently against his chest with each step. For the first time since the awakening ceremony, Draven didn't feel hollow.

Maybe the academy won't be so bad after all.

Maybe he'd finally found his power. It just wasn't the kind of power anyone expected.

That night, after another awkward dinner where his family talked around him like he wasn't there, Draven lay in bed staring at the ceiling.

Tomorrow, his father would probably give him another lecture about representing the family with honor. His brothers would continue ignoring him. The servants would keep whispering.

But none of that mattered now.

He had a secret. A power that was his alone.

The dead never truly die.

Draven smiled in the darkness, his hand resting on the pendant beneath his nightshirt.

Maybe being hollow isn't so bad. Maybe it just means there's room for something else.

Something better.

Something that would show them all they were wrong about him.

The pendant pulsed gently against his chest, warm and alive and full of possibilities.

Soon, it seemed to whisper. Soon, you'll understand.

And for the first time in three months, Draven fell asleep without crying.