When its wielder woke in the morning. After he’d drunk from a horse trough and washed his face, the blade explained just enough about what was happening to steady the lad and give him purpose. The Ebon Blade still was not entirely certain that the Golden Throne, or even the mages they fought, might be able to overhear him or even locate it somehow through its wielder. Lucian was able to quell that worry, though, at least in part.

“Divination magic is powerful, but it requires connection,” he explained as he searched through the nearby farmhouse that had been abandoned for robes to cover his near nudity and even a pair of shoes to replace his half-scorched sandals. “To find a thing, you need a piece of it or something closely related to it. If you have that, then the right spell can lead you to it like a compass; if you don’t… Well, then, it doesn’t know what to point to.”

While Lucian believed he was telling the truth, the blade still burned one of the dimmer mage souls to verify it while he clothed himself and found that its wielder was correct. The same threads of magic that connected the world to itself needed a piece of the target to find it. That piece could be as small as a single hair, though a large sample would be better.

Then we will have nothing to worry about on that front, the blade agreed, after a time. Everything that you touched in Sevrin has been scourged clean.

The boy nodded at that but seemed sadder than the blade had expected. It did not bring it up again. Instead, it turned to the topic of training, but there, the boy was lackluster as well.

“Don’t you think hiking halfway across the Inner Kingdoms counts as training?” he asked.

The journey will toughen you, but it will make you no better in battle, the blade admonished him. You must improve.

“Why?” he asked again. “You seem to be more than capable of making me fight for you.”

While it was a fair point, it annoyed the weapon. That is true to some degree, but more false than anything. My efforts wielding your body are far more clumsy than your efforts will be wielding me, the blade told him. You must improve because, as you have seen, the challenges that lie ahead will be severe.

“What challenges?” Lucian asked. “You killed the king and destroyed the Golden Tower. What else is left?”

Vengeance, the blade answered, unwilling to elaborate any further.

No, come, it continued after a moment, I will show you a series of exercises you can use to—

“No, we can do that later,” its wielder interrupted. “For now, I just want to get as far from whatever that fire was as possible.”

For a moment, the blade felt molten rage that its stripling of a wielder would dare to disobey it. It took real effort to push that down and try to recognize the situation from his point of view. He’d just survived a minor apocalypse and spent half the night tormented by dead mages. He could probably use a little more time to cope.

So, instead of chastising him, the blade quieted as he packed up what fruit and cheese he could find in a cloth satchel and then set off down the road in the direction the blade had directed him earlier. It was not the way to Ul-Magora or even the Redstone Tower, which was the closest of the large mage towers to the Golden Tower. Instead, they were proceeding toward a series of standing stones partway between the two to start their mischief.

Those first few days on the road were hard, quiet affairs. When it started to rain, the Ebon Blade discovered that the boy didn’t even have a modicum of wilderness survival skills, and it had to help him find shelter. He could light his own fires, at least. He needed only a few whispered words for that. It wouldn’t be enough to

Each night, as the boy slept, the weapon queried another ten or twelve souls, seeking to broaden its understanding and fill in any gaps it might have had. It would sometimes ask about specific aspects of the Aetherarchy, like its ruling structure or their initiation rights, as the weapon struggled to understand its enemy, and each day, the boy would march on toward a destination that had not been revealed to him.

Away was easy. It was the instruction he was most likely to follow without complaint, but the complaints he offered were only shallow ones. He didn’t say much of what was on his mind, which the blade appreciated. Such behavior represented signs of maturity. He might complain about the mosquitos, the dust, or the lack of food, but all the important things went unsaid.

Stolen story; please report.

He didn’t complain about how he regretted picking up the weapon because of the damage he’d caused with it or the fact that he’d do it again in a heartbeat because it was the only reason he was still alive. He just quietly marinated in his survivor's guilt until the goblins attacked one night in the predawn darkness, and the weapon stirred him to life.

Be ready, the weapon whispered, waking Lucian up from a sound sleep. They are coming for you.

“Who?” he murmured as his eyes flew open.

Goblins, the Ebon Blade answered. Six of them. They hide on the far side of the clearing.

The weapon felt fear shoot through its wielder’s body, but not the overwhelming sort that had made him flee for his life the last few days. This had an undercurrent of determination, which the blade was grateful to see. It was even more grateful to be drawn in anger for the first time in days.

Strangely, Lucian didn’t even complain that it was too dark to see, as Evelyn or even Ivarr might have. Instead, he crept forward under the thin starlight that filtered through the trees, and when he closed most of the distance. Then, when he heard the sound of movement, he spoke the words for flare, and the forest clearing was suddenly lit up like day as a stream of white sparks erupted like a geyser.

Then, while the goblins were blinded, he attacked. The first two went down in messy chunks before the other four recorded and attacked him simultaneously. There was no art to Lucian’s strokes; there was no skill or art to it, especially after he was bitten the first time.

-18 Life Force.

“You little beast!” the boy shouted as he stepped back and swung, trying to keep them at bay. Those slashes were lightning-fast but poorly targeted, and his diminutive opponents were mostly able to move beneath them.

-22 Life Force.

They should all be dead by now, it whispered to itself as the mage’s light spell began to fade, yet three remained. This will take some work.

The Ebon Blade did nothing to help him. It would have taken away the enhanced speed and strength that it blessed him with, too, if he was able. He had to learn, and fighting for his life was the best way to do it.

He wasn’t in any actual danger here. No matter how many times the little beasties got their claws or teeth into him, as long as he didn’t let go of the blade, ten times as many goblins wouldn’t be able to kill him. Still, they gave him far more trouble than they should have and wounded him painfully several times in the process.

-9 Life Force.

Short of culling children, they were the weakest opponent imaginable, and yet it still took several minutes for him to hack the beasts to pieces. When it was almost done, and Lucian was splattered in green blood, the last goblin tried to run, and foolishly, the boy threw the Ebon blade at its retreating form.

That was a terrible idea for a variety of reasons, but the blade didn’t stop him. That wasn’t because it thought he deserved to be taught a harsh lesson, either. It was because he could see what he was planning and was curious if it would work.

As the blade hurtled end over end toward the goblin, the mage produced his wand in his left hand and cast the spell that had gotten the Ebon Blade’s attention in the first place, Magehand. For a moment, the weapon had lost all contact with its wielder, which was always an anxious, troubling sensation, but then, a few seconds and more than a dozen feet later, it felt Lucian’s spirit hand grip its hilt again, adjusting the trajectory just enough to spear the goblin.

Spear really didn’t cover the damage. The diminutive monster was practically split in two by the force of the blow, but it didn’t stop there. The Ebon Blade expected the throw to pin the wretch to the earth, but instead, its wielder pulled back, and it returned to his hand in a wide slashing stroke that sliced through a handful of thin tree trunks on the way, felling all of them.

That is an interesting trick, the blade murmured. Imagine how much more powerful it would be if you knew how to wield me properly.

“After that, you might have a point,” he said, checking his arms and legs and making no attempt to hide his shock that he was entirely whole.

You survived the fires and the fall. Did you really think I couldn’t heal goblin teeth? The weapon asked.

“I just…” its wielder stumbled. “The damn thing took a bite out of me. It hurt worse than getting burned. That wasn’t nearly as serious as this. That’s all. I know your magic is powerful.”

That amused the blade; the reason the burns hadn’t hurt was because they’d been so severe, at least for a few seconds, that they’d robbed the young mage of his ability to feel pain. Instead of sharing that with him, though, it just said. As long as you don’t let go of me, with your real hand or your magical one, you will not die. Nothing can kill you.

Lucian conceded the point easily enough and promised that he wouldn’t. That was more because he didn’t want to be bitten and hurt so much the next time than any real pride as a warrior. That was fine. They had to start somewhere. They had several more days between here, and the first standing stones, and it would take weeks or months before they would do enough damage to the careful arrangement that spread across the country.