Sign of the Times - Prologue
A submission for @elucienweekofficial Day 1: Mates
All knights who attempted to pull the Master Sword from its pedestal were given the same warning.
The Sword would only select a master who was pure of heart and strong of body. If a wielder of insufficient strength attempted to draw the sword, it would drain their life force. A fool who didn't yield would be a dead one.
If you feel your strength waning, let go, the captain of the guard cautioned. Don't kill yourself trying to be a hero.
Every person who touched the sword before Lucien seemed to bow to its power, collapsing onto the pedestal like puppets whose strings had been yanked from somewhere deep below the earth.
Lucien was therefore surprised when he laid his grip on the sword and felt… nothing. There was the resistance of the stone, groaning against the blade—Cauldron, it was really wedged in there—but aside from the physical exertion of trying to pull the damn thing out, there wasn't any otherworldly sensation to hint that his palm was wrapped around anything but an ordinary hilt.
It was when Lucien felt the stone give that he started to second-guess himself. There'd been plenty of instruction about what to do if the sword rejected a knight's attempt, but no one told him what to do if it fucking worked.
No one expected he would pull the sword, least of all Lucien. It was a joke that he was even attempting, a goading from Tamlin after his own failed attempt, because wouldn't it be funny to see Eris's face if you pulled that sword instead of him?
Only there was nothing funny about the look on Eris's face.
They were all given the same warning, after all. It wasn't just that if a knight failed to pull the sword, it could kill them.
It was that if a knight succeeded in pulling the sword, it signalled the return of Calamity.
The look on Eris's face wasn't envy. Lucien would become a hero of legend and outrank his six older brothers, sure, but he was also the harbinger of the end of times.
As the Chosen Hero, the wielder of the Sword that Seals the Darkness, Lucien would be responsible for standing between Prythian and ruin. No pressure.
But even that responsibility would come second to his new, primary objective:
To live and die in the service of the Princess.