Chapter 21: The Dance of the Butterfly

Ronan scrambled out of his bed and to the Hellblade.

“Where the hell did this come from?” he muttered to himself while looking at the Hellblade. Had somebody placed it in his room while he was sleeping?

Ronan slid the curved sword from its sheath and backed into the corner of the room.

He stood beside the Hellblade and asked, “Is anyone there?”

Ronan searched through the dark for any movement. In the Hellblade’s faint glow and the few strips of sunlight peeking through his window, he saw that he was alone.

“I’m losing it,” he muttered, and he sheathed the curved sword. The Hellblade slipped from its place on the sill and fell to the stone floor with a clank, then vanished.

“What in the—”

Then the rooster crowing above the temple’s stables woke Ronan from his sleep. It was significantly brighter out, and the sky was a crisp orange. Wavy pink clouds cascaded slowly in the sky.

“Did I dream the whole thing?” Ronan asked, rubbing his eyes. Beside his bed, only the curved sword rested. Curiously enough, the sheath’s clasp was not fastened, which led him to believe that he had gotten up and drawn the sword. But the Hellblade was nowhere to be seen. He checked under his bed and all around. Still, he found no sign of the confiscated weapon.

“I must’ve been dreaming,” Ronan said, running a hand through his ragged hair. He tried to remember what he had been dreaming about before he dreamt of the Hellblade, and he thought back to his dream where he had fought beside Maritza.

Now that was a dream he wanted to make a reality.

“And if I’m going to do that,” Ronan said, fastening the sheath and draping the leather over his shoulder. “I’m going to need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for training.”

He clasped and tightened the leather strap on the sheath around his chest, making sure he could reach a hand over his head and draw the weapon comfortably. Although he didn’t value the curved sword or share a connection with it as much as he did the Hellblade, he had gotten the sheath to fit like a glove.

Ronan did a few jumping jacks to get his blood flowing, then headed to the dining hall for breakfast.


Maritza was the one leading the Training Grounds in the day’s trial. She was wearing no leather cuirass, and instead only a white and pink battledress and long, form-fitting leather boots that were inscribed with the pattern of a butterfly along their sides.

“Ronan,” she said with a wave. “Join us, won’t you?”

Ronan hustled over to Clove and Ike, who were both standing amidst many other rows of Trainees.

“Today,” Maritza said, pacing back and forth. Her beauty was enough to stop Ronan’s breath. “We will be mastering The Dance of the Butterfly.”

She pointed up to a gold dot that hung high on the stone walls of the Training Grounds.

“Your trial is to jump up and ring the bell,” Maritza said.

Ike squinted. He was off his crutch for the first day ever. “That’s a bell all the way up there? It looks like a grain of sand!”

“Oh, let me go first and get this over with!” Alfred said, shouldering through the crowd of Trainees. His white mask got caught on somebody’s sword strap, and for a moment his burned face was revealed to all. Trainees gasped and shuddered as Alfred scrambled to cover the pink and welted part of his face with his mask again.

“You’ll go last for your interruption, Alfred of Augustate,” Maritza said, holding a firm hand outwards.

Alfred winced and stepped back. When Maritza was furious, she became a force to be reckoned with.

“The trick to The Dance of the Butterfly,” Maritza said, starting to run towards the bell, “is to find a spot in the air that you can hop on as a stepping stone, just as a butterfly flutters from one spot to the next.”

She launched herself thirty feet into the air with a jump that left a small crater where she’d been in the dirt. Right before she began to descend, she seemingly pushed off an invisible step and jumped another sixty feet. Maritza rang the bell with ease, then dropped towards the ground.

Right before impact, The Mark of the Butterfly extended behind her back in a white light, and created wings of Essence that flapped. She gently touched her long boots to the dirt, and the markings made from white light disappeared.

“The most important aspect of The Dance of the Butterfly,” she said with a smirk, “is not crashing down to the ground like a meteor.”

“This is child’s play,” Freya called out, elbowing her way next to Alfred. “I can do this with my eyes closed.”

“And you’ll have the opportunity to prove that at the end of the day along with Alfred, Freya,” Maritza laughed, crossing her arms.

She looked to Ronan, and Ronan could swear that Maritza was containing a friendly smile.

“Ronan, you’ll be going first,” Maritza said. “Prove to us that you’re not simply drawing power from that black sword.”

Ronan stepped forward and looked at the wall, feeling as though Maritza had a hopeful tone to her voice.

If the bell was still moving after Maritza rang it, it was so high up that Ronan couldn’t tell. Ronan’s brow furrowed. The Shroud began to whisper to him, but he denied their voices. He was going to do this one on his own.

Ronan broke into a sprint, feeling the Mark of the Butterfly on his arm begin to sizzle.

With all his might and focus, Ronan leapt off the ground.

Black veins crawled along Ronan’s forearm, but he fought against them. He shouted as he sped upwards in the air, and he focused on making the black veins disappear. Ronan directed his energy to his Mark of the Butterfly, and it glowed a faint black.

The black veins disappeared, and Ronan had jumped about halfway to the bell.

But he was beginning to descend. He directed all his Essence into his feet. Warmth flowed from his arm down to his toes, and he imagined that there was a springboard beneath him. He tucked both his knees to his stomach, stomped down, then leapt up an extra sixty feet.

From the ground, Ike brushed Clove’s back with his hand.

“Look!” he exclaimed, “It’s like he’s stepped on the very air itself!”

Maritza smirked beside them, but quickly dropped any sign of emotion the second Ronan rang the bell.

As Ronan entered a freefall, he felt his hair push up past his ears and the rush of wind blow his shirt out from his belt. It felt incredible, falling like that, as if he’d experienced such a sensation before after waking from his nightmares.

Except, this was no dream, and he needed to break his fall using his marking.

The Shroud’s whispers filled his ear but he denied them. Ronan recalled Maritza’s form when she had landed on the ground gracefully. Ronan set his arms out wide to his side, closed his eyes, and envisioned the dirt he would be landing on.

The Trainees all gasped.

Massive wings formed of Essence grew from Ronan’s shoulders to break his fall, though Ronan’s wings did not resemble Maritza’s. Ronan’s wings looked like they were demonic, and unlike Maritza’s white butterfly wings, Ronan’s were black and resembled a moth’s.

Like a leaf floating down from a tall tree, Ronan landed gently with his first foot and then the other. The black Essence that had made his wings faded into black sparks, and he checked his forearm. His markings were sizzling and steaming, but there were no veins.

Ronan marched towards Maritza, satisfied but not displaying any arrogance.

He looked to Maritza and said, “I don’t need to rely on The Shroud anymore.”

And before Maritza could reply, Essence filled the progress bar on Ronan’s forearm, and a second tally etched beside his Mark of the Butterfly.

“Congratulations on Rank 2,” Clove said to Ronan with a smile and a wink.

Ike stared puppy-eyed at Ronan and told him, “You’ll take the Novice exams with no problem if you keep that up.”

From within the crowd, Freya nudged Alfred and whispered, “We need to find a way to make sure he does not pass the exams.”

Alfred smirked devilishly.

“I’ve got a plan or two,” he said. “But for once in your miserable life, Freya, you will need to demonstrate a modicum of patience.”

Freya grit her teeth and crossed her arms. She had once been invincible to Alfred’s cruelty, but ever since he’d lost half his face to Ronan, even she fell victim to his outbursts. It hurt her all the more because despite his horrific scarring, she still stood beside and supported him.

Freya felt unappreciated when she muttered, “He’ll pay for what he’s done to you.”

“In due time,” Alfred insisted.

“Ike!” Maritza called out. “You’re up next.”