From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 55: Second Trial, First Flame

The Citadel breathed differently now.

It wasn’t louder. Not faster. But aware. Like a beast no longer asleep, sensing a shift in its own bones. In its environment.

Leon stood at the southern yard where the oldest walls remained—walls that hadn’t been rebuilt since the first flames of war. They were blackened, rough, whispering of wars older than any name still taught in the courtyards. Marien stood nearby, arms folded, watching the fresh recruits spar under the eye of two instructors who’d both once worn the title of Warborn.

They were testing the revised rite again today.

There were no illusions. No memory seals. Just truth, movement, and reaction.

Leon stepped forward as the fifth cadet broke his stance, he was too rigid, too eager. He didn’t scold him. He simply adjusted. A hand on the shoulder. A small tilt of the heel.

"Too much force," Leon said. "You’re not trying to dominate the enemy. You’re trying to understand them and how they’ll move."

The boy nodded, swallowing his breath. No questions. Only another attempt.

They were listening. And that’s what mattered. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

A messenger arrived before midday. Hooded. Armed.

"For you," she said, extending a folded seal.

Leon broke it open. Read once. Then again.

Marien saw the shift in his expression before he even looked up. "What is it?"

"They’re calling an Assembly. Not just the heads of the council."

Her brow furrowed. "Then who?"

"Every living branch of the Nine Orders. They’re calling a Conclave."

Silence passed between them like the shadow of a falling blade.

"They think the new rite is a rebellion," she said quietly.

"No," Leon said. "They think it’s a declaration of war."

Marien looked past him toward the horizon. "Then we better be ready to finish what we started."

Leon folded the parchment and tucked it into his belt. "We’ll be ready, and we will face them with everything we have."

And for the first time in a century, beneath the old black wall, the Citadel’s flame altar was lit again. Not for ceremony.

But war.

For truth.

For the next trial that was to come.

And this time, the world would be watching.

By evening, the Southern Yard had drawn spectators—not for spectacle, but for certainty. Word of the Conclave travelled faster than protocol, and even the oldest instructors found themselves watching Leon more than the cadets. No one asked him to speak. No one dared.

Instead, he drew lines into the sand—literal ones. Two circles. Nine marks between them. A mirrored ring from one of the earliest rite tablets now reinterpreted. This wasn’t mimicry. But it was message.

Cadets stood at the outer ring. They were not selected. Not called. But they came.

"Three steps," Leon said, voice even. "Each one tied to purpose. Understanding, discipline, clarity."

The first cadet stepped forward, a girl with knotted braids and tired shoulders. She moved slow. Deliberate. Then bowed—not to Leon, but to the line.

Others followed.

Within an hour, seventeen had passed the mark. None failed. A few faltered. One cried.

No blade was drawn.

Later, near the flame altar, Leon sat on a stone bench with Marien and Kellen beside him. Their silence wasn’t tense. It was reverent.

"The Conclave won’t just argue," Kellen said eventually. "They’ll hold a vote. They might revoke the Citadel rights."

Leon’s gaze didn’t leave the flame. "Then they’ll declare themselves relics, like they hold some value."

"And if they vote to erase the new rite?" Marien asked.

Leon stood. "Then they’ll have to fight what’s already been lit."

The torchlight danced against the scorched wall. Shadows stretched like banners.

Because this wasn’t just the beginning of a trial.

It was the firestorm that would burn away everything false, untrue and everything hidden.

And Leon Thorne had already stepped into it.

The next day, riders arrived bearing banners of the Nine. Not armies, not yet—just envoys. They were their eyes, ears, and blades if needed. They didn’t speak to cadets. They walked with purpose, climbed the central stair, and entered the old tribunal with questions already sharpened.

Leon didn’t meet them immediately.

He spent the morning beside the instructors drafting the new pillar curriculum—an outline that stripped blood oaths from the rite, removed the ancestral gate trials, and instead asked cadets to demonstrate clarity of judgment through living trials.

Marien slid a parchment across the table. "This one’s a test of choice. Two wounded. One healer. They pick who lives."

Leon nodded slowly. "Good. Force them to confront what combat actually demands."

Outside, cadets ran sparring drills in silence. Not from fear. From focus.

By midday, a senior envoy from the House of Shields requested an audience. Leon met him not in the hall—but at the flame altar.

The envoy, cloaked in blue and steel, studied the fire and the man who lit it. "This wasn’t your right to change."

Leon replied evenly, "Then ask why it answered to me."

The envoy’s silence was its own answer.

Kellen joined them after. "The Conclave sits in three days," he said. "You’ll have to stand before them."

"I will."

"With no crown. And no house at your back."

Leon met his gaze. "I have the truth. It stands taller than any crest that may stand behind me."

And behind him, the fire did not flicker.

It roared.

That evening, scouts returned from the northern ridge. A caravan was camped there—neutral colours, but too many sentries. Too much steel.

Marien narrowed her eyes as she read the report. "They’re not waiting for the Conclave. They’re positioning."

Leon traced the ridge with a sharpened stick on the table. "They want leverage before they speak. That means they’re scared."

"Or planning to burn you from the inside," Kellen muttered.

Leon looked up. "Then we simply make sure they choke on the smoke."

He stood, this time not in contemplation, but in preparation. The cadets had passed their test. The flame had been lit. Now came the crucible—of legacy, of judgement, of power.

And if the Nine Orders wanted to strike the altar down again, they would not find a boy bearing rites.

They would find the heir of house Thorne who rewrote them.

And he will draw blood.