Chapter 1: The Boy Who Asked for Mercy

After I swung my sword and took my enemy’s head, I was halfway to the door when I noticed his kid staring at me. I turned to face him. “Remember my face,” I said. “When you’re grown, come find me for your revenge.”

My voice echoed in the blood-splattered room. The smell of iron was thick in the air. For a second, it made my stomach twist. The kid just stared at me, eyes wide, face pale beneath the streaks of blood and tears. I expected rage, or at least a scream. Instead, he just reached out, grabbing the hem of my battered old coat with a desperate grip, knuckles white.

The kid clung to my coat, his grip trembling, and begged me to take him on as my apprentice. “Please, take me with you. Teach me.”

His voice shook, but he was stubborn. “Please, take me with you. Teach me.” There was no hate in his eyes, just raw pain and something else—hope, maybe, or just the last scraps of it. I almost missed it. I remember feeling the weight of that moment settle on my shoulders, heavier than the sword I carried.

I just stood there, stunned. For a second, I couldn’t even move. “You think learning from me will make it easier to kill me later?”

The words slipped out before I could stop them. Half-joke, half-challenge. I’d seen plenty of kids swear vengeance, but never one who wanted to follow the killer home. I watched him, waiting for a flicker of anger. But he just shook his head, lips trembling.

He just shook his head again. “Because I don’t want to kill you.”

His voice was quiet, but steady. There was an honesty in it that cut through the chaos of the night. For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. The world had always been simple—hurt or be hurt, take or be taken. But this kid, standing in the ruins of his old life, wanted something different.

I taught Caleb Martinez the sword for ten years. And for ten years, he called me ‘Coach.’

Every morning, rain or shine, he’d be up before dawn, waiting for me on the porch with that battered wooden sword I gave him. He never missed a lesson, never complained—just called me Coach, like I was the only anchor he had left. The title stuck. After a while, I started to answer to it without thinking.

That day, I broke into his house, raised my blade, and killed his parents. Afterward, I stood in the silence, blood cooling on my hands. I told him that when he grew up, he should come find me for revenge.

It was a night I’d relived a thousand times in my mind. The creak of the floorboards, the cold glint of steel, the look in his parents’ eyes before it all went dark. I’d told him to remember me, to come for my head when he was strong enough. It was the code of the underground, the way we settled debts.

Ten-year-old Caleb’s face was streaked with tears. He clung to my coat. He said he wanted to be my apprentice—not for revenge, but because he really meant it.

The kid’s hands shook as he held on, but his voice was clear. He looked up at me, eyes swollen and red, but determined. I could tell he’d made up his mind, and nothing I said would change it.

Honestly, I was baffled. “Why?”

I’d seen people beg for their lives, beg for mercy, beg for revenge. But never this. I stared at him, waiting for the catch.

He hesitated, then said, “An eye for an eye—when does it stop? The hate between you ended with your sword. I shouldn’t keep it going. If we do this forever, the world just stays full of blood and chaos.” He looked down, voice trembling. “I know it sounds dumb, but…”

His words hung in the air, heavy as the silence that followed. Even with his voice cracking, his meaning was sharp as a blade. He sounded older than his years, and for a second, I felt the weight of every old grudge I’d ever carried.

This kid, heartbroken and sobbing, spoke with a seriousness that hit me hard.

The whole room seemed to pause—broken furniture, blood on the floor. Ghosts of old violence lingered in the air. I saw something in him that made me wonder if maybe, just maybe, things could be different. But I kept my face hard, unwilling to let him see the cracks.

I thought, If you don’t want revenge, does that really mean there’ll be peace? Out there, it’s not just up to you.

I’d seen too much to believe in easy answers. Out there, the world chewed up anyone who didn’t fight back. Still, I found myself wanting to believe him, if only for a moment.

So I just said, “If you don’t want revenge, fine. But why do you want to be my apprentice?”

I watched his face closely, looking for a lie, some hidden agenda. But all I saw was grief, confusion, and a stubborn kind of hope.

Caleb looked at his parents’ bodies, then closed his eyes, his voice trembling. “You killed my parents. I’m hurting and angry, and even though I know I shouldn’t, I still want to kill you. But if I become your apprentice, after all these years, maybe I’ll stop wanting to.”

He spoke the words like a confession, laying his soul bare. I could see him struggling, torn between what he felt and what he wanted to be. There was a strange kind of honesty in that, and I respected it, even if I didn’t understand it.

“…That’s a new one,” I admitted.

I let out a short, bitter laugh. Couldn’t help it. In all my years, nobody had ever come up with that angle before. It was so earnest, so unexpected, that it knocked the wind right out of me.

So, on a whim, I agreed. I took him up to my cabin in the Smoky Mountains and taught him everything I knew about the sword.

Maybe I just didn’t want to be alone. Maybe I saw something in him I couldn’t admit. Either way, I packed up his things, drove him out of town, and brought him to my place. An old log cabin halfway up a mountain, where the fog rolls in thick every morning and the world feels far away.

I’m the last inheritor of the Cloudridge Blade, one of the thirty-seven sword schools from the old American fencing circuit, and now one of the Seven Sword Saints left in the underground. For this kid, having me as a coach was a stroke of luck.

The old fencing circuit was mostly gone—just stories now. Whispered about in late-night bars or old gym basements. But I kept the tradition alive, teaching him the forms, the footwork, the discipline. Sometimes, I’d catch him staring at the mountains, like he was looking for something he’d lost, or maybe something he hoped to find.

Over the years, I’d ask if he wanted to challenge me, to get his revenge, but he always shook his head.

Every year on the anniversary, I’d pour us both a drink—him milk, me bourbon. I’d ask, "You ready to settle the score yet?" He’d just smile, shake his head, and go back to practicing. He never forgot, but he never let it eat him alive, either.

I always figured revenge was just how things went. Where there are people in the underground, there are grudges.

In my world, every handshake came with a knife behind the back. I tried to teach him that, but he never quite bought it. Sometimes I wondered if he was the fool—or if I was.