I woke to a tear-stained face and the hollow ache that always followed the dream.

  It always slipped away like smoke through my fingers. I remembered only warmth: a campfire, someone beside me, laughter swallowed by wind. Then nothing. Just the ache.

  I sat up in the narrow dorm bed, heart still half-caught in that other world. The sheets were damp with sweat. The room smelled of oil, steel, and old dust. The Guild dorms weren’t charity; anyone could rent a cot if they paid the fee and didn’t make trouble. My father would’ve rather seen me sleeping in an alley than under the Guild’s roof, so that’s exactly where I went—somewhere he’d never follow. That was reason enough to stay. Defiance had become the only language my father and I still spoke.

  I shook the sour memories of my father free from my head. Today was supposed to matter: the Guild exam, the day I proved I wasn’t just another blind waste of noble blood. The exam wasn’t just another license test—it was the only door left open to me. Top-ranked students earned their way into the Alvarian Guard through the academies. People like me had to claw their way up through the Adventurer ranks. Become Obsidian, or stay a nobody.

  I dragged a hand down my face and stood, joints popping like kindling. Cold air leaked through the cracked window, chasing away the last of sleep. I washed, dressed, and strapped on my gear: leather tunic, cloth greaves, bucklers, sword.

  Downstairs, the other trainees looked up as I passed. Some whispered. Others didn’t bother hiding their smirks. Six months here and still the same: the boy who couldn’t see threads with a noble name and no right to carry it.

  I left the whispers behind, but they followed anyway.

  The southern woods waited behind the dormitory, far enough from the dorm that no one cared what I tried. Frost clung to the grass as I stepped into the clearing, my breath fogging in the cold. I stretched, reached inward, and felt the faint pulse of threads beneath my skin.

  Focus. Breathe.

  I’d never see threads the way others did, no matter how hard I tried. Although I couldn’t see the bright lines or colors, I could feel them. Pressure, heat, and motion all guiding my weave. Clarity might win exams, but Will kept you alive—and that was something numbers couldn’t measure.

  I closed my eyes and felt for the invisible world around me.

  The unseen world pressed in, warmth like a dim fire, the ground thrumming softly beneath my feet. I could feel the different threads dancing around me: fire, earth, water, wind. All of them awaited my call.

  Fire first. The threads burned in my mind’s eye as I guided them into the pattern I’d memorized from a stolen sigil chart. The fireball burst from my palm, slammed into a tree, and bloomed against the bark with a dull roar. The air smelled of char, a good start.

  Next, augmentation.

  I drew my focus inward, channeling the threads into my legs, arms, and back. Closing my eyes, I drew my sword. I pictured a wild boar across the clearing. It charged first, tusks glinting in imagined sunlight. I slipped right, the wind of its rush brushing my sleeve, and slashed for its flank. Too shallow. It reared to strike.

  Bracing behind my sword, I pushed back with augmented strength, shoving the beast off balance. The instant it stumbled, I seized the earth threads, compressed them, and hurled a spinning stone bullet. It hit the boar’s shoulder with a crack, burying deep. The air filled with the metallic scent of blood.

  Before it could recover, I caught the nearby water threads and drove them into the soil. The ground softened, turning to a sucking mire, locking the beast’s legs in place.

  I steadied my breath, feeling every thread tighten beneath my skin. Then I shaped a blade of air and swept it forward. The scythe carved clean through, the boar’s head thudded into the mud with a wet slop.

  My eyes opened to the quiet clearing. A tree before me leaned precariously, its trunk nearly split by my last strike. Too close. Any harder, and the guards would have seen the fallen tree.

  I exhaled, sheathed my sword, and wiped sweat from my brow. Despite myself, I smiled. For all their laughter, none of them could feel what I felt in that moment—the world’s pulse answering back through me.

  Today, they’d see it.

  They’d have to.

  The wind died, leaving the clearing still and hollow. The scent of ash lingered on my palms as I turned back toward the dorms.

  Each step toward the city pulled me further from the silence I craved. The hum of distant life bled through the trees: steel striking steel, wheels on cobblestone, the pulse of a world I still didn’t belong to.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  By the time the first rooftops appeared beyond the frost, I’d already buried the smile.

  The streets of Etrielle stretched wide before me, swept by the cold breath of the mountains. On the surface, it was a beautiful city—a place of marble towers and grand halls where Arcanists were born and praised. But I knew better.

  The market was alive with noise: merchants shouted, armor gleamed on display stands, and the smell of roasted meat that always promised more flavor than it delivered. I’d walked these streets countless times since leaving my childhood home, and the faces never changed.

  They always looked at me the same way.

  “Isn’t that the thread blind Fyrne boy?” someone whispered as I passed.

  “Yeah. Heard his Clarity is zero. Got tossed out of his house for it.”

  Their laughter followed me like a foul scent, but I didn’t slow. I’d grown used to the whispers, the pity, the sneers. They were as much a part of this city as the stone beneath it.

  Halfway to the guild hall, movement caught my eye—a crowd gathered around a man and a small, trembling boy. Curious, I pushed through the bodies until their voices cut through the noise.

  “You filthy little lowlife,” the man spat, towering over the child. “Think you can steal from me and get away with it?”

  “That’s the fourth loaf he’s taken this week, Lambert! Teach him a lesson!” another onlooker jeered.

  “He’s just a child,” someone murmured, too softly to matter.

  “Don’t,” a woman’s voice broke from the crowd, but no one looked her way.

  A few turned their eyes, uneasy, but none stepped forward.

  The boy’s voice cracked as he tried to explain, “Please, my sister and I are hungry. I didn’t mean any harm. We just needed food.”

  “Not my problem, you gutter-born rat,” the man growled. His fist came down hard. Once, then twice, the boy crumpled to the dirt.

  The crowd’s comments blended into a chorus of cruelty.

  “I’m sick of these slum brats.”

  “They should stay where they belong.”

  “Thieves, the lot of them.”

  The boy’s eyes found mine, wide, glossy, asking a question I didn’t have the strength to answer.

  Heat climbed my neck, anger boiling under my skin. I took a step forward, ready to stop it, but a city guard pushed past before I could move.

  “What’s going on here?” the guard asked, hand on his hilt.

  “This thief,” the man said, still panting, “stole bread from my stall. I was teaching him a lesson.”

  The guard looked from the man to the bloodied boy, then sighed. “Very well. I’ll take it from here.”

  Relief hit me, briefly, until I saw him shackle the boy’s wrists.

  The iron bit into bone, no speech and no mercy.

  “He’ll be dealt with according to the Law of Sight,” the guard said flatly.

  I froze. My fists clenched until my nails dug into my palms.

  For a heartbeat, I wanted to scream, to call him a coward, to tear the chains off myself. But I knew what would happen next: rumor, trial, and the quiet erasure that followed. If I opened my mouth, I would share his fate. So I did nothing.

  The guard dragged the child away, his cries fading into the noise of the crowd. I stood there a moment longer, the guilt sitting heavy in my throat, before turning toward the Guild.

  The cold wind felt sharper now.

  The child’s cries faded behind me, but the guilt clung like a wet fog. I hated how easily the world looked away, how power decided who deserved compassion.

  If I were stronger, maybe I could’ve stopped it. Maybe next time, I will.

  The thought burned hotter with every step until I could see the Guild. Today wasn’t just an exam—it was proof that I wasn’t helpless. That the thread blind Fyrne boy could make the world see him.

  The Guild Hall loomed ahead, a massive structure with a front door large enough for a drake to stride through. I had to fight my way through a river of bodies to get inside. Most of them, judging by their nervous chatter, were here for the same reason I was: the Adventurer Exam.

  Inside, the noise was deafening. Every receptionist desk was mobbed, each one with a line of hopefuls waiting for their turn. I slipped into the shortest queue I could find and took a moment to study the room.

  It was a strange crowd, peasants, nobles, even a few gray-haired veterans. All of them packed into the same space, chasing the same chance. For once, class and birth didn’t seem to matter.

  As I scanned the hall, my gaze caught on someone unexpected.

  A young woman with silver hair cascading past her shoulders. Eyes like frozen lakes met mine for the briefest second. I froze. Then she looked away, and the moment passed. She had the bearing of royalty, too composed, too perfect to be here. Maybe she was just curious about the fallen Fyrne boy who couldn’t see threads.

  The line moved faster than expected. Soon, I could hear the receptionist questioning the man two lines over.

  “Your name and desired role,” she said, flat and bored.

  “Merric Caldren, Vanguard,” came the reply, deep, calm, confident. I turned slightly. The man towered over the crowd, easily six feet tall, shoulders like a fortress wall.

  “Your age and hometown, please.”

  “Nineteen. Halcwyn.”

  Her brow lifted. “Halcwyn? There’s a guild there already. Why register in Etrielle?”

  “My family moved here after… a disagreement with the local nobles,” he said evenly.

  “I see. My apologies, I shouldn’t have pried.”

  “No worries,” Merric replied with an easy grin. “Am I good to go?”

  She nodded, motioning him through the door behind her.

  Before I could think much of their exchange, my turn came.

  “Next in line,” the woman at my desk called.

  I stepped forward, doing my best to keep my voice steady.

  “Name and desired role?”

  “Vaelyn Fyrne, reaver.”

  Her eyes flicked up. “As in the sightless Fyrne boy?”

  I exhaled slowly through my nose. “That’s me.”

  A smirk curved her lips. “And you expect to pass an exam meant for Arcanists?”

  I leaned forward just enough for my tone to land sharply. “Show me the rule that says Clarity’s required. If there isn’t one, just register the name.”

  Her smile faltered. “Very well,” she muttered. “Age and hometown?”

  “Eighteen. Etrielle.”

  “You’re processed,” she said curtly, motioning toward the heavy door behind her. “Find your proctor on the other side.”

  “Thank you,” I said flatly and pushed past her.

  As I crossed the threshold, my heart drummed in my chest. My palms were slick, my pulse steady but heavy.

  It was finally time.

  Time to prove that even the blind can see more clearly than those who mock them.