The world had become a constant assault.
Ash curled up at the bottom of a transport wagon, buried beneath a heap of coarse burlap sacks that reeked of moldy grain. The convoy wasn't carrying ore—it carried something far more valuable to the Empire: the "Bought." That's what they called common-born children touched by mana, ripped from their parents or salvaged from the ruins of villages like Ash's, destined to become magical cannon fodder or scholarly slaves.
The journey to Magna Solis was pure sensory torture. With every mile from the Wall, the Barrier thinned, letting in a light his pale blue eyes could not bear.
— "You're gonna suffocate under there, specter," someone teased.
Ash shoved a sack aside. Lyra, the short-haired girl he'd met in Val-de-Fer, watched him with a mixture of pity and curiosity. She was officially part of the convoy. She had the "gift."
— "The light… it burns," Ash hissed, his voice nothing more than a dry rasp.
— "That's because you're a cave rat," said Kaelen, another Bought with a cherubic face and spotless clothes. "The sun is the blessing of the One. If it hurts your eyes, maybe you have something to answer for."
Ash didn't bother replying. His "big mouth" was silenced by a migraine hammering his skull. He tried to summon his vision, to study the wagon wheel's structure, hoping to anticipate a break and prove useful.
He forced his eyes. The fault lines appeared—but they were no longer golden and clear like in the darkness of the frontier. In daylight, they glared like molten magnesium threads.
— "Argh!"
Ash pressed his hands to his eyes and collapsed against the wagon boards. His tears burned. It felt as if someone had driven red-hot needles into his pupils.
— "What's wrong?" Lyra asked, alarmed.
— "Nothing," Ash spat through gritted teeth. "Absolutely nothing."
He learned the lesson in pain: his vision was not absolute. It was a tool for the night. In daylight, it was poison, eating his retinas alive. Push it further, and he would be blind before even reaching the capital.
Dreams of the CondemnedThat night, as the convoy camped at the foot of the mountains, Ash listened to the Bought talk. To them, the Academy of Aethelis promised a life of luxury: silk gowns, feasts at the Emperor's table, prestige, glory.
— "Once we become mages, our families will lack nothing," said a little girl, barely ten, eyes shining.
Ash, huddled in the shadow of a wagon wheel, let out a bitter laugh. — "You really think they're buying you for cakes?"
All eyes turned to him. — "What do you know, savage?" Kaelen snapped. "You don't even have mana. You're just a stowaway they tolerate because you stole a coin."
— "I've seen how the Empire treats what it owns," Ash said, staring into the campfire. "You're not students. You're batteries. They'll drain you until nothing remains but dry husks. The Academy isn't a school—it's a forge. And you're the iron they hammer."
Silence fell. None of the Bought wanted to believe him, yet the cold certainty in his voice froze them. Ash saw the world as a lattice of fracture points; even their dreams had gaping cracks.
The Infernal AscentThe next day, the convoy began crossing the Silver Crests. The trail was narrow, treacherous, lined with cliffs that plunged into the void. The air thinned, but the light doubled, reflecting off the eternal snow.
Ash huddled under his filthy blindfold, moving blindly to the rhythm of hooves and the guards' curses.
Suddenly, the convoy halted. A cry of wonder rose from the wagons.
— "Look! We've reached the summit!"
Ash felt an oppressive heat strike his face—different, massive, suffocating. Even through the cloth, he glimpsed a red glow through his eyelids. Driven by a mix of curiosity and masochism, he slipped the blindfold aside.
The sun had crossed the horizon, unfiltered. No longer the dim light of the Frontier, no longer the gray of Val-de-Fer. It was a burst of pure, blinding gold.
Ash fell to his knees on the icy rock, hands clawing the stone.
His eyes screamed in agony, as if molten lead had been poured into them. Blood trickled from his left eye, painting a crimson streak down his pale cheek. The valleys of the Empire, distant cities with polished tile roofs—everything was agony to him.
— "It's… too much…" he groaned, wracked with pain.
While the other Bought wept with joy at the "beauty" of creation, Ash vomited along the path. The sun was a tyrant. An arrogant force that allowed no shadow, no refuge. It was the gaze of a God who forgave nothing.
— "I'll kill you," he whispered to the star, face twisted in pain and fury. "One day, I'll find your flaw and snuff you out."
Lyra stepped forward to help him, but he shoved her hand away with feral strength. He pulled his blindfold back over his eyes, locking himself into darkness by choice. Better blind than witness a world celebrating light while his own world rotted in blood.
The Road of SubmissionThe convoy descended toward the inner lands. Ash saw nothing. He remained in his self-imposed darkness, sharpening his other senses. He listened to the vibrations of the ground, felt the currents of air. His Atom Vision, useless in this hell of light, adapted—becoming a passive radar, an intuition of the fragility of the world around him.
He overheard the guards talk. "Sancta-Lux," the holy city they were to pass through. The Inquisition "clearing" the roads ahead of the Saint's procession.
Ash remembered Selaphiel—the quiet girl who had laid her hands on his childhood wounds. Now she was a symbol of this blinding world.
Had she changed too? he wondered. Had she become as cruel as this sun?
He clenched his iron coin. His hands crusted with sores, body weakened by hunger and migraines. He was no hero walking toward destiny. He was a remnant of the frontier, a specter moving blindfolded toward a capital that would likely execute him on arrival.
Yet, behind the blindfold, in the total darkness of his mind, Ash saw one thing. One single fault line, vast and unbroken.
The fault line of this entire world.
He did not yet know how to strike it, but he knew he was the only one who could see it. And for that alone, he would keep walking, even if each step felt like walking across burning coals.