Roan had already withdrawn, his part in the transaction complete.
The knight studied me with the intensity of someone appraising livestock. His gaze moved from my head to my feet, cataloging, measuring.
"Kevin Voss," he said finally.
I said nothing, returning his stare with what I hoped was appropriate deference.
He seemed to expect more of a reaction. When none came, he proceeded to outline my history, reading from a document with a professional tone that stripped away any lingering sense of individuality.
"Orphanage entry at age seven. Brain tumor diagnosed at nine—treated successfully. Second tumor diagnosis at thirteen—also treated. Enrolled in Elite Magic High School at fourteen, current age eighteen, status classified as medically stable..."
His voice trailed off as he read through the details of my suffering like a grocery list. I listened without interrupting, understanding that this was theater—the knight needed to assert his authority through recitation before he could lower himself to actual conversation.
When he finally finished, he set the document aside with visible relief.
"Aulira funded your medical care," he stated, not as a question but as an assertion of fact.
"No," I said simply. "My father paid for it."
The knight's eyebrow rose. "Your father?"
"He was a knight," I confirmed. "Low-ranking. He used his salary, his retirement compensation, and his death benefits to cover my treatment."
I watched the knight's expression shift—a subtle change, but present. Satisfaction, perhaps. Relief that my father had not achieved a high enough status to represent a threat to the family's narrative.
"A junior knight," he clarified, more to himself than to me.
"Yes."
He nodded, processing this information. What he was doing, I understood, was contextualizing my existence within the hierarchy. A junior knight's son was acceptable casualty material. The debt I owed Aulira was minimal because the sacrifice had been made by someone of negligible status.
"You're eighteen now," he continued. "Medically cleared. Has your Blessing manifested?"
This was the crucial moment. The Blessing was everything in this world. A person without a Blessing was essentially useless—a mouth to feed, resources squandered. A person with a Blessing was valuable, potentially, depending on what that Blessing was.
My Journal had bloomed years ago, in 2009, when I was just nine years old. But I had never disclosed it. From the moment I understood what it could do, I understood that revealing it would mark me as either invaluable or dangerous. Neither designation was safe.
"No," I lied, shaking my head. "Nothing yet."
The knight's disappointment was palpable. "Still nothing? At eighteen?"
"Some people bloom late," I offered, and the knight seemed to accept this, perhaps because he wanted to. Late bloomers were theoretically still possible investments. Completely Blessingless people were not.
"The main family is disappointed in you," he said, his tone carrying the weight of institutional judgment. "Do you understand the cost of maintaining this orphanage? Fifty to sixty million credits annually. Tuition, food, education, administration, staff salaries—all of it. And you've contributed nothing."
I absorbed the figure without flinching, though internally I was calculating. That was a staggering amount of money, which meant the orphanage's closure would save the family a significant portion of their budget. The knight's message, then, was not one of disappointment but of inevitability. The decision had already been made.
"The orphanage is being closed," he said, confirming my hypothesis.
The statement hung in the air like a guillotine blade. Somewhere in this facility, nearly a thousand children would soon learn they had nowhere to go. Some might find adoption. Most would not. The thought should have devastated me.
It didn't.
Perhaps because I'd already experienced the catastrophe. Perhaps because I was already numb to such tragedies. Or perhaps because I was beginning to understand that personal suffering was irrelevant if the system itself was the true enemy.
"However," the knight continued, his tone shifting into something resembling encouragement, "there is an opportunity. The main family—Lord Leo specifically—believes in merit. We're organizing a competition. A match between selected orphans and our warrior cohort. If you prove yourself capable, the orphanage's fate might be reconsidered."
I recognized this for what it was: a lie designed to motivate. The orphanage would close regardless. The match was theater, a means of identifying and extracting any valuable assets before dismantling the facility.
"I understand," I said, and I meant it in a way he couldn't possibly comprehend.
I rose to leave, seeing no purpose in prolonging the conversation.
"Wait," the knight called out, something in his voice suggesting genuine curiosity rather than procedural requirement. "You're different from the others here. More mature. More aware. Have you considered why your Blessing hasn't manifested? Most children show signs by your age."
I paused at the threshold, turning back to face him. What I saw was a man trying to solve a puzzle, trying to understand something that didn't fit into the categories he'd been trained to recognize.
I smiled, and it was a bitter expression—the smile of someone looking at the past from the vantage point of the future.
"I don't know," I said truthfully, in a way. "Perhaps I'm simply a late bloomer."
The knight accepted this, though something in his eyes suggested he suspected there was more to my answer.
"Lord Leo believes in giving everyone a fair opportunity," he said, the phrase sounding rehearsed, like something he'd been instructed to say. "You might surprise us all."
"Perhaps I will," I replied.
As I left the room, I felt the weight of his gaze on my back. He was trying to catalog me, to place me within a schema he understood. He would fail, because I existed outside the boundaries of his comprehension—a person carrying memories of a future that no longer existed, plotting a revenge that transcended individual grievance.
The machinery of Aulira power had ground forward for a thousand years. But machines, if you understood their design, could be dismantled.
I just had to survive long enough to do it.