Frozen.
That was the sole word remaining in Kairen's mind. His feet refused to budge, frozen on the stone floor beneath the weight of his defeat.
Professor Thorne's words were a distant rumble, reminiscent of the sea contained within a shell, each word not being heard but sensed as a vibration of condemnation.
The faces of the other students dissolved into a single, hideous creature with a hundred judgmental eyes.
Move. He needed to move. Back into his seat. But shame was a tangible force, spearing him to the floor, pinning him down for everyone to witness.
One foot. And then the other. Every step a Herculean task, a trek over a mile of miles of shame.
The long walk to his desk seared worse than fire. He could sense them—each set of eyes, boring into him. Judging him. Pitying him.
He could hear the whispers, even those in his own mind. Dud. Blank. Pathetic. The heat of Kaelan's smug smile crawled up the back of his neck, a badge he felt without seeing.
They all notice me. Each step I make, they're giggling in their heads, he chastised himself, his inner voice a desperate, fractured refrain. Why am I even here? Why did I ever believe—
He fell back into his chair between Dain and Ilya, holding his eyes to the floor.
A jagged, crooked crack in the stone floor appeared to reflect how his heart was shattering into pieces.
He looked at it, concentrating on its harsh edges, anything but meeting the gazes he knew were on all their faces.
The lesson continued, although he hardly listened. Professor Thorne's voice cut through his haze, hard and piercing: "This is what occurs when a name is confused with talent… Magic pays no attention to your lineage. It does not curve for your vanity."
Every word was a sledgehammer blow, driven straight for him. He wished he could disappear, curl into himself until he was small enough to slip into the crack in the floor. His shoulder jerked—he thought someone had brushed against him—but it was just the specter of comfort that never arrived.
He hates me. He's making an example out of me, he thought, a wave of cold certainty washing over him. And maybe he's right. Maybe this is all I'll ever be—an empty name with nothing inside it.
Thorne's fingers interwove light and shadow. Sparks popped, colors blazed. Kairen once would have gazed in wonder. Now, each flash was a knife twist of inadequacy, a shining reminder of color and light he did not possess. But something within his brain, a vital part of him grasping for a life raft, shifted its attention.
Because he couldn't sense the magic, he began watching instead. He saw the measured tension in the fingers of Thorne, like a musician poised to strike a chord. He saw the breath the professor breathed, held for a moment, then let go like a hidden key opening a door.
He caught the glint in the air, a subtle ripple half a heartbeat before the spell manifested itself. The others all gazed at the inferno of glory; he saw the steady, calculated footprints that culminated in the fire.
Why am I noticing this? he thought bitterly. I can't make a spark, and yet… I see how he does it. I see the seams in his craft. What good is that? To be a critic of a language I can't speak? Watching won't make me less of a failure.
The bell screamed. BRRRIIINNNGGG!
The sudden, violent sound tore through him. His chest jolted, his hands shook. He grabbed his bag, fumbled, dropped his books, the clatter slamming in his ears. He had to run. Get out. Away from the whispers, away from the light, away from the weight of the mark searing against his skin, a brand of his shame.
Don't look at me. Don't say my name. Just let me go, he pleaded internally, as if the plea might push everyone away.
The hallway was a flood of bodies. Laughter. Shouts. All too bright, too loud. It was a river, and he was fighting against the current. Kairen shoved through, breath ragged, shoulder slamming into a tall boy.
"Watch it—oh. Look who it is." The older student sneered, his eyes flashing with cruel delight. "The Zephyrwind dud. Heard you made a mess of yourself in class." The sound of his friend's laugh was as sharp as breaking glass.
The words punched harder than fists. Kairen couldn't answer. His throat closed, thick with a shame so profound it was a physical gag. He bolted, the laughter following him down the hall.
It keeps spreading. Every hall I walk down, every whisper—it'll always be me, he told himself. The joke. The failure. The Zephyrwind with nothing.
"Kairen! Wait up!" Dain's voice thundered behind him. Too close. Too heavy. He couldn't face it—not Dain's pity, not Ilya's calm, knowing eyes. They had defended him, and all he had done was prove their efforts were a waste. He couldn't bear the kindness he didn't deserve.
Footsteps pounded after him. A hand clamped down on his shoulder. It was Dain, his broad face flushed, fierce with an anger that was all for Kairen's sake. Ilya was just behind, her silver gaze unreadable but seeing far too much.
"What's the rush?" Dain's voice dropped, gentler. "What Kaelan said—it's garbage. You hear me? Pure garbage."
Kairen's eyes darted to the wall past Dain's head. He couldn't meet his stare. His words came out cracked, brittle. "It doesn't matter. It's true."
"No, it's not!" Dain snapped, his grip tightening. "I'll pound him next time. I swear it—"
"Stop!" The shout tore from Kairen, raw and jagged, ripped from the very bottom of his soul. "You can't fix this, Dain! You can't punch the truth! What are you gonna do? Punch the whole school? Just—leave me alone."
It's not fair. Stop gazing at me as if I'm worth saving, the words grated within his brain. I can't save myself, even.
Dain's jaw set, his expression hardening with a stubborn loyalty that Kairen couldn't comprehend. "We're not leaving you. We're your friends."
That word—friends—hurt worse than Kaelan's laugh. It was too heavy, too kind. A gift he felt utterly unworthy of.
"Dain," Ilya whispered, her hand on his arm, her voice a soft counterpoint to the storm. "He isn't hearing us. He is hearing only himself. And that's tougher than any bully at school."
Kairen flinched as if punched. She was right. The truth in what she said stripped him bare, his armor broken. He shrugged Dain off, crying outright, and he ran.
He did not know where he was going. He merely ran. Halls of stone seemed to blur, corners turned unpredictably.
His lungs seared, his legs screamed, but still, he did not stop. Statues of past heroes lined a great hall, their unyielding stone eyes appearing to sneer at his weakness.
He saw his father's chiseled face among them, a monument to a heritage that he would never be able to fill, and sprinted harder, acid burning at the back of his throat.
Don't look at him. He wouldn't even recognize me as his son.
He charged down a flagstone path he'd never traversed before, taking a turn blindly. The sound of wood on wood and guttural, rough screams stopped him.
Under a broad curve of an arch, he saw a dusty bailey where a dozen naked-chested scholars struck heavy wooden broadswords against splintered training pikes. No sparks, no fiery runes, merely the relentless thwack of wood and the hiss of panted breaths. Their expressions were stern, their bodies glistening.
Kairen sneered, the taste of bile on his lips. Swordsmen. Thugs. Not magic. Not the gilded legacy he was born to fill. Sweat and splinters, the path for those who could never grasp true power. He spat in disgust and kept running, the image blurring behind him as he looked for a place where no one would witness him breaking.
A groaning heavy door at the end of a forgotten passage. He stumbled through and into silence.
The courtyard was broken, abandoned. Weeds spattered the stones. A toppled statue of a wizard half-submerged in green mold, its stone eyes staring blankly upwards at the heavens. In the center, a dead twisted tree reached out to the air. The place was ruined. It was perfect.
Alone. The word shattered him. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto a cold bench. His bag fell with a hollow thud. His hands trembled as he looked at them. Empty. Useless. He pressed them against his chest, against the mark burning under his uniform.
You're the curse, it whispered in his mind. You're the reason.
A raw, ragged sound was torn from his throat. Bitter, scalding tears streamed down his face, his shoulders heaving with nasty, uncontrollable sobs. He cried for the father he could not remember, for the mother he always disappointed, for the kid in the casting circle who had nothing. The sound was raw and coarse, the howl of a man who had lost it all before he had begun.
He cried until all that was left were hollow gasps, his head pounding. He huddled, eyes buried in his hands, the mark still burning, still speaking its venom.
Steps. Quiet on the stones covered with moss.
He didn't raise his head. "Leave me alone," he rasped, his voice torn and nearly gone.
The bench dipped beside him. Solid weight, steady as a mountain. Dain. "Nope," he said quietly.
Kairen looked up, his eyes swollen, his cheeks wet and raw. Ilya leaned against the gnarled tree, her arms folded. There was no pity in her face. Something else. Something deeper, like understanding.
Wiping his face on his sleeve, Kairen rasped, "You shouldn't see me like this."
"Like what?" Dain frowned, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "Like a person? My dad cries when the forge beats him down. Doesn't make him less of a man. Makes him real."
He stared at his own big, calloused hands. "My magic? It's strong, yeah. But it's wild. Scares me half the time. Once, when I was ten, I got mad at my brother. Blew a hole in the wall. Right by his head. I thought I was a monster for a week."
The raw, simple honesty of the confession hit Kairen harder than any blow. It left him stunned.
Ilya stepped closer, her voice calm as a still river. "This academy teaches only one kind of language—loud, bright, destructive. But there are others. The slow growth of a tree. The silence of thought. The loyalty that never bends."
Her eyes lingered on Dain for a moment, then returned to Kairen. "They've taught you that silence is weakness. But silence can be a strength. What did you feel, when you tried the spell? Not what you hoped. What you felt."
His throat tightened. He thought back to the casting circle, to that awful, crushing emptiness. "I felt… a void. Like reaching for something that wasn't there. Just empty."
"A void is not nothing," she said softly, her silver eyes holding his. "It is space. It waits to be filled. Or it can be a power all its own."
The words didn't fix him. They didn't magically heal the gaping wound in his chest. But something stirred within the emptiness. A small, fragile flicker. Not hope, not yet. But it wasn't despair.
Dain grinned and slapped his back—gently, for once. "See? Not empty. Just mysterious. And hungry. I know I am. Let's ditch this creepy place and find food. My treat."
Kairen looked from Dain's earnest, open face to Ilya's calm, steady gaze. He searched their faces, bracing for the pity, for the disappointment he was so used to. He found only acceptance.
His chest hitched. He was still broken, still unhealed. But not alone.