Cade’s breath trembled in his chest as the last echoes of the exam faded into the courtyard air.

  Heat shimmered off the stone. Ash drifted in soft spirals. His sword hummed faintly in his grip.

  He didn’t know if he’d passed. He didn’t know if he’d gone too far. He only knew he was exhausted—heart pounding, lungs burning—as he fought to steady his breathing.

  The crowd around him felt distant, muffled by adrenaline.

  Cade drew in one long inhale, just trying to calm himself—

  That was when he heard footsteps.

  Slow. Measured. Controlled.

  Not a student. Someone with weight in their stride. Someone who expected immediate obedience.

  He kept breathing, head bowed slightly as he tried to collect himself. He didn’t speak. Didn’t move.

  And somehow, that was enough to be a mistake.

  The air sharpened. A cold pressure slipped beneath the heat, crawling up Cade’s spine.

  He sensed something wrong with a heartbeat before it hit.

  His grip tightened on instinct—

  Too late.

  Agony exploded across his vision.

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  Light vanished. Color vanished. The world vanished.

  He collapsed forward, knees buckling as blood streamed hot down his face. The pain was blinding—because it had taken his sight entirely.

  His sword slipped—and in that stumbling, blind collapse, the blade’s momentum carried it into the person standing directly in front of him.

  A choked breath. A body falling. Gasps erupting around him.

  Cade didn’t see any of it.

  Then a sharp crack—a spell being cast.

  Someone shouted his name from somewhere far too close.

  Cade reached out blindly—

  A body collided with his. Another. Friends—he could feel their panic, the pain in one of their chests, the trembling mana of a barrier half-formed.

  He couldn’t protect them.

  Couldn’t even see them.

  His voice trembled.

  “Please… help…”

  Not directed. Not conscious. Just a broken plea to a world going dark around him.

  And the world answered.

  Not with noise.

  With stillness.

  Everything froze. Mana hushed. Breaths softened. Even the pain dulled as warmth spread gently through the air.

  Someone knelt beside him.

  A hand—soft, impossibly warm—touched his cheek.

  And with that touch, the world slammed into him all at once.

  Every heartbeat. Every mana signature. Every blade of grass stirring in the courtyard.

  All of it flooded into his skull, violent and overwhelming.

  It was too much.

  But the voice—

  “My child…”

  Quiet but vast, like moonlight given sound. It filled him, soothed him, unraveled the terror.

  Fingerpads brushed across his face, clearing the blood.

  Light—soft, shimmering—poured from her hands. The torn flesh knit, the bleeding stopped, the skin sealed smooth and whole.

  But darkness remained.

  No shapes. No light. No return of sight.

  A tender breath against him.

  “The rot has taken what I cannot give back,” she whispered. “But you will not be left broken.”

  A cloth—cool, living, divine—slipped over his eyes. Not fabric. Not normal. It pulsed with something ancient, anchoring his new senses, quieting the storm inside his skull.

  “You walk a painful road,” the voice murmured, fading like a receding tide. “But you were made to stand.”

  A final whisper brushed against his ear:

  “Your first hunt begins now.”

  And then—

  She was gone.

  The world roared back to life—shouts, chaos, pain—but Cade felt it differently now.

  His sight was gone.

  His senses were reborn.

  And everything that mattered had only just begun.