Kingdom of theSightless
Chapter One
The Boy with No Light
The world didn't end with fire. It ended with awakening.
Not everyone noticed at first. A boy ran through the air to impress a girl. A man lifted a cart with one hand. A child born mute spoke to her mother—through her dreams.
Within a month, chaos ruled the earth.
Governments tried to contain it. They failed.
When a man can melt iron with his touch, and another can heal gunshot wounds in seconds, laws become suggestions. Nations fell to internal collapse. Borders became memories. Men with ambition rose, and the old world—built on paperwork, taxes, and men in suits—burned like dry grass.
From the ashes, new rulers emerged.
Not kings. Not gods. Banners.
They were the descendants of the strongest Awakened—those who seized land, people, and legacy. Each ruled with a symbol and a bloodline.
House Velstrom, lords of stone and harvest, hoarded grain like gold.
House Daravin, skycallers and stormbinders, lived in the high towers.
House Merrowind, cold and refined, ruled rivers and whispers.
House Ironcrest, ironflesh warriors, ruled with fire and fist.
They wore robes woven from silk and old tech fibers. Their manors stood where government halls once rose. Their servants were nameless, their punishments public, their smiles cold.
Below them, the people survived.
In the town of Lowreach, children carried knives instead of toys. Mothers bartered photos for bread. Men joined patrols just to feed their families.
Most feared the Marked—those with powers. Some worshipped them. Most envied them. Few defied them.
Kael Ardyn was not born with power.
He was born with quiet eyes and steady hands, the kind of child who listened more than he spoke. His mother called him a fire trapped in stone—slow to rise, but impossible to extinguish.
She died when he was seven.
Burned alive in a market fire set by a noble's child. An accident, they said. A boy still learning his gift. Apologies were sent—to the people who mattered.
Kael's father, once a skilled carpenter, broke quietly. He tried to rebuild their lives, but grief splintered him. By the time Kael turned ten, he was the one gathering water, bartering soup, and keeping them alive.
Then the soldiers came.
They said his father hoarded grain. They dragged him outside during the rain and made an example of him.
Kael watched. Not because he wanted to. But because he couldn't look away.
The years after blurred like broken glass. Kael scavenged metal, ran errands, and slept beneath bridges or broken cars. His hands learned silence. His heart learned restraint.
Then came his fifteenth birthday.
He awoke to silence.
The rain outside his window had frozen midair. Fire in the barrel no longer danced. Even his breath was still.
A voice filled his head.
"Three paths lie before you, Kael Ardyn. You may walk the Path of the Common Flame and gain a minor gift. You may kneel and be granted the Servant's Mark. Or you may walk the Path of the Forgotten Gaze—receive nothing but sight, and fifteen years to shape the gift the world has denied you."
He chose the third.
Because it gave him nothing. And he trusted nothing more than himself.
Fifteen years passed.
Kael Ardyn, thirty now, sat beneath a bridge of cracked stone and rusted rebar. His jacket was frayed, his boots scavenged, and his knife sharpened by hand. His face bore the wear of time, his eyes colder than the winter river.
He still had no power.
Just slightly enhanced sight. He saw a bit farther. Reacted a bit faster. Could read emotion in subtle eye twitches and movements. Enough to survive. Not enough to be feared.
He was mocked. Ignored. Called names like "Blindspawn" or "Stone Eyes."
But Kael had watched this world. Every trade. Every betrayal. Every cruelty passed down like inheritance from noble to child.
He'd watched, and waited.
Because the voice had promised one thing:
"In the fifteenth year, your truth shall shape the gift that power cannot imitate."
He didn't know what that meant.
But he knew his time was near.
And when it came...
He would not build a castle. He would build a kingdom.