I could tolerate the broken ribs. Pain was familiar territory by now. What I couldn't swallow was the fact that Prince Albert had used my father's rusted sword to break them.
To anyone else, the blade looked worthless, pitted iron, a leather grip worn thin from age, and a crossguard that rattled faintly whenever it moved. Nothing impressive. But to me, it was the last proof that I'd existed somewhere before the Aethelgard Orphanage claimed me as another nameless stray. Now the same sword was buried in the mud beside me, serving as a convenient lever while Albert pressed my chest into the ground and the Royal Parade cheered loudly.
"Keep your head down, Void-Touch," Albert murmured. His voice carried that smooth, polished calm nobles practiced in front of mirrors. "The Duchess dislikes looking at filth while she boards her carriage."
I knelt in a thick slurry of yesterday's rain and today's horse manure. Around us the capital looked almost unreal, white stone balconies draped with gold banners, street mages tossing decorative sparks into the air, and the smell of roasted meat drifting through crowds dressed in fabrics worth more than my entire life. Everywhere I looked there was color and magic, except where I was.
In Aethelgard, mana was everything. People believed it was the mark of a soul itself. Without it, you were less. And I had none.
"The step, Jayden," Albert said lazily.
I obeyed. My joints cracked when I moved, the unpleasant reminder of a week of "special training." Training that mostly involved dodging the Prince's fireballs while trying not to collapse. I crawled forward and flattened myself beside the gilded carriage. For a moment, I wasn't a person anymore, just a step.
A metal-plated boot dropped squarely between my shoulder blades. The air left my lungs in a rough wheeze. Albert didn't simply step across me; he paused there, shifting his weight slowly as if testing a new piece of furniture while waving at the cheering crowd.
"Look at him," a noblewoman laughed from the carriage window above. "Like a trained dog. Does it even feel pain, Albert?"
"Hard to say," Albert replied casually. "They say the Void-Touched are hollow inside. Maybe that's what makes them so durable."
He stepped off my back, reaching for the carriage door. Then he "stumbled." The move was so obvious it might as well have been rehearsed. His boot came down again, this time directly on my right hand.
My knuckles cracked beneath the pressure, though the sound vanished beneath the blast of parade trumpets. Albert leaned into it, pressing harder, his mana-reinforced strength forcing my fingers deeper into the wet earth. The crowd laughed. Why wouldn't they? To them it looked like a High Mage correcting a flaw in the world.
I should have screamed. Begging might have helped too. That was the usual script for someone in my position—show weakness, apologize for existing, maybe survive another day. But when the pain flared white-hot and shot up my arm, something inside me didn't break. It froze.
Slowly, I turned my head. My gaze moved past the polished silver of his greaves, past the velvet blue of his tunic, and finally met Albert's eyes. I didn't blink or look away. My eyes were the dull grey of a storm that hadn't broken yet, and I held his gaze with a calm that didn't belong to someone whose hand was being crushed. I memorized everything—the shade of his eyes, the curl of his lip, the faint twitch near his nostrils when he got irritated. I wasn't looking at a prince. I was looking at a target.
Albert's smirk faltered. The laughter around us thinned out as the nobles noticed the silence coming from the mud. For the briefest moment, the Golden Boy image slipped. Something in my stare made him pull his foot back instinctively, a flicker of genuine unease crossing his face before he masked it with a quick adjustment of his cape.
"What are you staring at, trash?" he hissed.
"The mirror," I said quietly.
"What?"
"I'm looking at the man you have to become just to feel powerful," I replied, my voice rough but steady. "That must be exhausting."
Albert's face darkened, color flooding into his cheeks. Mana swirled around his raised hand, golden light crackling in the air like heat before a storm. For a moment I thought he might kill me right there in front of the King's Guard. The air grew warmer; the smell of ozone burned at my nose.
Then he stopped. His eyes flicked to the crowds, to the magical scribes recording the parade, to the watching nobles. Executing a powerless nobody in public would ruin the image of mercy he'd carefully built.
Instead, he leaned down and grabbed my hair, yanking my face close to his. His breath smelled faintly of mint. "You think you're brave because you can take a beating?" he whispered. "You're not brave, Jayden. You're just a mistake that hasn't been erased yet."
He shoved my head back into the mud and released me. Before stepping away, he wiped his hand on my father's rusted sword where it still stuck from the ground, then kicked the weapon toward me.
"Clean yourself up," Albert said loudly, slipping back into his public tone. "You've got a big day tomorrow. Since you're so sturdy, the Academy board approved you for a front-line support role."
He climbed into the carriage. The door closed with a heavy, final click.
Just before the carriage began moving, the window slid down slightly.
"Tomorrow's expedition to the Abyssal Trenches… you're the bait, Jayden," Albert's voice drifted out, cold and thin. "There are things down there that feed on mana. Since you have none, you'll make the perfect lure. Try not to scream too loudly. It ruins the hunt."
The carriage rolled forward, its wheels splashing muddy water across my face.
I stayed there for a while even after the parade passed and the crowds drifted away. With my left hand, I reached for the hilt of my father's sword. Rust flaked onto my skin, mixing with blood and dirt.
My right hand was badly broken, swollen and useless, but the pain had faded to something distant. Instead I felt a strange, hollow vibration in my chest. Not magic. Something older. Something that felt like it had been waiting a long time for the world to push me far enough.
"The Abyssal Trenches," I muttered, slowly pulling myself out of the mud.
Most people believed the Trenches were where the world ended. A graveyard for the weak.
I looked down into a shallow puddle. My reflection stared back—mud-streaked face, torn clothes, nothing to my name except a rusted sword and what was essentially a death sentence.
"Fine," I whispered to the empty street. "Let's see what's waiting in the dark."
I stood, the rusted blade suddenly feeling heavier in my grip, almost as if it vibrated faintly with my heartbeat. As I turned toward the slums to prepare for morning, a tiny golden spark flickered at the edge of my vision.
It didn't feel like a mage's magic. It felt deeper. Sharper.
I blinked and it disappeared. But for the first time in my life, the void inside me didn't feel empty anymore, it felt hungry and I was going to feed it.