Chapter 14—Blind Seer

Echidna barely had time to breathe.

The Veyrith was too fast and it moved in a blur of claws and wings. Its entire body whipped forward like a thrown spear. She had already scrambled back knowing she was useless against something like that, and knowing Chael was about to die.

Then a mirror appeared. It was small, almost fragile-looking and formed right in front of Chael in the exact instant the Veyrith's attack should have torn him apart.

Blood sprayed across the cavern floor as its own attack was reflected onto itself. A deep, vicious gash opened across its throat and blackened blood poured down its mangled chest. The impact sent it crashing against the cavern wall and shook the very foundation of the earth.

The force of it knocked Echidna off her feet. A deep, guttural screech tore through the air. The beast was hurt, its hollow eyes burning with hateful rage as it staggered back up, wings shaking, claws twitching, ready to strike again.

Echidna turned to Chael, her breath catching in her throat.

He looked dead.

His body was slumped, unmoving. Blood was pouring from his closed eyes.

She had seen men wounded in battle before, had seen them stabbed, crushed, torn apart. But there was something about this - about the the way his eyes bled and the way his face was completely slack that sent a cold chill down her spine.

And yet, the power around him was much different.

His presence somehow felt stronger and heavier.

The Veyrith, bleeding, furious, let out another deafening screech. It staggered forward, preparing to lunge but in that moment, the ceiling split open.

A massive stalactite broke free from above, plummeting like a spear from the heavens.

The beast barely had time to react before it was pierced through the chest. The weight of it crushed the already weak stone beneath, and in an instant, the ground gave way.

Echidna barely had time to curse before everything collapsed beneath them.

****

Chael felt himself fall for a really long time before he hit the water hard.

The icy cold stole the air from his lungs instantly and pain seared through every nerve in his body. His limbs felt sluggish, like he was sinking through oil instead of water.

But nothing compared to the pain in his eyes.

It was as if they were on fire, like something had been ripped out of him, leaving only raw, exposed wounds in its place. Blood streamed freely from his closed lids and darkened the water around him.

That's right.

This was the price.

The First Gate of the Blind Prophet's Legacy: Illusory Echo.

And the cost?

Blindness.

Chael felt his body drifting deeper, his strength failing, his mind slipping in and out of focus. It was different from before. The cavern above had been suffocating, but this was a quiet kind of death.

This was the kind of death he had yearned for, however, something deep in his mind decided that he wasn't done yet. It was just a miniscule thought as he sunk deeper, but it was enough to make his fingers twitch.

His body fought against the pull of the abyss and kicked upwards

He was no longer just a broken warrior now. He was a Harbinger.

He forced himself up, struggling against the freezing water, kicking, pushing, dragging himself toward the surface.

When he finally broke through, he gasped. His lungs were burning and his entire body trembling from the cold.

He dragged himself onto the cold stone, blood slowly still dripping from his eyes and merged with the frost on the stone.

He had cheated death yet again. If Chael had to count how many times he did so over the past week, from his 'trip' to Enir-Ilim to this moment, it'd be impossible because he didn't have enough fingers.

He lay there for a while, his breath ragged and his body aching from head to toe. His eyes burned with a pain so intense it felt like fire had been poured into his skull, but he didn't dare touch them. He could feel the blood still dripping from his lids, warm against his freezing skin.

Eventually, he forced himself to move. It was slow and agonising, and every inch of him protested, but he gritted his teeth and crawled forward.

Blind. That was the first thing he had to accept. There was no more seeing in the way he always had. No more relying on his eyes to guide him. He was moving through pure instinct, his hands dragging against the cold stone, his body trembling from the aftermath of what had just happened.

His palm brushed against something solid.

A wall.

He exhaled sharply, leaning against it, pressing his forehead to the damp rock as he let himself fully feel the pain. It was unbearable. It wasn't just his eyes. His whole skull felt wrong, as if something had been ripped out of him, as if his brain was struggling to adjust to a new reality.

For a long while, he simply sat there, letting the pain consume him. Then, slowly, his fingers went to his black waist band. A habit of the warriors of the Ashwara Clan was that they always wrapped their midsections in a tight waistband before battle in case they were cut open and their organs tried to spill out before the fight was done.

Chael unraveled his waistband and ripped a long piece of it off the edge. The fabric was warm with his body heat and damp with sweat and blood, but it was cleaner than anything else on him.

He brought it up and tied it tightly over his burning eyes. The pain didn't lessen. If anything, the pressure made it worse. But it was grounding. It reminded him that he was still here.

Hours passed. Maybe. Time had no meaning in this place. The pain was still there, deep and throbbing, but eventually, it dulled.

It was only then - when his mind was no longer drowning in agony - that he realized something. He could see. And he couldn't. It wasn't vision in the normal sense. There was no color, no shape, and there certainly wasn't any clear images.

But he could perceive. Faintly and blurrily.

The cavern above was broken, its jagged edges casting light down onto the water. And the water - the water reflected it. Chael could see the reflection. Not the world itself, but the world reflected upon the water's surface. It was dim and faint.

But it was there.

"I thought fate was laughing its ass off when it made me an Unveiled, only to make me blind." Chael muttered, adjusting the black cloth over his bleeding eyes. "This isn't so bad, after all."

His words were half-hearted, but there was truth in them.

The more he focused, the clearer his strange new sight became. It was still blurry and warped and barely usable, but he could perceive the cavern through the dim reflection on the water's surface.

Not perfectly, not even close to being as good as real vision but the vague, shifting outlines of stone, ice, and distant light was much better than being completely blind.

But it was useless like this.

If he wanted to rely on this strange ability, he needed more light.

A thought struck him, and he slowly searched through the rest of his waistband, fingers searching through the damp folds until he found what he was looking for.

Cinderfoil leaves.

They were crushed and half-ruined from the water, but if they could still burn, that was enough.

Carefully, Chael gathered them on the stone floor and reached for a loose rock nearby. With slow, precise movements, he struck stone against stone, sending tiny sparks over the crushed leaves.

It took a few tries and soon he felt a small flame flickered to life.

The moment it did, Chael froze.

Because suddenly, he had another perspective.

His breath hitched.

He could see the fire. The place he was in. The jagged walls of the cavern. But not himself.

His own body wasn't there.

Like the mirrors from before.

Chael's hands curled into fists.

This perspective - it wasn't from the fire itself.

Slowly, carefully, he turned toward it, adjusting his focus.

The reflection was coming from something nearby.

His fingers twitched. He crawled forward, carefully feeling across the stone until his hand brushed against something cold, metallic, and broken. A spear. Or at least, what was left of one.

The shaft was cracked, but the spearhead was intact.

And when he turned it toward the fire-

He could see through it.

Clearer than before.

The moment the fire's glow hit the steel, it reflected the cavern back to him. The jagged walls, the distant dripping water, the ice clinging to the stone. The spearhead was acting as his eyes.

Chael's heart pounded violently in his chest. He turned his head slightly, adjusting the angle. His surroundings shifted as if he had a completely separate pair of eyes within the metal.

"…What the hell."

He crawled back to the fire, still clutching the broken spear in his grip and his hands shaking.

Because when he moved it and when he tilted it, shifted it, turned it to the side-

He could see.

The world bent and warped in its reflection, but it was there.

He was connected to it.

To mirrors.

To reflections.

And yet, even now, somehow his own body did not exist within them. The realization sent a shiver down his spine.