Marn asked in a low voice
"You ever heard of the other kind of sin bounds, Aster? The cursed kind or blessed anything ??"
Whole camp got silenced as if someone has cast a mute spell.
Aster blinked, a little lost, and answered honestly, "You mean the Awakened? i only know what others said now."
Isla nodded sideways and said calmly, "No, blessed are different, unlike awakened, who awaken ability here normally and gradually but blessed are chosen and taken to god knows what place."
Marn muttered, his eyes remembering some bad memories." Taken! not chosen"
Bren scoffed. "Myth. It's nonsense, all of it. People want someone to blame when things go wrong so they made this shit up the blessed, God took him, The truth is, people vanish because the world is cruel and sin roams everywhere maybe these mad people got possessed by one of them"
Marn's voice turned cold.
"Then maybe you should tell that to the boy I treated last spring in my hometown. Came to me for help with hope, it was just dreams at first. I tried everything herbs, healing arrays even exorcism. Nothing changed."
He stared into the fire, eyes hard like finding something maybe words.
"He said they were watching him. He locked himself in the granary one day and Vanished, his parents and other neighbors tried to search everywhere in town, Church ignored our pleas. He came back after a month …" Marn exhaled through his nose, slow. "He wasn't the same. Just a shell of the happy and cheerful boy I once knew. Like a stone."
He looked up.
"Hanged himself in the stables a week later."
Bren looked away, unable to refute Marn.
Aster's hand trembled slightly. He clenched them beneath his cloak, his throat dried up and only one thought echoed in his mind.
"He could be that boy in the future"
Isla still believing it is just late awakening, said, "Do you feel any change in your body like increasing strength or ice fingers anything"
Aster muttered "No, it's just that I can't sleep without dreaming or hearing things"
Bren shook his head. "You need sleep. Not a prophecy about being cursed or something"
Marn said, "Some of us don't get the luxury of doubt. We are after all just humans"
Marn turned to Aster and looked him in the eyes which made Aster tense.
"The voice… the bleeding ears… the lights in your eyes. It's not madness. It's calling."
Bren snorted. "Calling from where? Don't say from gods"
"From wherever the Trials come. Maybe not gods may be from the place where these sins came. After all this whole game of ability started after they came."
Aster stared into the fire. "The elder said the church could help."
Marn's voice dropped. "If you reach it in time. But with your symptoms? You might not make it to the city at all."
Aster stared into the flames. All the noise around him faded into ash and orange glow. His life in the village felt like a story someone else had lived. The plow. The lambs. His mother was humming while she cooked roots and spiced meat. The creek behind the house. He used to lie there and look at clouds, thinking the world ended at the hills.
Now he was surrounded by fire-wielders, mind-readers, and soldiers who'd fought beasts with too many mouths and powers.
He was small here. He knew it, this world which he saw in this month is not what he imagined it would be.
He felt a sharp gaze directed at him then a strange warmth wrapping around him like a blanket.
He looked across the circle at the old man seated with the academy group , cloaked in gray and blue, with rings on three fingers of both hands and a distant look in his eyes. He hadn't said a word all evening, but Aster had felt his gaze more than once. Sharp. Measuring.
Aster met his eyes for a moment.
The old man simply raised a brow, then looked away as if this was not interesting to him.
Isla followed Aster's gaze. "That's Master Silen. He oversees the exam entries for this cohort. Most kids don't speak around him unless spoken to. I heard he is a high-tier warrior and a quiet experienced one. But I can't sense his tier, too high for me. Must be above 5th tier," she sighed.
Aster nodded absently. He doesn't know much about tier stuff. But if she said high tier, he must be very powerful.
Gradually, everyone feeling that the discussion is getting heavy and uncomfortable said goodnight and retired to their tents, leaving the fire silently crackling in darkness.
Aster lying on his makeshift bed, kept replaying his chat. He hoped today's sleep would come early and free him but he knew sleep was just another prison for him where he faced his grief again and again. His eyes became teary.
"why, why, This is happening to me," he said in between crying.
He didn't even know when he slipped into sleep but
That night, Aster dreamed again.
He stood in the ruins of his childhood home. Flames licked the walls surging outwards like unleashed monsters. Smoke curled like hands towards the roof. And in the center, his mother is burned but She is not screaming. She only looked at him, eyes full of sorrow, and reached out, while flames danced around her.
"Take it," she whispered. " And Let me go."
But before he could move, another voice — deeper, not his mother echoed behind him:
"This one still burns. Hide him. Until it's time to move this piece."
The moon split above him like a cracked eye, blinding him with light. Crows screamed.
Aster woke with a gasp, reaching out for the rusted iron he calls a sword. He looked around to find where the sound came from, to find the source.
And there from the dead tree at the edge of the clearing where his bedroll is laid, three black crows stared down, silently without blinking.
A terrifying current ran through his body as if he had seen something cursed. he again laid and pulled his cloak overhead to avoid the stares of the crows.
But even with his eyes shut and turning the other way he could feel their stares. His heartbeats increased.
Then he heard a whisper.
"Hid.... hehehe"
he is sure he heard something then it came again, and he focused on understanding the words.
"It's almost time.. khe khe"
Author's note: Forgive me if you found it boring, as these first 3 - 4 chap can be lengthy because I want to convey the dread Aster is feeling and tell you a little bit about the world