Gideon's voice still hung in the air like a drawn blade.The hut, already silent, seemed to shrink as her almost-shouted words echoed.Ezra stood frozen, feeling everyone's eyes on her — or maybe that was just her imagination, because she couldn't tell anymore.
She reached up, fingertips brushing the fresh bandages across her eyes.The room was heavy with the smell of dried herbs, wet earth, and smoke from the small fire crackling in the center.They were all still battered, their wounds wrapped in clean linen they didn't remember receiving.
Eliakim stood near the wall, arms crossed but shoulders taut — the stance of someone bracing for a blow.Gideon leaned against the table, silent, his wolfish gaze shifting between her and the stranger in the corner.Caleb was beside the door, hands half-curled as if deciding whether to reach for her or let her speak.And the stranger… the one whose name they'd only just learned: Malachi.
Ezra's voice cut through the thick air."What happened to me?"
No one answered.
She turned her head toward the sound of Eliakim's breathing. "You. You're the one I followed into this. Tell me what happened."
Eliakim hesitated — and that hesitation felt louder than any word."We were… caught," he said finally, the words like carefully chosen stones. "The ridge collapsed, and—"
"That's not what I'm asking." Her tone sharpened. "I can't see, Eliakim. Why?"
Caleb stepped forward as if to intercept the blow."When we fell, the current was too strong. We were pulled under, the storm hit, and—"
Ezra cut him off. "And what?"
"Malachi pulled us out," Gideon said, his voice flat. "We woke here."
Ezra turned her head toward the stranger. "Why are you the only one telling me straight?"
Malachi's tone was calm, but the stillness behind it made her uneasy."Because you deserve an answer, not a dance around it."
"Then answer me."
"You were the worst off," Malachi said, stepping into the firelight. His shadow stretched long across the floor. "When I pulled you from the water, you were tangled in river debris. A storm-beast had risen from the depths — they grow spines when the current surges, long as a man's arm, sharp as steel. You were already unconscious from mana loss. One of those spines struck across your eyes before I could drag you free."
Ezra swallowed, the heat from the fire suddenly too much."And none of you told me until now?"
Caleb's voice was gentle but unsteady. "We… we wanted you to rest. You'd lost a lot of blood. If we told you the moment you woke, you might have—"
"Panicked?" she snapped. "I'm already panicking!"
The words bounced off the wooden walls, and the silence after was worse.
Her throat tightened. "You know what's funny? I thought following Eliakim's group was my best chance. I barely knew any of you, but he—" She turned toward the faint sound of his exhale. "He was the first person who actually acknowledged me. Do you have any idea what that means?"
Eliakim's jaw flexed, but he didn't speak.
Ezra's voice wavered now, the anger tangling with something rawer. "And now I'm here, half-blind, in a place I don't recognize, being told pieces of a story that doesn't even match from one of you to the next. I don't know what happened in that water, and apparently none of you trust me enough to just say it."
Her words landed like stones dropped into a still pond.The fire popped.Rain whispered faintly against the roof.
Malachi moved closer, the weight of his presence quiet but impossible to ignore. "The truth is as I've told it. The rest… they were unconscious. None of them saw what I saw. You can blame them for their silences, but not for the gaps in their story."
Ezra's fingers dug into the blanket still draped over her legs. "And you expect me to just… accept that?"
"No," Malachi said simply. "I expect you to decide what you do with it."
Her lips pressed together, breath shaky.
Then he added, almost too casually, "You've lost less than you think."
Her head turned sharply toward him. "Don't mock me."
"I'm not," he said. "You've lost your eyes. But you haven't lost the ability to see."
She let out a humorless laugh. "You think this is some poetic comfort? I can't even see your face right now."
Malachi crouched so they were on the same level, his voice lowering but carrying a strange weight. "Not with your eyes. With your mana. Every living thing in Shardpath carries it — a presence, a current, a shape in the world's flow. Sight is one sense. Mana perception is another. You can live without the first. You can thrive with the second."
Ezra blinked under the bandages, unsure if it was disbelief or desperation that made her heartbeat pick up. "You're saying you can teach me to… see again?"
"Yes. But not in the way you remember. You'll never open your eyes and find light again. You'll open your mana and find life."
The fire crackled between them, the words hanging in the air like bait she both feared and longed to take.
"And if I say no?" she asked.
"Then you will remain as you are," Malachi said simply. "I will not force you. But the choice must be yours. No one else's."
Her thoughts spun, colliding hard with the ache in her chest.She could still hear Eliakim breathing across the room, steady but strained.Could feel Gideon's focus like a predator deciding whether to move or wait.Could sense Caleb's worry in the way he shifted his weight near the door.
Following Eliakim had been instinct — a choice made because he'd been the first to see her, not as a tool or a burden, but as a person. And now, for the first time, she wondered if that choice had been a mistake… or if it had saved her life.
The anger was still there, a sharp edge she couldn't let go. But beneath it, something small and fragile stirred — the same ember that had kept her walking before she ever met them. Hope.
Ezra exhaled slowly. "…If I do this… you teach me everything you can."
Malachi nodded once. "Everything I know."
"When do we start?"
"Tomorrow," he said, standing. "Rest tonight. You'll need it."
Ezra leaned back, trying to steady her breathing. She hated how uncertain she felt — hated that her only clear choice was to trust a man she'd met a week ago in a place she didn't understand.
The rain outside grew heavier, drumming on the roof. The others stayed quiet, each lost in their own thoughts.
But Ezra's mind wouldn't still.Her world was darker now, smaller in one way… but maybe wider in another.She didn't know if Malachi was a savior, a liar, or something else entirely.She only knew one thing:If there was even a chance to see again — in any form — she would take it.