The savory scent of his grandmother's stew was the first thing that greeted Orion when he stepped into their small, single-story cottage. Built from oak and river stones, it was plain but solid, the only home he had ever known. A small energy conduit, a privilege earned by his grandfather's service on the village council, cast steady, clean light.....a luxury compared to the flickering oil lamps of their neighbors.
"Trouble again?" Elara asked, not looking up from the pot she stirred over the heat-stone. Her hair was more silver than black now, tied into a bun, but her eyes, when they found him, were as sharp and perceptive as ever.
"Nothing I couldn't handle," Orion said, wincing as he lowered himself carefully onto the stool at the wooden table. The bruise on his cheek pulsed with a dull, rhythmic ache.
Corbin, his grandfather, glanced up from the axe head he was sharpening with long, practiced strokes of a whetstone. The sound was a familiar, scraping comfort. His brow furrowed beneath a mane of graying hair. "Your cheek is bruised. That Valerius boy is getting bolder. One day his taunts will become something worse."
"You should see his pride," Orion muttered with a tired grin. "It's much more bruised than my cheek."
Elara brought a steaming bowl of stew to the table, its rich aroma filling the room. It was thick with herbs and precious chunks of beast meat.....a rare luxury that had cost them dearly at the market. She dabbed his cheek with a cloth soaked in cool well water. "That boy will be the death of you, Orion. You cannot keep provoking him. His family has influence. Remember young Leon? His family had to sell their land to pay the healers after he challenged a noble's son during the trials five years ago. He walks with a limp to this day."
"He starts it," Orion mumbled around a mouthful of stew, the warmth spreading through his chest. "They all do. Because I don't have an innate gift, because I'm an orphan, they think I'm nothing."
"You are not nothing," Corbin said firmly, his voice leaving no room for argument. He set down the axe head, his large, scarred hands resting on the table. The marks were a roadmap of a hard life—faded white lines from slipped axes and jagged, puckered scars from the claws of Beasts. "Your gift is unique. It demands wit and discipline. Raw power makes a person lazy. It makes them predictable. Your mind is your weapon. Never forget that."
"It's a party trick, Grandpa," Orion muttered, the bitterness leaking through his resolve. He hated the simmering resentment he carried, the feeling of being a pale imitation in a world of vibrant color. "I can't make light. I can't summon wind or flame. I can't even light the cooking fire. I can only borrow what's left."
He was an orphan, left on their doorstep as a baby with nothing but a blanket and a strange, smooth metal pendant he now wore under his shirt. No family name, no inherited power. In a world where strength defined worth, he often felt utterly worthless.
A sharp horn blast cut through the evening, a magically amplified note that carried across all of Oakhaven. The Crier's horn. News from the capital.
The three of them left the half-eaten stew and joined the swelling crowd in the village square. The air was thick with the smell of woodsmoke and anticipation. The Crier, dressed in the immaculate silver-and-blue livery of Aethelgard, stood on a raised platform, his face impassive as he unfurled a heavy parchment scroll.
"By decree of the High Council and the Headmaster of the Spire!" the man boomed, his voice echoing off the stone tavern and the timber-framed guildhall. "The annual entrance examination for the National Awakened Academy will be held in Aethelgard in one month's time! All youths between fourteen and sixteen may attempt the trials. Prove your strength. Prove your worth. Glory begins at the Spire of Ascension!"
A wave of excitement rippled through the crowd. The Academy. The name alone was a kind of magic. It was where the strongest Awakened were forged, where legends began. The hopeful faces of children from common families glowed in the twilight, while those from the more affluent lines, like Valerius, looked merely smug, as if their acceptance were a foregone conclusion. A place for them. Never for someone like Orion.
Yet as the whispers and boasts buzzed around him, a dangerous thought sparked. The taunts from the training yard echoed in his mind. Real power. Something you'll never have.
What if they were wrong? His power was weak, but it was clever. He couldn't overpower, but he could outthink. The trials weren't only about brute strength.....they demanded survival, control, will. He had those.
Valerius was already preening in the center of his admirers, loudly proclaiming which trial he would dominate first. Orion felt the familiar sting of being the outsider, the echo-thief, a ghost haunting the edges of a world he wasn't born to. And in that moment, the spark inside him caught fire.
"I'm going," Orion said quietly, though his voice carried more weight than all the crowd's noise.
Elara turned sharply, her face pale with alarm. "Orion, no. It's too dangerous. The trials aren't games. They are designed to break you. Some do not return."
"I can do it," he insisted, turning his gaze to Corbin, searching for a flicker of support in the old man's eyes.
His grandfather studied him for a long moment. Beneath the youthful defiance, he saw the iron resolve of someone who could not be turned back, of someone who had nothing to lose and everything to prove. He had seen that look before, in the eyes of soldiers walking to war.
"The journey alone is costly," Corbin said at last, his voice heavy with grim reality. "Lodging in the capital, the exam fee… they are designed to keep families like ours away."
"We have the money his parents left," Elara whispered, the words trembling as she said them, a secret finally given voice.
Orion's head snapped up. "What money?"
That night, back in the quiet cottage, the stew forgotten, they showed him. From beneath a loose floorboard near the hearth, Corbin lifted a small, iron-bound chest. It was made of a dark, unfamiliar wood, cool and heavy in his hands. Inside, resting on a bed of faded velvet, lay a leather pouch heavy with old silver coins. They were larger than the kingdom's currency, stamped with a crest he didn't recognize.....a stylized star with a serpent coiled around it. More wealth than Orion had ever seen.
"They left this with you," Corbin said heavily. "We never touched it. We saved it for a day like this, a day you chose your own path."
"Who were they?" Orion whispered, pulling the pendant from under his shirt. Smooth, unadorned, dark metal, always cool to the touch. His only link to his parents.
Corbin and Elara exchanged a look of shared sorrow. "We don't know," Elara said softly, her hand resting on his shoulder. "You were left on our doorstep with this chest. No note, no name. We named you Orion, after the brightest constellation. A hunter. A star. We prayed it would bring you destiny."
The weight of the name, of their hope, pressed on him. Orion. A name for heroes. For legends. A name he felt utterly unworthy of.
He closed his hand around the pendant. For a single, breathless heartbeat, the world went utterly silent.....the crackle of the heat-stone, the sigh of the wind outside, even the frantic beating of his own heart....all vanished. In the profound hush, he felt a strange, cold resonance from the metal in his palm, a shiver that ran not over his skin, but through his very soul. Then, just as quickly, the sound of the world rushed back in.
His decision, once a spark of defiance, was now a blazing inferno. He would go to Aethelgard. He would pass the trials. He would earn a place among the Awakened. He would uncover the truth of his past and the secret of the pendant he wore.
He would no longer be the boy who chased echoes. He would become a star the world could not ignore.