The Garden Of?
Chapter 17:
The Snap of Fate
As I took the first step into the academy, everything around me bled away.
The sunlit walls, the bustling voices, even the solid weight of my sword at my hip—gone. All gone.
What replaced it was… nothing.
A suffocating darkness swallowed me whole. It wasn't night, not even shadow. No, this was different. This was a blackness so pure, so absolute, that it erased the very concept of distance. I couldn't tell whether I was standing in an endless void or inside a space so small it clung to my skin. There were no walls, no ceiling, no floor I could trust—only a faint sense of my own body anchoring me in place.
My breath hitched, the sound unnaturally loud in the silence.
My eyes strained, desperate to find something—anything—but there were no outlines, no shapes, no depth. Only the infinite pitch. I might as well have been suspended in ink.
And then it hit me.
A pressure.
At first, it was subtle, like the weight of heavy air pressing on my skin. But within seconds, it intensified, crushing down on my shoulders, my chest, my knees. My bones groaned beneath the invisible force. My lungs screamed as though the air itself had thickened into molten iron.
My vision blurred, even though there was nothing to see. My body trembled, a puppet pulled by strings of fear.
But I clenched my teeth.
No. Not like this. Not here.
I shut my eyes against the void, drawing the current inside me. Aether.
It surged to life, silver veins of light rushing beneath my skin, invisible to the world but clear to me. I spread it through my limbs, coating muscle, bone, breath. Aether Flow. The one thing I could control in a place where everything else was stripped away.
The pressure was still there. It didn't fade. But it couldn't crush me now. My stance steadied. My breath grew more even. My trembling stilled, though inside my chest, my heart pounded like a war drum.
And that's when I felt it.
A presence.
Not far, not near. Just… there.
My skin prickled, every hair on my body rising. My senses sharpened, searching. And slowly, the darkness shifted—not with light, but with form.
A silhouette emerged.
At first, I thought my mind was playing tricks, but no. Something, someone, stood before me. Not facing me, not acknowledging me, but there all the same.
Blonde hair, pale as moonlight, fell neatly to the shoulders. A cloak, white as snow, draped over the figure from head to toe, pristine even in this place of nothingness. The hood was down, but from where I stood, all I could see was the back. No face, no eyes. Just the outline of a man—or something like one.
My mouth went dry. My tongue clung to my teeth, unable to form words.
And then—he spoke.
The voice was quiet, almost gentle, but in the silence of the void, it cracked like thunder.
"So you've finally made your way here."
The sound rippled through me, stirring something deep in my chest I couldn't name.
"I was tired of waiting."
The words lingered in the air like smoke, wrapping around me, sinking into my skin. My pulse jumped. Waiting? For me? How could that be?
My lips parted, but no sound came. A thousand questions clawed at my throat, yet none escaped. My Aether trembled inside me, as if even it wanted to recoil.
But before I could say anything, the void convulsed.
The blackness twisted, warped, like fabric wrung between hands. The figure ahead blurred, stretching and breaking as if he were being pulled apart by unseen threads. My stomach lurched, my balance crumbling.
The silence shattered with a single sound.
Cluck.
A snap of fingers.
And everything returned.
The air, the noise, the light—it all slammed back into existence.
My knees buckled, and I gasped, clutching at the strap of my sword like it could anchor me. I was standing—standing where I had been just seconds ago. At the entrance of the Academy grounds. The high walls loomed above, banners swaying in the breeze, the chatter of students buzzing like a swarm of bees.
It was all… normal. Perfectly, painfully normal.
Yet I wasn't normal.
My body still shook as though it hadn't escaped the void. My fingers felt numb. My toes too. My heartbeat thundered against my ribs, but I forced myself to move, turning on instinct, searching for him.
The figure.
The blonde hair. The white cloak.
Nothing.
There was nothing. Not a single trace of the presence I'd felt, not even the faintest residue of Aether.
It was like he had never existed.
But I knew. I knew he had.
I pressed my lips together, forcing myself to breathe. Whoever he was, he wasn't some hallucination. I had felt the pressure. I had seen the void bend. And those words—so direct, so personal—they weren't random.
"So you've finally made your way here."
"...I was tired of waiting."
Waiting. For me.
But why?
Why me?
My fists clenched. My jaw ached from grinding my teeth. Questions tore through my skull like blades, but there were no answers. Not now.
And then—
"Candidate!"
The shout jolted me like a slap. I turned.
One of the examiners, dressed in the Academy's formal dark-blue attire, stood a short distance away, a scroll tucked under his arm. His sharp eyes locked onto me, brows furrowed in faint irritation.
"The entrance qualification is about to begin," he barked. "Move along. Do not keep us waiting."
I stiffened, swallowing the knot in my throat. My hand lingered over my chest, right where my heart still pounded too fast.
Later. I'd look into it later.
For now… the exam.
I straightened my shoulders, forcing the tremor out of my step, and began to walk.
One foot forward. Then another.
I was still here. Still moving.
But in the back of my mind, the void lingered—silent, endless, waiting.
The moment my boots touched the polished stone floor of the Academy's inner halls, everything changed.
A shimmer of heat pricked my skin, and before I could blink, a flood of searing white swallowed my vision whole. I raised an arm instinctively, but it was useless. No matter how tightly I tried to squeeze my eyelids shut, the light was still there, burning behind my eyes. I couldn't see a single thing—not walls, not doors, not even the faint outline of my own hands. It was like someone had poured sunlight directly into my skull.
At first I panicked. My breath came in shallow bursts, my fingers curling tight around the strap of my sword. I reached for the faint comfort of its weight at my side. But even that small familiarity couldn't fully settle the fear that coiled in my stomach. I had stepped into the Academy, prepared for challenges, yes—but not like this.
Why blind us? I thought bitterly. Why strip us of the very sense we rely on most?
That's when it struck me. This was deliberate. A test. The Academy didn't want to show kindness to those who wouldn't last. If you broke at something as simple as losing sight, maybe you weren't worthy to stand among their halls.
I clenched my jaw, forcing my thoughts into order. The light was suffocating, but not infinite. I had other senses. I had other strengths.
The air was still, but it carried faint movements. I tuned into the tiny brush of currents against my skin, the faint echoes bouncing off stone surfaces, the subtle vibration beneath my boots. Ten minutes—that's what it felt like I had been walking already, though time twisted strangely in the dark. Every step dragged longer than it should have, stretching seconds into hours.
That's when I remembered something mom had once told me: "When the world blinds you, Leif, call upon the spirits. Their sight is not the same as ours, but it will guide you where your eyes cannot."
I swallowed and let out a slow breath. "Alright," I whispered under my breath. My voice barely echoed. "Let's try this."
I reached inward, to the place where Spiritflow hummed. It wasn't flashy like Aethersteel, not sharp like mana, but it was alive—gentle currents of presence that brushed against me, like dozens of invisible fingertips. When I closed my eyes—not that it mattered, since I was already blind—I felt them stir.
A shiver ran down my spine as faint outlines bloomed in my awareness. It wasn't vision, not really. More like… impressions. Where the air shifted, where stone pressed against space, where footsteps had left an imprint just moments ago. Wisps of pale blue drifted in the corners of my mind, giving me shapes without edges.
I smiled, faint but real. "Thanks," I whispered to the spirits.
The oppressive weight of the light eased just slightly. It was still there, burning against my skin, but now I had a thread to follow. A path to walk.
I took another step forward. My boots clicked against the stone, each sound bouncing back at me, feeding more detail into the web the spirits spun around me. The corridor ahead stretched long and straight, though the air told me it would eventually bend. Other presences flickered faintly, distant yet sharp—students like me, fumbling in the light, some cursing under their breath, some whispering hurried prayers.
I tightened my grip on my sword, not because I needed it, but because it grounded me.
The Academy wasn't just testing sight. They were testing patience. Nerves. The ability to keep moving forward when stripped of comfort.
Minutes bled into minutes, the oppressive brightness gnawing at the edges of my concentration. Sweat trickled down my temple, dampening the tips of my white hair. My shoulders ached from the stiffness of keeping them squared, my jaw sore from clenching. But I didn't stop. Step after step, breath after breath, I walked.
The spirits hummed gently, pulling me onward, a soft chorus at the edge of my thoughts. At times they brushed against me like feathers, coaxing me when doubt crept in.
I wondered how many had already collapsed behind me, curled on the floor and muttering surrender. I wondered how many were ahead, stronger, faster, steadier. That thought twisted something sharp in my chest.
I can't fail here.
I thought of Dad's stern gaze, of mom's gentle words, of Rufius's tiny hand gripping mine. My family's faces flickered in my mind, grounding me better than any blade could. I wasn't just walking for myself. I was walking for them too.
The corridor felt endless. The silence between each faint scuff of boots grew louder, heavier, until the weight of it pressed against my ears. It wasn't just blindness; it was isolation. Alone with your own mind, your own fears.
My heartbeat thudded in my chest, loud enough that for a moment I wondered if the others could hear it too.
But then, from the stillness, the spirits nudged again. Forward. Always forward.
And so I walked. Ten minutes. Maybe more. Maybe less. Time had no meaning in that blinding expanse.
All I knew was that I wasn't going to stop. Not here. Not now.