XANDER | THE BLIND KNIGHT

The clang of steel was the sound of victory.

It rolled down the valley like thunder, echoing against the stone peaks of Vaelcrest until it melted into silence. When the dust settled, Xander stood among the fallen, his armor slick with blood, his breath slow and steady. Around him, men raised their swords and roared his name. Vaelthorn. Unbroken. Invincible. The pride of Eskerra.

He didn’t roar back. He simply turned toward the horizon, where the pale sun was sinking into the mountains. For a heartbeat, the world bent and shimmered. The edges of his vision blurred into white, and then cleared. Just exhaustion, he told himself. Three days without sleep, two without food. Even the strongest men bled strength eventually.

That night, victory tasted like honeyed wine and burnt meat. The soldiers sang of him again, how he never faltered, how he bore the Vaelthorn bloodline like a banner of perfection. He let them. He even smiled once, faintly, when they toasted him, making one of his men blush like a teenage girl. The curse of his bloodline had taken every man before him by thirty-five, but he was thirty now, and still undefeated, still no signs of that damned curse. He had outlived his father and his brother both. Perhaps he had been right all along; perhaps it wasn’t a curse. Perhaps he was meant to be the first to survive it, to set a new path for the generations to come.

He tilted his cup, and the fire blurred again.

In the morning, the world was gone.

He woke to the voice of his second-in-command, to the rustle of the tent’s fabric, to the cold air brushing against his face... and saw nothing. Just black. A suffocating, endless black.

He said nothing at first. He told himself it would pass; it had to. He had too much left to do, too much left to prove. He was supposed to build something that lasted, to train the next Vaelthorn heir, to forge a peace in Vaelcrest strong enough to outlive him. His father had failed that. His brother had failed that. He would not. He could not.

But as days went by, the black did not fade, the black did not leave space for colors again.

He called for the camp physician, then the temple monks, then the old hermits who lived in the mountain caves. Each of them promised him salvation and each failed. Still, he refused to call it what it was.

By the fifth day, frustration had carved hollows into his composure, making him restless, his ever-perfect mask cracking at the edges. His patience was wearing thin, and his men had begun exchanging uncertain glances when they thought he couldn’t tell.

A few had insisted on following him, silent shadows on the road. His second-in-command finally spoke, his voice careful. “Xander,” he said, “I cannot let you, in good conscience, travel alone.”

Xander stopped mid-step, the sound of his boots grinding against the gravel. His jaw flexed. “I don’t need to be babysat,” he said, his tone sharp enough to draw blood. “Save your worries for something that matters.”

The other man hesitated. “You’re—”

“Blind, not broken,” Xander cut in, facing him with terrifying precision, his sightless eyes white and cold. “If you mean to pity me, turn back now. I’ll find my own way.”

Silence followed. Only the mountain wind moved between them, heavy and biting.

His second-in-command didn’t answer. Xander didn’t wait for one. He turned and walked on, the sound of his armor fading into the distance until there was nothing left but the wind.

He traveled from city to city, castle to monastery. Some healers touched his face and whispered blessings. Others waved incense or pressed talismans to his eyes until the skin around them stung. Some called it divine punishment, others a "heavenly burden." One dared to suggest that it was the “beginning of the end,” that he should make peace with it. Xander broke the man’s table in half.

He didn’t apologize. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t stop moving.

A week turned into two. His men had long since stopped following him. He wandered through the alleys of the poorer quarters, where healers sold hope in bottles and claimed the gods spoke through smoke. He drank everything they offered. He paid them all. Gold, promises, threats. Nothing worked.

By the tenth day, even the beggars whispered his name with pity.

He sat in a tavern that stank of sweat and ale, his armor dull under the lamplight. Around him, the world was a blur of voices and movement. He listened intently, as that was all he could do now: the scrape of boots on stone, the slosh of drink, laughter too loud to be real. Somewhere, someone spoke of children, a man boasting about his son learning to hold a sword. It hit him like a blade to the chest.

If he had a child now, he’d be five when he died. Old enough to remember his face, maybe. Old enough to hate him for leaving. His brother had died before he could sire one. Their father before that, but none of them lived long enough to be grandfathers anyway. The “Price of Glory” had made them legends, but it had left no legacy. Xander had thought he could break it, create a new path, change things for future generations... but hope was slipping through his fingers now.

He thought of the tattoo over his heart, the Vaelthorn mark, inked when he was sixteen, the night his father had made him swear to continue the bloodline. "Our family is born for war, born to burn bright and die proud," his father had said. "This is our duty, our destiny. And you shall fulfill it like your ancestors. And your son will follow in your steps. And his son in his. Until the end of Eskerra."

Xander had believed his father once. But now, sitting in the dark, he wasn't sure of anything anymore. His confidence was fraying, terrified of being forgotten, terrified of the idea of having just been one of the many Vaelthorn men.

Then, through the noise, a voice broke through.

“They say they have been seen again,” someone whispered at the next table. “The witch in the woods. They were tending to their garden of bones. Cursed the birds to silence, they say. That witch is not to be approached, might hex us all.”

Xander’s hand tightened on his mug. “The witch,” he said, his voice low and cutting, silencing the tavern around him. “Where can I find them?”

The man stuttered, tripping over his words, but Xander already stood. His chair scraped against the floor like a threat.

The woods were colder than he remembered them. Damp and heavy, filled with the scent of pine and rot. He moved with measured steps, his hand grazing bark and stone to map the world he could no longer see. Every movement was precise, deliberate, soldier’s discipline controlling what panic could not.

Once, out of habit, he turned his head to look behind him. He stopped, realization hitting, sharp and bitter: there was nothing to look at. No way to know if anyone followed. No way to see the land he had spent his short life defending.

He pressed his lips together, swallowing the sound of frustration that rose in his throat before starting to walk faster.

Hours passed. His cloak caught on branches; mud clung to his boots. Then the air changed. The faint smell of smoke, herbs, and damp soil. Somewhere ahead, a fence, a house.

He stopped before the door, straightened his spine, and raised his hand. His knuckles hit the wood with the force of command.

“Witch,” he said, his voice cold and resolute. “They say you can heal what others cannot. You will see me.”

Silence. The wind moved through the trees.

His jaw tightened. “And you will help me,” he added, quieter this time, the words grinding out through clenched teeth. “Whatever it takes.”