In my youth, I would shine endless light upon the darkness in these skies.
At first, they told I was too young, too weak. No matter how much effort I put forth, I could live for a thousand years and never make a difference. But one day I reached for the sun, and the rest was history.
Once my talent undeniably blossod, my parents were quick to throw under the tutelage of the Silver Witch. She was the glimring example of what one could do with the long life afforded to a master of witchcraft. Centuries of sitting on the High Coven, undefeated among those who challenged her, she spearheaded the alliance between the Earth Vein and Nightwing Isles. Untold wealth made its way to our shores, along with unprecedented opportunity.
As a child, my duties were studying while my hobbies were experinting with magic. Uncovering the mysteries was my purpose before I knew anything else. I was not only keen, but thorough. A prodigy among my peers.
I still t folly at her honeyed words. Earth Vein represented utmost prosperity, and I could be a part of that. So many years ago, I didn't even know the world existed beyond the Mystic Skies, then they showed us the Boreal and beyond. From sea to sky, it was like the horizon ran away, vanished into the distance. That which I thought was the extent of my gaze turned out to be nothing but the local scenery.
Given my talent… nothing was beyond my reach after I entered her tutelage. To her credit, the Silver Witch helped reach my potential. Her thods were harsh and effective, but picturing that damned girl, I wonder if she only stifled my potential in the end?
Among Nanri's blathering was ntion of "the witch's shackles". My student was nothing if not extraordinarily ordinary, yet she still found ti for amused mutterings as the single greatest opportunity in her life crumbled around her. As the adjutant's daughter, she could have gone even further than .
Did she let that cursed witch in willingly or was she rely a victim herself? A tool to be tossed aside? Looking back on the way that silver-headed girl spoke, I can only think she ca out better than most from that ordeal. The High Coven was sure to punish her, but her fate was out of my hands.
These days I often ask myself, where did I go wrong?
I never would have thought my life would unfold in such a tragic way. Centuries wasted chasing gold and mithril, for what? So that my manor was larger than my childhood friends'? There was not a single teacher on Porta Bora who owned a larger estate.
As Earth Vein claid it for my alleged debts, did it ever even matter? My ho was built upon a parcel of land which had existed for millennia, and I only gave soone a bag full of rocks for it eighty years ago. Was it not always fleeting?
Naturally, I lost my job. Overnight, all my prospects within Earth Vein were dissolved, let alone my reputation among the witches of Nightwing. I no longer had students for the first ti in what felt like ever. But perhaps it was for the best.
There was a very long ti during which watching my students grow into prominent witches was the highest gratification I could find in life of mine, but sohow, I lost that long the way too. They turned lackluster and I thought nothing of it—that perhaps it was their fault. This generation just didn't get it. But it was all along.
Consistently over the multitude of years I've sohow managed, my students kept alive. Their unquenchable yearning for knowledge in any given subject kept on my toes, but sohow, it all beca routine.
My estate only grew larger over ti. My workshop had materials stacked wall to wall, my pantry overflowed. The floor of my treasury could not even be reached without shoveling catalysts out of the way.
I forgot that my pursuit of knowledge was the only reason I had anything to my na in the first place, and sohow decided that I possessed those things because I innately deserved them. Such a long life, and even that which I earned through blood, sweat and tears ended up being taken for granted. Of course, only she whose blood poured would bear the pain when it all fell apart
Decade after decade, the students were all the sa. Difficulties understanding my texts were resolved and recorded throughout the years—easily available to future students. Furthermore, I was not blind to this. I adapted my understanding when necessary and properly evolved my syllabus with each twist and turn. But after so long, I couldn't think of anything so tedious.
It wasn't until that ridiculous child led toward my flaws with a firm hand that I truly realized how thoroughly I had been wasting my years. Simply looking into her radiant cerulean eyes was like being crushed under the weight of a young undine within the Mystic Seas.
As salt fell to dust beneath my feet, how did I ever think I could compare to her? The re act of approaching turned the island to ruin. She spoke to for a short mont during her brief, but effective reign. She spoke to like I was a gnat obscuring her vision—one to be swatted away. There wasn't a single mont where she looked at as an opponent or even the slightest of threats.
Honestly, as soon as she appeared from a bolt of divine lightning, I knew it was over. But after all my years—all my experience—what was I supposed to do? Kneel before that child?
Perhaps it would have been the wiser choice, but that was impossible. My pride had been exacerbated over a great deal of ti. While I drowned in the opulence offered in my cooperation with Earth Vein, the light of a star I had long forgotten blinded .
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
In my youth… nothing was safe from my light. There were those who wished to gain from others' misfortune, or bully the weak, and they were all purged of their narrow-minded views. Was I really going to destroy the infirmary… and everyone in it?
Where did I go wrong? As it turned out, the light had long forsaken —surely when I turned my back on it.
That girl, my student called her Cira, outshined more anything I had ever known. She crippled further than I had ever thought possible. Not only my knee, but my aura. Centuries of perfecting my mastery over light—gone in the blink of an eye. I can still feel that cursed smoke stuck to my soul like a festering lesion.
Sowhere… I lost my way. My parents are long dead. Those I called friends have nearly all fallen to the decay of ti. Perhaps I lost whatever I thought I needed to pursue, but it was questionable whether or not I shined so bright a single ti in my pitiful life.
Everything I thought I ever accomplished amounted to a laughable scolding from soone a fraction of my age. She spoke as if my greatest spells were child's play before her. As a re child felt that way—could they be anything but?
"You're pathetic." She looked at as she would a bug beneath her feet. "Like a child throwing a tantrum."
Nothing made more infuriated than those words. Hundreds of years I've lived, and a girl shy of even two decades dared to look down upon .
She was right.
Earth Vein offered wealth and resources, at the exchange of my heart and soul.
Not really my soul, but I may as well have offered it. The things they made do… When you rely on a single source for your livelihood for centuries, it becos difficult to decline their requests. At first, it's sothing simple. Reclaim stolen materials.
Reclaim stolen materials.
Collect a debt from a rchant who forgot his due date.
Reclaim stolen materials.
Investigate potential resources in uncharted lands.
Reclaim stolen materials.
Magicians from the Sunset Skies have encroached upon our distribution network. Destroy them.
I have no right to bla Nanri for betraying such a master. The way she stood up to ; it reminded of how I used to be—or how I always wanted to be. What I always wanted to do. She protected the people of the island when the entire sky deigned to let them crumble away like miniscule grains of salt as soon as their worth dwindled. Never in my long life had I envied soone so. The fire in her eyes burned just as bright as the girl above in that mont.
Before I knew it, I was deeply involved in the oppressive system that ruled these skies, yet here was one of my least notable students from a deceptively auspicious background with the courage to defy the only sky she's even known. Her courage ca largely from the one behind her, but she was ready for to turn her to dust. I saw it in her unfaltering gaze.
Cira… That's the na my student muttered.
The Hidden Witch probably wasn't even a witch. Not one from the Nightwing Isles at least. Beyond the witches, many mages and sorcerers across the sky believed in broadening the range of their casting abilities rather than specializing in any one school, but this girl didn't seem to care either way—a master of whatever she wielded. It was as if she used the aether around us to paint the picture of her will. The Saint of Seven Suns?
That's what she's known as now, though it felt like an understatent. She beca the savior of one of the biggest islands on the Boreal, and the most problematic one by a longshot. I wouldn't even know where to begin to replicate her deeds with a team of a hundred witches.
After being stripped of my title and everything else, I felt no obligation to clarify things for the Gandeux, let alone Earth Vein. Sothing tells the girl will introduce herself to them in due ti anyway. In any case, they saw no reason to interrogate about it, and didn't seem to hold soone like to much rit, anyway. My leg had already been healed by the ti we reached Port, so they were quick to toss out.
Without my aura, I discovered there was remarkably little I could do.
Lyren was the only one in these skies that seed to care once I'd fallen from grace, despite how poorly I treated her. After my shaful display on Fount Salt, I have no idea why she even bothered to take in. She could crush with a stray thought if she wanted, extinguishing all my years in a single breath.
But she was compassionate enough to offer a spare room in her ho.
Of course, I treated everyone poorly. It was impossible to find employnt when I belittled everyone for their common existence. Though I desperately needed to do their bidding simply to survive, I sohow found a way to make myself sound superior.
It didn't hold weight, naturally. I was the sa as them now—no, I was far worse off. I couldn't stop myself and was shafully laughed out of every general store and restaurant who squandered the absolute honor of letting greet their patrons or wash their dishes.
Pitiful.
It hasn't even been that long, yet that way of thinking seems so foreign to .
How did I ever get such a big head? And why did it take so long to realize?
I was nothing without my aura. The mont it was stripped from , I beca an invalid.
All Lyren asked was a hundred silver crowns a month. I only found out later it was many tis lower than the going rate in downtown Port. It could hardly have been called a fee just to make sure I was trying.
Sohow… sohow I found the gall to berate poor Lyren. Why should I have to work so insufferable job for so paltry rchant? Just to live in so shitty run-down shack? For the record, she lived in a modest house right on the main street.
"How do people even live such bleak existences?! The thought of it makes my blood boil! Look at this shanty you've put in! We may as well be in the lower districts of Uren—are you happy to live like this Lyren?! Are you satisfied living like a miner not even worth the salt they can gather in a day?!"
I'll never forget the cold look in her eyes as I threw her kindness in her face for the umpteenth ti. My last remaining student—the last person who seed to care if I lived or died—the last shred of her concern dispersed into the aether in that mont.
"Get out." That was all she said.
Those were the last words I heard Lyren speak. I was still in a rage, but part of knew I had crossed a bridge that offered no return. My feeble excuses died against a brick wall. I had too much pride to backtrack—to apologize.
That night it rained. As the moon rose above the distant mountains, I took shelter beneath an awning. It didn't take long before a man exited a nearby door with a bag of trash and took one look at . His eyes creased in abject hatred and he threw the bag.
"Get the hell out of here!"
The bag was bursting with weight and ripped open on impact.
All I could do was stumble to my feet, still trying to wake up. Putrid oils and decomposed food waste covered the only set of robes I had left to my na, and the rain spread it through the fabric evenly.
I clenched my teeth and stared at him indignantly while the rain washed away the tears forming in my eyes. I have spent days battling in heavy downpours before, but a few minutes subject to the elents in this frail, useless body had utterly defeated. My chest tightened and I couldn't get any words out. Nightwing knows no incantations would have worked.
Many trials I have faced in my life, but in this mont the only thing I could think to do was turn around and flee down the street into the ceaseless deluge.
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