Kingdom of the Sightless
Chapter Two
The Years Without Power
Fifteen years is a long time to be powerless in a world built on strength.
Kael Ardyn lived each of them like a nail being driven deeper into stone. He wandered from town to broken town, where forgotten laws still echoed in empty courthouses, and people clung to memories the way dying men clung to fire.
He did every kind of work a man could do.
He hauled corpses from plague carts for one silver a day. He scraped rust from ancient machines in the ruins of Old Boston. He cleaned the blood of nobles from marble floors. He trained dogs, repaired shoes, hunted rats, and taught children how to lie.
In each task, he listened. In each failure, he learned.
The world whispered its nature to him—not in words, but in wounds.
He learned that men will trade loyalty for bread. That women who lose children never stop singing at night. That children, when starved enough, forget how to cry.
He watched nobles throw feasts while their cities burned. He watched farmers sell daughters for protection. He watched preachers promise salvation—for a price.
The houses still ruled with cold elegance. The Banners flew, and the Marked walked untouched. But even among the powerful, he saw fear. Fear of betrayal. Fear of falling from grace. Fear of being forgotten.
In one winter, Kael worked under House Merrowind, a place of silence and stone courtyards. There, he met Lady Seris, a noble's daughter not born with power. She carried books like weapons and asked questions no one answered. She offered Kael water on a dry day. That alone made her rare.
He watched her from afar for weeks—watched how she wrote letters in the garden, fed crows crumbs from her hand, and walked barefoot in the snow like it didn't burn.
She once told him, "They fear what they cannot own. That's why they call it heresy."
Kael didn't speak often. But he listened.
He returned to Merrowind in spring, hoping to repay a debt of kindness. But he was too late.
Seris was dead.
They said it was a sickness. Whispers said it was worse. That she had spoken of change. That she had asked too many questions.
Kael left without speaking a word. But he buried a feather in her garden. A crow had dropped it. He thought she'd have liked that.
In time, Kael saw more death. More rot. More cruelty dressed as custom.
He shared meals with orphans. Fought thugs in alley rings. Dug graves in frozen soil.
His enhanced sight saw the way nobles' smiles twitched when lying. The way men blinked faster when planning betrayal. He learned not just what people said—but what they meant, what they feared, what they hid.
Each town was a new scar. Each scar, a lesson.
He carried them all.
On his thirtieth winter, Kael walked into a tavern with no name, in a town with no map. The fire was low. The barkeep was asleep. The walls were lined with blades too dull to cut.
There, Kael waited.
Because he felt it.
The shift.
The fifteenth year had come.
And the gift—whatever it was—was close.
But before he could claim it, he needed something more.
A reason.
Not vengeance. Not power.
Purpose.
Because Kael Ardyn wasn't going to be another warlord or wandering myth.
He was going to build something that couldn't be burned, buried, or bought.
He would build a kingdom.
And it would begin in silence, not thunder.