At four years old, Kai still wore the band over his eyes. He endured it so his mother would not hear the whispers that followed them.
His blend of black and blue hair grew long, stretching slightly past his shoulders. Without shears, it waved in the wind whenever he stood up from bed, walking.
Where other children's heads were neatly shorn, his was a testament to isolation.
One day, returning from a long hunt, he found Ayra collapsed at the bed's edge. The glow which only he could see was guttering like a dying candle.
Fear pierced his chest. He scrambled to her, his small frame straining to lift her, yet managed to barely prop her up.
Each day worsened. A dry, rattling cough consumed her. Sickly green lines, like poisoned vines, crept across her skin from face to fingertips.
In the village, there was no doctor; the last had vanished with Kai's father. Only the priestess offered aid, her efforts growing fainter as hope dwindled.
After days of vigil, the priestess's visits became hollow. She gave up, but didn't stop visiting.
For days, Kai became a ghost in the market, filching scraps of bread and dried meat, anything to sustain the fading light in their cabin.
At night, Ayra would clutch him, her voice a broken thread in the dark. "Son, forgive me. I won't be able to protect you."
She thought he slept. At those moments, Kai would clench his small fists until his nails bit into his palms.
Tears he would not shed soaked the underside of his blindfold, and from its edges, a faint light would seep.
…
On the morning of his fifth birthday, Ayra's condition plunged into a final decline, one which neither Kai nor the priestess could imagine.
She could no longer rise, becoming a prisoner of her own bed. Her aura was now the faintest shimmer, a ghost of light, but Kai didn't stop feeding her.
She looked at him, at the band he never removed, and said with a voice that sounded like a rustle of dry leaves, "Kai… take off the band."
His small hands rose, meeting hers as they found the cloth. He let it fall.
A weak, wondrous smile touched her lips. "As I thought… I knew you hid them because of me." Her eyes were growing distant, their focus softening.
"Please… don't hide them anymore. Your eyes… are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The one thing I will forever remember."
The light in her eyes flickered, not with sorrow or pain, but with a final spark of happiness aimed at him. Then, it went out like a blast.
The moonlight through the cracks fell upon her still, smiling face.
A profound silence swallowed the room, broken only by the steady drip… drip… of Kai's tears hitting the floorboards.
The shadows he had lived with since birth, which were usually distant dancers, now drew closer.
They swirled around him, forming vague, comforting shapes, and placed a cool, intangible hand upon his small, shaking shoulder.
He did not know how long he sat in that silent communion with grief. Eventually, he reached for his mother's hand one last time, after all the tears in him had dried up.
A hard, cold object was pressed into her palm.
A black key, inscribed with a single, elegant 'K'.
"A key…?"
His gaze snapped to the old metal drawer by the bed. He fitted the key. The lock turned with a gritty thud.
Inside, a neatly folded white letter rested upon a plain black box. He saw his name written on it in his mother's bold handwriting.
His fingers trembled as he opened it, the paper crisp against his skin.
My son. You are special. I feel it. Your eyes are a gift, not a curse as others say. You're not a monster.
Don't hide them. Live. Fight. Become so strong that nothing can break you. Stronger so you don't lose to anyone, not even to yourself.
That's what your father and I would want. So strong that no one can hurt you or take from you freely.
Leave the village when you're older. You're a genius in absolutely everything you do. The world is big… and I want you to know it. Move around.
Have children, not one like I did. Understand? You are my pride. I always wished for a country filled with my grandchildren.
And please, be happy. You are my love, my pride, and my all. The best gift ever given to me. Sorry for not being able to stay with you a little longer.
The black box… open it when you're ready. When you understand how the mechanics of this world run. There is more for you to learn.
You're not just a normal kid. Don't belittle yourself.
I love you.
…
A terrible silence settled over Kai. He looked at his mother's serene face, and a small, resolute smile touched his lips.
"I understand. Mom, don't worry. I will definitely become stronger. Stronger than you could ever imagine."
His voice, still holding the softness of a child, now carried a core of hardened steel. "I will live the best life I can. For you."
The smile faded after he wiped his face and turned to the black box. He locked the drawer and walked to the only strong part of their crumbling home.
He took the blindfold from his neck and threw it into the wavering flames, and the fabric crackled, consumed by the fire.
He closed his eyes as the heat washed over him. Faces of the villagers who spat, the children who fled, the friends who turned away all flashed in his vision.
When he cracked his eyes open, his dual-colored orbs gleaming in the firelight, he made a vow. "I will never hide them again."
He crumpled the letter and offered it to the fire, watched his mother's last words turn to smoke. Then, he walked out into the night to fetch the priestess.
The old woman came, saw Ayra, and sighed a sigh of infinite weariness. She opened her mouth to offer hollow comfort, but the words died at the sight of the boy.
His face was calm. Kai turned his luminous eyes on her.
"I want to bury her by the mango tree behind the house. It was the place she sat the most." His voice hitched, a fleeting crack as he remembered her laughter beneath those branches.
"I'll bring a coffin and shovels. And some people to help," the priestess said.
"No." The word came flat. "Just the coffin and one shovel. I will do this alone." He clenched his fist, the memory of their isolation a physical weight in his gut.
"No one helped my mother while she was sick. Not even when she was well."
The priestess, understanding the judgment in his words, nodded.
She returned with a simple, unadorned wooden coffin, pulled a single shovel from within it, and handed it to the five-year-old boy.
She tapped his shoulder, then left.
Kai began.
He cleared the leaves, then returned inside. From a corner, he dragged out a heavy pickaxe sealed in a brown box.
'Your father used it in the diamond mine to help the village,' his mother's echo whispered. The tool was monstrously heavy, dragging him down again and again. But he had no time to care.
At the chosen spot, he swung. His thin arms screamed in protest as the metal head struck the iron-hard earth.
The impact jarred his bones, splitting skin on his palms. Blood seeped, mixing with the dirt. He swung again. And again. A small crater of cracked earth formed, enough for the shovel.
His heart hammered like a frantic bird in his chest. His body trembled from exhaustion and blood loss. "No. I can't let my body make me stop."
He screamed his defiance into the night, leaning on the pickaxe. The violet shadows around him, usually pliant to his unspoken will, now felt different, resistant.
Under the moon's gaze, his vision was preternaturally sharp, yet the shadows defied him. Was this the cost of his changing eyes?
"I need to finish," he whispered, the words steaming in the cold air.
He worked through the deep hours, a small, relentless figure under the moon. When the grave was finally deep enough, he collapsed to his knees, his hands ruined, his vision darkening at the edges.
"No… I can't faint… I CAN'T!" His shout echoed back, a lonely sound.
As his breathing grew ragged, the swirling shadows around the tree suddenly stilled. Then, as one, they plunged into him.
The force knocked him back. A vision exploded behind his eyes: people screaming, running, a face from the village contorted in terror, almost like a phantom echo of some other pain. Then, it disappeared like it was never there.
The pain in his hands, the exhaustion in his limbs… all vanished. He stood up, feeling a strange, humming vitality coursing through him. He picked up the shovel effortlessly.
In the far distance, toward the village center, he saw a bright, unnatural light. And against it, winged shadows were converging, flying with purpose.
'This is not the time,' he thought, the new strength in his body a chilling mystery.
He went inside, knelt beside his mother, and spent a final moment in silence. Then, with a care that belied his age and his newfound strength, he slid one arm under her knees, the other under her back, and lifted her.
He carried her to the grave like a queen borne in procession.
He fetched her brown pillow, placed it beneath her head. Even in death, her gentle smile remained, her short blue hair splayed like a halo in the coffin.
"Mom, I will remember you forever. I will raise my children with your love. I hope… one day, I can see you again. Goodbye, Mom."
He held back the torrent inside him, letting only a single tear trace a path through the dirt on his cheek. He closed the lid, lowered the coffin into the earth, and began to shovel the soil back.
Thud… thud… thud.
A three-bird choir in the mango tree sang a brief, sad song, then flew away, their whistles syncing with his heartbeat.
Within an hour, it was done. A mound of fresh earth lay beneath the tree.
"I got a little stronger, Mom. Rest here. When I am ready, I will return for the box. I will bury it with you, and tell you everything."
He went inside, picked up his mother's old bag, and placed three changes of clothes, two unripe mangoes, and the scarf she never wore.
He walked out of the house, leaving the door open to the wind. He did not look back at the fresh mound under the mango tree.
His strange, beautiful eyes, which were now fully unveiled, fixed onto the path leading to the village.
The very place where a strange fire burned against the night, and where dark, winged shapes beat their way toward a gathering light.