Chains pulled him forward.
The crystal shards from the shattered wall above the court had fallen with a dull chime, but their energy lingered in the air like an echo. Eryndel could feel it even as the guards behind him tightened their grip, dragging him beneath the Crystal Court, down winding stone stairs carved deep into the earth. Each step reverberated in the hollow corridors, a dull drum of inevitability. The air grew colder, heavier, older, as though it remembered every condemned soul who had ever been brought to this place and judged unworthy.
Runes lined the walls, faintly glowing in shifting shades of violet and red, their pulse synchronized with something older than the Kingdom itself. They seemed to watch him pass, alive in a way no magic schoolbook had ever described. Each symbol vibrated subtly, a silent warning to the boy who had been declared powerless.
This place was ancient. Forgotten by most. Sacred, feared, and cruel.
The execution ground lay far below the capital, a circular chamber of black stone etched with intricate symbols. They pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat, but also thrummed with a resonance that felt wrongdissonant. It was a place built for one purpose: to extinguish life.
A knight shoved him to his knees. The chains bit into his wrists and shoulders, leaving angry red welts. He did not resist. Fearless, or perhaps numb to the inevitability of his fate.
"Any last words?" the knight asked coldly, his voice echoing across the chamber.
Eryndel looked up. The knight's armor gleamed under the dim glow of the runes, but his eyes betrayed hesitation. They recognized something, something no one else had ever seen in him.
For a fleeting moment, he considered begging. Pleading for mercy, for life. But he had spent sixteen years surviving without power. Begging had never helped.
"I was born this way," he said quietly. "That's all."
The knight scoffed. "Die believing that."
He raised the execution rune embedded in the stone. A flash of light erupted. Pain should have followed, swift and merciless.
It did not.
Instead, the black stone went silent. The glow from the runes dimmed, flickered, then cracked. Tiny fractures spider-webbed across the floor, their edges faintly pulsing with a strange, alien light.
The knights stepped back in alarm, muttering among themselves. One whispered, "It… it can't be…"
The air trembled, not with mana, but with absence. The emptiness inside Eryndel resonated with the stone beneath him. A strange warmth spread through him, something he had never known existed, something that was neither mana nor magic, yet undeniable.
He had always been powerless. Always nothing. And yet now, the stone itself seemed to acknowledge him. Respond to him.
The High Judge stormed down the stairs, staff crackling with blue energy, his eyes wide in disbelief. "Step back! Step back from him!" he shouted. His voice echoed, but even he trembled, uncertain whether his law, or his magic, would hold.
The cracks widened. The runes pulsed faster, their light stuttering. The knights gripped their swords, shields, and spears, but the energy around Eryndel made their movements slow, hesitant. It was as if reality itself obeyed the boy who was supposed to be nothing.
Eryndel rose to his feet, chains falling away with a metallic clatter that echoed in the chamber. He did not raise his hands, did not cast a spell, he had none, but the stone pulsed beneath him, alive with anticipation.
He could feel it all: the history buried in this place, the fear of every mage and noble who had ever walked these corridors, the countless lives that had been ended here. And now, for the first time, he was part of it.
The High Judge raised his staff, shouting, "This is impossible! The law, nothing can defy it!"
Eryndel's lips curved into a faint, defiant smile. "Perhaps," he said quietly, "the law is wrong."
A streak of orange flame leapt from a fracture in the stone floor, snapping toward him. Not a spell, not controlled. Pure energy, alive and chaotic. Eryndel dodged instinctively, feeling the heat brush his arm. He realized, with a thrill of awe, that the force had not been aimed to kill, but to test. To awaken something that had lain dormant inside him all these years.
The knights stumbled back, shields raised, terrified. The High Judge faltered, jaw tight, his staff crackling wildly. The room seemed to shrink and expand at the same time, the runes thrumming like a heartbeat in hyperdrive.
Eryndel felt the ember inside him flare, responding to the absence, to the ancient energy. It was raw, dangerous, unpredictable, and he could sense it bending to him. Not because he had mana, but because he was the void itself.
He remembered the whispered legends of the first Mana-less, cast out and feared, labeled monsters. Perhaps they had not been powerless at all. Perhaps their true strength was always hidden, waiting for the one who could awaken it.
And now, he knew, that one was him.
The cracks in the black stone widened further, sending tiny shards skittering across the floor. The energy surged, and a low hum resonated through the chamber, vibrating the walls, the ceiling, even the armor of the knights. It was as if the execution ground itself had awakened, recognizing the boy who was meant to be nothing.
Eryndel stepped forward. The floor responded. The runes flared and then dimmed, as if acknowledging him. The knights tried to advance, but each movement felt heavier, sluggish, as if the chamber resisted their presence.
The High Judge's staff shone brighter than ever, his voice cutting through the chaos. "Stop this! The law… I command you!"
But the law had already failed. The chamber was no longer merely a place of death, it was alive, and it had chosen its own witness.
Eryndel's eyes swept the room. The knights were terrified, the judge desperate, and yet he did not move to harm them. Not yet. He was testing himself, testing the limits of what he had just become.
The energy coiled around him, a living, writhing force, waiting. And for the first time, he understood that being born without mana did not mean he was powerless.
It meant the world had underestimated him.
And underestimation, he realized, was the deadliest mistake anyone could make.
He took a slow, deliberate step forward. The ground shivered beneath him. The chamber responded, alive with anticipation. Outside, in the Crystal Court above, nobles would whisper of the impossible. And below, in the depths, a boy who was supposed to die had just begun to awaken.
The first strike had been avoided. The first display of power had begun. And the world would remember that Eryndel, born without mana, had refused to be nothing.