"Lydora!" Leo shouts as I fall to my knees. The light from the spell we used to kill Vaxon managed to leave in shards and hit me in the eyes.

People often assume blindness to be dark and lonely with what is behind the eyes. That was my viewpoint once upon a time. I was wrong. I can't see, that much is true. However, it isn't dark. Everything is bright and white. It gives a resemblance to looking directly into the sun and then trying to find your way the the dim indoors.

Maybe all of this is because I was hit by a powerful light magic. Or, maybe this is what blindness truly is. Either way, I can't make out a thing. Leo's face...I'll never see it again.

"Are you okay?" He asks in a panic. I feel him at my side. How am I going to live without sight?"

"Define okay. Because I can't see and depending on your definition of okay may answer may or may not be good."

Leo gently caresses my face and at first, I startle and flinch at his touch. It wasn't something I expected.

"We will figure this out. Okay?"

My mind flashes back to earlier. My plan was to advance the castle on my own, but I couldn't even make into the throne room. My body gave out and I was as good as dead, laying helpless in the grass.

That's when Leo and the rest of the magi came charging in, killing the guards. I would have guessed Leo to be the one to find me in the grass. I was wrong.

Kyren spotted me and quickly came to my aid, helping me up, offering me his coat, being...kind. I knew he had it in him all along.

He passed me off to Leo who all but carried me into the throne room after the Nires were killed and we could safely enter.

A lot of things happened. Most all of it is nothing more than a hazy blur. That's probably best since almost nothing good happened. A lot of innocent people died. My family died. Vassti died. Vaxon died.

That leaves me here. Blind and broken.

"We need a leader." The sound of Kyren's voice reaches my ears. I suppose my ears are now my greatest ally. "Without one, Castre will fall to pieces and destroy itself."

Leo helps me to my unsteady feet and keeps me held tight against his side. Jaxon must have accomplished something because I'm not getting weaker anymore. The effects are still certainly running their course through me, but I'm not dying anymore.

"I vote you," a voice not so familiar to me rings out. This is probably about the time I'm going to regret not getting to know the other magi and their voices.

"Who was that?" I whisper to Leo.

"Eriswen," he replies in a low tone.

"What if you lead?" I ask him.

I don't have to see to be able to know what expression is on his face. It's likely to be a mixture of disgust, confusion, and a very smothered hope.

"I'm no leader, Lydora. I can barely speak out to defend myself."

"Oh please," I scoff at him. "You've gotten in enough fights to prove your strong and brave."

He kisses my forehead lightly. It's weird not being able to see his face reaching closer to mine until our skin meets. I don't like it.

"I'm not the same foolish kid I used to be. That was stubbornness. Not bravery."

I roll my eyes. At least...I am pretty sure I roll them. It feels like I did. Nothing is certain to me anymore. Not with my eyes, anyway.

"Exactly as you said. You aren't the same foolish kid. You're smarter and think more now."

"Lydora, no." His voice is stern and final. It takes me by surprise. He's never been so harsh with me and it stings my heart. "I'm not leading people. That's that. End of discussion."

What he doesn't realize is I want him to do it for more reasons than one. It would give him a place of security. People would have to look up to him and listen to his orders. He would have guards and people to protect him.

There's the selfish end of it, too. I know he would keep me safe. Leo would watch out for Jaxon too. Trust is another big thing. I know him and I know he could be a good leader.

I won't push the matter though. If he doesn't want it, then he doesn't want it.

"Yeah, Kyren you should do it."

All of these voices...I don't know them. No matter, Kyren wouldn't make a good leader. Not right now anyway. Years down the road, maybe.

He's lost a lot, like all of us. Kyren, however, is too unstable. As much as I like him, he's a loose cannon ready to explode at any point.

"What about Eiridan?" I call out. He's always seemed to be a leader of sorts in my mind.

No one answers me outwardly. There are just faint murmurs filling the room. I can't make sense of any of it.

"Where's Jaxon?" I ask Leo while everyone contemplates how to fix our broken world.

"He had surrendered to Vaxon for you. He's in the, uh, torture chambers I think."

"What?" I nearly shout. "T-torture? We have to get him. Now."

Leo takes my hand and starts dragging me. I can only assume that no one hears us because no one asks what we are up to. We take some turns and my feet slip and I tumble down when we reach some stairs.

There's the faint warmth of blood trailing down from my head. This blindness thing is going to take a lot of getting used to.

After asking multiple times if I'm okay, Leo finally begins moving again. He keeps me closer now. Tighter, too.

"No matter what you see, you have to tell me. Okay?"

"Yeah."

We keep going through castle. There are too many stairs for my liking. I'm slowing us down.

There's a loud, protesting creak that I am to assume is a door.

"He's strapped to some sort of table," Leo whispers. "No one else is here."

"Is he conscious?"

"I don't know."

My fingers clasp around Leo's bicep tightly for fear that Jaxon might be dead. I can't deal with that. Not after everything else that's happened.

There's a sound of metal against metal. I want so desperately to be able to see what's happening. I feel so helpless like this. I'm always going to have to rely on someone from here on out.

It sounds like chains clash against the concrete floor. I want to see everything around me. I want to know that Jaxon is okay on my own without having to trust Leo's words.

"Oh my...they cut out...wow."

"What's going on?" I ask.

"Hold on Lydora," Leo snaps.

What is with him? He's normally so kind towards me. This isn't the Leo I've grown to love...Or maybe it is and he's just being hiding his feelings inside.

"No, she can't see anything," he whispers.

"Woah. Okay, that's a good feature that you have nailed down." Why isn't Jaxon speaking? It's all Leo...

There's a slight pounding in my head before the sound of Jaxon's voice pushes my own thoughts away.

"They cut out my tongue. I can't speak at all."

"H-how are you doing that?" I ask him.

"I learned before I went AWOL."

"They cut out your tongue?" Tears surprise me by rolling down my cheeks. Can I still do all the normal things with my eyes even though I can't see?

"Yeah. But at least I can do this. It isn't much of an impairment this way."

"Did they do anything else to you?"

"No. I crushed them with my gravity before anything else happened."

I feel the familiar arms of Jaxon wrap around my body, taking me by surprise. This whole not seeing thing is getting to me and I burst into tears. They're selfish tears.

Jaxon is the person I should be shedding tears for. Not myself. They cut his tongue out, for crying out loud. I'm sure they didn't do it nice and painlessly either.

"What have they done to us?" Jaxon says in my head.

An excellent question indeed. Not all too long ago I was a mostly normal girl. My family loved me, I had friends, I had no recollection of my scarred past. I wish time would rewind and go back.

Sure, I wouldn't know Jaxon to be my brother and Leo and I wouldn't be a thing of any sorts, but we would all be safe. Even still, I would like to think that Jaxon would have run in to me at some point during and we would've figured it out. And Leo popped up every now and then. We would probably have fallen for one another at some point.

"We should probably get back to the other magi," Leo states.

+++

"So I guess I'm the leader," Eiridan says.

"You can make all the dirty looks you want at her, but she won't see them," Leo says.

Dirty looks? Why would Eiridan give me dirty looks? It's not my fault, I only threw the suggestion out there. He easily could have said no. Leo did.

"What?" he asks.

"She got blinded by the spell we all did. Oh, and Jaxon can't talk."

There's not much trace of remorse in Leo's voice. At some point, I am talking to him about his new attitude. Just...now isn't the time.

"Okay, well..." Eiridan's voice trails off like he doesn't know what to do or say. None of us really know what to do.

"Kyren," I squeak, afraid to get an answer. "Is your daughter—"

"She's fine," he replies. As if to answer my question, there's a small cry that echoes in the destroyed throne room.

"He's holding her right now," Leo tells me.

"First thing we should do," Eiridan says. "Is lock up the castle. Vaxon still has people loyal to him bound to be seeking revenge."

He splits everyone into groups and informs Leo and I to stay put in the throne room.

"No," Leo says. "She's a capable person. I'm not going to always look out for her. I need something to do besides sit and wait."

Okay, even though I see where he's coming from he could be a little nicer about it. He's blazing a path in my mind and it isn't a good one. My opinion of him is slowly dropping and I don't want that. I want him to be the same person I fell for all those days ago while chained to that stupid castle wall.

"Fine," Eiridan says. "Go with Kyren, Jaxon, and, Lilja."

If I could glare at Leo, I would. I don't want to be left all alone. Not after everything that's happened. If only this was all a bad dream...

+++

"The doors are all locked," Kyren says.

I've noticed the space around me feeling more and more sparse as more magi trickle in from their task of securing the castle.

"Now we gather food and send a message out to all of the citizens to keep their doors locked until further notice." I'm not sure why Eiridan though he would be a bad leader. He's excellent at it so far.

+++

Months have passed and Vaxon's death spell is still keeping a tight grip on me. It's sticking with me so far, despite the spell being broken. There's still the blindness issue too.

Eiridan has been doing his best keeping the food rationed, but he can only do so much. Our supply is gone and there are still a lot of rebels out in the city.

We've managed to capture a lot. Unfortunately they were tortured, much to my dismay. Eiridan claimed it was the only way to get the information needed to stop the chaos of the city.

No one has listened to Eiridan's original call to stay indoors. A lot of citizens have died. It's sad, but kind of their own fault. That's the only way to look at. If I look at it any other way, it becomes too sad.

Every night after most of the magi have gone to sleep, Leo takes me to the roof for fresh air. He tells me what he sees. It's never good. Mostly dead bodies, wrecked homes, fires, things of that nature.

"Why do you think everyone is ignoring Eiridan?"

"Well," Leo says as the night air bites my cheeks. "Vaxon has been hammering it into the people's heads that we're dangerous as well as worthless. Our land is going through a major trial right now. Orders aren't going to be the easiest thing to abide by."

My stomach growls loudly and I clutch at it in an attempt to make the gnawing go away. It feels like there is a monster of sorts stuck inside, trying its absolute hardest to crawl its way out.

A small sound of discomfort leaves me. "I am so hungry.

"Hold out your hands."

I do and in second there's something soft and warm in them. I lift the item to my nose. A fresh roll.

"Where did you get this?" I ask him.

"Magi, remember?"

Conjuring things has to be hard for him. I'm not the only one around here with a lack of food. That means Leo, too. His energy levels have to be so low, especially after conjuring me a roll.

"Thanks."

We've kind of stopped any romantic interaction with one another. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe it's because I'm blind now. Or it could have something to do with the tragedies we've faced.

Something like what we went through should have made us closer. It didn't. It pushed him away from me. I hate it. There isn't a day that passes where I don't torture myself with the thoughts of when he seemed to love me.

I shouldn't complain. At least we're still friends. Close ones, at that. Out of curiosity, I reach my hand out beside me and find his hand.

"Lora," he starts to protest.

"No, Leo. What happened to us? You just stopped caring and I want to know why."

"There's a lot going on right now. Being in relationship isn't on the top of my to do list.

There is a lot of stuff happening, but that doesn't mean he should forget everything we had. That hardly seems fair.

Everything is falling to pieces around here. Innocent people are dying. No one listens to Eiridan. We are all literally starving to death. There's so much bad, it would be nice to having something good to hold on to.

"But I still have feelings for. Go ahead and box yours up, but I can't do that with mine. Mine are here to stay."

"Maybe once we get our land back on track—"

"Look around us, Leo. I'm blind, but even I can see that this mess isn't going to be fixed!"

He pauses before saying, "Will you eat that roll you're waving around? I can't keep it conjured forever."

I take an angry bite from it and talk through the bunched up dough in my mouth. "Tell me you don't care about me and I'll drop the conversation."

"Don't make me do this," he pleads.

"I don't get it...Why are you so heartless all of the sudden? It's not right!"

"I have lost everything," he shouts.

"And I haven't?"

"Lydora, I'm sorry. I need some time."

"Let me help you," I say. "I—"

"They've stormed the castle. This is it," Kyren's voice reaches me. It's not only his voice I recognize anymore. I can tell who he is by his footsteps now. "Jaxon was among one of the casualties. I'm so sorry."

My knees collapse and sobs rack my body. Leo doesn't comfort me like he used to. I don't even hear him flinch in contemplation. That hurts just as much as learning about Jaxon.

"Here's a map of where we're all going to meet up, granted we survive. You two get out of here through that back passage way."

I'm guessing that Kyren's pointing out some sort of secret exit. Seeing sure would be of some help in this situation.

"Meeting up for what?" I ask. Hiding out will only work for so long.

Kyren replies saying, "We're going to start a new life for ourselves."

"What?" Leo asks.

"We're going to have our own colony of sorts. Now go before the rebels find you."

And with that, Kyren leaves and Leo forces me to his back and starts sprinting away. He's all I have now and he doesn't even want me.