The Blind Sentinel



The raiders thought the blindfold made her weak.
They were wrong.
Kaelira stood alone in the shattered temple gate, her staff steady in her hands as flames crackled behind the crumbling pillars. She could not see the men creeping through the smoke, blades drawn and confidence high.
But she didn’t need sight.
She felt the tremor of their footsteps through the stone.
 Heard the tension in their breathing.
 Counted the heartbeats between each cautious step.
Three of them.
The first rushed her, believing speed would win the fight.
Her staff moved before his blade finished its swing.
A crack of wood against bone echoed beneath the archway, and the man fell. The other two froze, realizing too late that the blindfold was not a weakness—it was a vow.
Kaelira shifted her stance, staff humming through the air as embers drifted around her like sparks from a forge.
“Leave,” she said calmly.
Neither of them listened.
They would soon learn why the monks of the Ember Gate feared the woman who fought without sight.