Toil Vash's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Toil walked toward the assignment board the next morning with his shoulders pulled in tight. The board stood in an alcove between two buildings, a wide panel covered in parchment notices. Students crowded around it, calling out names and forming groups. He stopped at the edge of the crowd and waited. A parchment poster hung beside the board — a family of bards, brightly illustrated, announcing performances in the grand auditorium that evening. More students pushed into the alcove to read it, their voices rising with excitement. Toil tried to step back but the crowd pressed closer. Someone's elbow caught his shoulder. He flinched and pulled his arms in. The voices grew louder — someone laughed, someone else shouted a name across the crowd. His chest tightened. He needed to sign his name on one of the assignment notices. He needed to prove he belonged here. But the crowd kept pushing, and he couldn't move forward without touching someone, couldn't reach the board without being seen. Then a voice cut through the noise behind him. "That's him — the one from the registry." Toil's breath stopped. He didn't turn around. "Are you sure?" another voice asked. "Look at the robe. Look at the way he stands. That's Vash." The crowd shifted. Students turned to stare. Toil's hands started shaking. He pressed them against his sides but the shaking spread up his arms. His magic stirred beneath his skin — a cold, twisting pressure that always came when people watched. He tried to breathe slowly, tried to keep it inside, but the stares kept coming. Someone whispered his father's name. The pressure built until it cracked. Shadow poured from his hands in a dark spiral, twisting upward like smoke. It moved the way his father's magic moved — fluid and deliberate, hungry. Students stumbled back with shouts of alarm. The shadow spread across the alcove wall, curling into shapes that looked almost alive. Toil clenched his fists and the magic pulled back into him, leaving only a faint stain on the stone. The crowd had gone silent. Everyone stared. No one spoke. Toil turned and walked away quickly, his heart pounding so hard it hurt. He had wanted to prove himself with an assignment. Instead he had proven exactly what they feared. The corridor behind him stayed quiet, but he knew what they were thinking. He had seen it in their faces — the same look his father must have seen a hundred times before he stopped caring what anyone thought.