You awake to see.....nothing

The next thing I heard were voices clamoring around me. I tried to open my eyes, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't see a thing.

I don't remember the words that people said, but I've been able to piece together the gist of it since. I had been blinded. The machine exploded, taking both my father, and my sight.

The King was shortly in attendance, and seeing me, recently orphaned and crippled, decreed that an orphanage for the disabled should be constructed immediately, paid for by the state. This was the first act of such great charity that a king had decreed in generations, and as word made round, he quickly became known as King Cautus the Kind.

And that's how I came to live in the capital. The orphanage was built in the center of the city, the first of many instituted throughout the land, as close to the palace as could be built outside its walls. With time, I began to learn my way around. I couldn't see, but I could remember most of my surroundings. Before long, I developed a system, I took a walking stick with me everywhere to tap the ground in front of me, this kept me from walking into walls, and helped people recognize that I was blind. Before long, it had become an established habit for those who were blind. Word got around.

That's how I lived for years, blaming myself for my father's ****, and having sworn never to use my magic again. Until one day, my father's voice rang in my head.

"You know where you get your magic don't you boy? It's from your Mother, Merek. You see, love is the strongest magic of all."

I realized then that suppressing my magic was the last thing my parents would want. Practicing it would honor my mother's memory, as well as my father's. I was going to win the crown, and with it, carry on my father's legacy and build a better tomorrow.