Enslaved by the Crown: The Weakest Slave Has the Strongest Ability

Three gates stood before him.

Eldrin remained where he was, staring at them.

For a while, he did nothing.

The strange place was completely silent. Even the enormous red eye above him had gone still, watching without offering the slightest hint of what he was supposed to do.

A voice finally broke the silence.

"Choose."

Eldrin looked upward.

The eye remained fixed on him.

His throat felt dry.

Choose...

"How am I supposed to choose when I don’t even know what they are?"

There was no answer.

Eldrin looked back at the gates.

He tried to think.

The future one carried a strange heaviness.

The present felt almost ordinary.

The past made something deep inside him uneasy.

That was all he had.

He rubbed his forehead.

Fine.

Eldrin stepped closer.

His gaze moved across the three gates again.

Something about the Present one kept drawing his attention.

He couldn’t explain why.

Maybe it was the simplest.

Maybe that was exactly why.

Or perhaps there was another reason he couldn’t put into words.

Whatever it was...

He reached out.

His fingers touched the gate.

The surface was cold.

Then....

The gate opened.

A flood of red and black light rushed through the opening.

Eldrin’s eyes widened.

The colors poured over him before he could move, swallowing his hands, his arms, his chest...

and then the rest of him.

For one terrible instant, he felt as though the entire world had entered his body.

Then the light consumed everything.

...

..

.

"Huff..."

"Huff..."

Eldrin woke with a violent gasp.

Air rushed into his lungs as though he had been underwater.

His hands clawed at the ground.

For several seconds, he could do nothing except breathe.

His chest rose and fell rapidly.

His vision blurred.

Then he heard someone shout.

"Caiden!"

He looked up.

Ennessa was already running toward him from the edge of the training yard.

Her expression had changed completely.

Ender stood several steps away, frozen in place.

Neither of them seemed to understand what they were seeing.

Eldrin tried to speak.

His throat produced only a rough sound.

Something felt terribly wrong.

He looked at his hands.

The skin along his fingers had begun to split.

Fine cracks spread across his palms and crawled toward his wrists.

"What..."

A sharp pain tore through his body.

Eldrin cried out.

His back arched.

More cracks appeared beneath his skin.

It looked as though something inside him was pushing outward.

Ender took a step forward.

"Eldrin?"

Another violent spasm ran through him.

Ennessa reached him first.

"Move!"

Ender stopped.

Ennessa raised one hand.

A current of air wrapped around Eldrin’s body, lifting him several inches from the ground before he could collapse again.

His clothes fluttered violently as the air held him in place.

"I said move back."

Eldrin’s breathing became ragged again.

His eyes were changing.

The color slowly drained away from the irises.

A deep red spread across them.

Ender looked horrified.

"What is happening to him?"

Ennessa’s attention remained fixed on Eldrin.

His body shook once.

Then twice.

The cracks stopped spreading.

The tension suddenly disappeared from his muscles.

His body went limp.

Ennessa lowered him carefully until he was lying on the ground.

Ender immediately dropped beside him.

"Is he breathing?"

He placed two fingers against Eldrin’s neck.

A pulse.

Weak.

But steady.

"He’s alive."

Ender let out a breath.

"What was that?"

Ennessa stared at Eldrin for several seconds.

Then she looked at Ender.

"It was your mistake." Ennessa said.

"Anything else?" Ender asked.

....

[POV: Ennessa]

"He’s stable," the healer said. "His body reacted violently, but the immediate danger has passed."

"Can you tell what happened?"

The healer hesitated.

"I don’t know."

That answer bothered her more than a diagnosis would have.

Ennessa nodded and dismissed him with a quiet gesture.

Caiden lay unconscious beneath a thin blanket. His breathing was even now. The strange redness that had filled his eyes earlier had disappeared, leaving them the way they had always been.

But Ennessa hadn’t forgotten what she had seen.

The pain.

The cracking skin.

The sudden change.

She had witnessed enough awakenings in noble households to recognize the signs.

Almost.

She couldn’t be certain.

If Caiden had truly awakened a magical Pathway, then his life had changed the moment it happened.

A slave with no magical ability was one thing.

A newly awakened slave was something else entirely.

House Korrandis wouldn’t simply leave such a person to ordinary work. Someone would want to know what Pathway he had awakened. Someone would want to measure his potential. Someone would eventually decide how useful he could be.

And if the wrong person discovered it first...

He might never leave the estate again.

Ennessa knew what happened to people whose abilities became valuable to powerful families.

She had seen it with Rowan.

His life had once belonged to someone else.

His talent had been useful.

That had been enough.

Her eyes lowered.

If Caiden really awakened, he has no idea what is waiting for him.

Then another thought came.

Ender.

Ennessa remembered his reaction in the training yard.

The confusion.

The stupid expression.

The way he’d claimed not to understand what was happening.

She almost sighed.

You’re not fooling me.

Ender knew exactly what he’d witnessed.

He had awakened himself years ago. He had studied the subject at the academy. There was no way he had failed to recognize the signs.

He had pretended not to understand.

For her.

Or rather...

For the boy lying inside that room.

Ennessa leaned against the wall.

Why?

That was another question she couldn’t answer.

She looked through the glass again.

Caiden had appeared in their household less than two years ago.

At first, he had seemed like an unusually educated slave with an unfortunate amount of curiosity.

Then she’d found him inside the private archive.

After that, he disappeared while carrying her letter and returned three days later with a story that didn’t quite sit right.

And now this.

Too many pieces.

Too many things that didn’t fit together.

A normal slave didn’t attract this many questions.

Ennessa folded her arms.

Who are you?

She had no answer.

And that was beginning to bother her.

She was leaving for the academy next week.

Once she left, she would be away from the estate for months.

She couldn’t investigate him from the academy.

Which meant...

She had one week.

One week to figure out who Caiden really was, what had happened to him before entering House Korrandis, and whether today’s awakening had been what she thought it was.

Her gaze hardened.

Until she knew the truth, she couldn’t decide what to do with him.

Protect him?

Report him?

Ignore him?

None of those choices felt safe.

Ennessa pushed herself away from the wall.

"For now..."

She looked once more through the glass.

"...I’ll keep this between us."

She turned toward the corridor.

But one question followed her as she walked away.

What exactly have we brought into this house?

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