Christian drew a long breath. His mind was a haze.
"O… what… gah!"
Wood groaned around him, iron joints shrieking with every lurch of the carriage. Each jolt sent pain through his body, as if his bones no longer obeyed him. The air inside was thick — sweat, leather, damp hay.
At first, he could not feel his own flesh. Only a crushing weight pressing down on his chest, like the suffocation of a man dragged too deep beneath the sea. He gasped, desperate, forcing breath into lungs that felt borrowed.
There was no candlelight. Only the pale moon, seeping through narrow cracks in the wooden walls, laying thin silver lines across the faces of those sitting beside him.
In that weak glow, he looked at himself — and nearly failed to recognize what he saw. Muscles fragile, thin; hands too small, too light for someone who remembered the weight of a sword that had once pierced the hearts of dragons.
Where am I? What happened to my body?
He turned to the others. Children and youths, their figures slumped in uneasy sleep, each wrapped in little more than a strip of cloth to ward off the cold. Their breaths rose and fell shallowly, fragile as embers.
Christian closed his hand. That simple gesture brought with it a memory: the pressure of a hilt, the flash of black fire. His throat dried. This was no dream.
Other humans… alive? Was I rescued?
The thought staggered him. For the first time, he noticed the rhythm of the carriage wheels — relentless, dragging them all somewhere he did not know.
And this body…
He stared again at the pale skin of his arms, trembling in the shafts of moonlight. He tried to sit, but his legs betrayed him, shaking under a weakness that felt absolute.
"Argh…" His groan was more breath than voice.
This pain… not just in my legs, but through every limb. What is this? Did I use too much power?
Instinctively, he tried to evoke the moonlight. Nothing came. Not even the faintest trace.
My… mana…
Gone. Hollow. He reached and found nothing.
A gust of cold air cut through the carriage. Everyone shrank beneath their thin cloths. Christian did the same, shivering as the chill gnawed at his bare skin.
Where are they taking me?
The question sank deep as more memories surged. His companions, before madness consumed them. Each battle, each death. Not only those — but fractured echoes of something older still, from a life before that cruel age. Faint impressions, nothing whole. His name. A face. Everything else buried, lost.
The age of men has begun.
The words echoed again. He felt it not in his ears but in the hollow that stretched inside his chest. His eyes darkened, robbed of their shine. Pulling the thin cloth over himself, he sank into silence as the carriage rattled on, accepting whatever fate awaited him at journey's end.