The boy violently tore his gaze away from the wall, his heart hammering wildly against his ribs. He fled, stumbling over the debris, his boots slipping on fragments of shattered armor. He had to leave. Far from that wall, far from that shadow, far from the suffocating stench of iron and smoke.
As he rounded the charred wreckage of a transport wagon, a sound froze him in his tracks.
Clack. The sound of metal striking metal. Then, a muffled groan.
A few meters away, a knight whose silver armor was caked in mud was struggling to sit up. His helmet was cracked, revealing a face masked in blood and eyes wide with terror. The knight saw the boy. But instead of reaching out for help, he crawled backward, a trembling hand desperately clawing for the hilt of his broken sword.
"You..." the soldier gasped, his voice heavy with pure hatred laced with dread. "Monster... You're nothing but a... monster..."
The boy stopped dead, his gauntleted hands raised in a defensive gesture.
"No, I... I'm not... I wanted to help you!" he stammered.
But the knight wasn't looking at the boy's face. He was staring, with absolute horror, at the ground just behind the young man's feet. There, despite the absence of direct sunlight beneath the wagon, a claw of darkness seemed to emerge from the boy's own shadow, slowly creeping toward the wounded man like a starving beast stalking its prey.
The boy's right arm was suddenly seized by a violent convulsion. Beneath the leather and metal of his gauntlet, he felt his bones crack and elongate, while a suffocating, black heat flooded his veins. Without his command, his arm rose, fingers curling into talons ready to crush the wounded man's throat.
"No! Stop!" he screamed internally, fighting against his own limb that no longer obeyed him.
The shadow on the ground stretched out like a liquid blade, merging with the raised arm. The dying knight closed his eyes, waiting for the coup de grâce...
— "Frost Bind!"
A discharge of pure cold struck the boy's wrist, instantly freezing his arm mid-motion. A young woman, dressed in an azure cloak embroidered with silver runes, had just emerged from the ruins, her crystal staff still smoking with a bluish aura.
Behind her, the rhythmic thud of boots on metal echoed: reinforcements. A squad of elite knights appeared, leveling their spears at the scene.
"Master Mage!" the squad leader cried. "That monster... he was about to finish off the survivor!"
The boy fell to his knees, his right arm still paralyzed by the ice spell, hiding his monstrous hand beneath his cloak. His shadow, struck by the bursts of light from the newcomers, seemed to retract, returning to the outward appearance of a terrified child's shadow.
The mage cast an intense gaze upon the boy. Her eyes seemed to read through him, piercing the secret lurking in his blood. She remained silent for a second, then, in a firm voice that brooked no argument, she commanded:
"Lower your weapons! He is but a child in shock. He was trying to clear debris from this soldier's neck. Escort him to the medical camp with the wounded. Immediately!"
The soldiers hesitated, casting suspicious glances at the surrounding corpses, but no one dared contradict a mage of her rank. They approached to lift the dying knight and help the boy to his feet.
As he was being led toward the tents, the mage leaned toward his ear and whispered so low that only he could hear:
"Keep that gauntlet closed, 'Little Dragon.' If the shadow emerges again, I won't be able to lie a second time."