The makeshift camp of Solis was a strange blend of military discipline and utter desolation. White tents stood in neat rows beneath a sun that struggled to pierce the thick plumes of black smoke still rising from the Whispering Desert. The boy, his gauntlets finally removed to reveal surprisingly small and pale hands, sat on a crude stool, his torn clothes barely washed.
Facing him, behind a roughly hewn table, sat Captain Valerius—a massive man with salt-and-pepper hair and a gaze hardened by a hundred battles—and the mage, Elara. She had traded her travel cloak for more sober robes, but her crystal staff remained within reach, and a faint, discrete smile played upon her lips.
"So, 'young man'," Valerius began, his voice deep and gravelly, "you were found alone at the site of a massacre that claimed most of our 3rd Legion. The soldier you claimed to be helping died on the way to camp. Your explanation?"
The boy swallowed hard. His blue eyes, similar to Elara's but filled with visceral fear, flickered toward the mage for a moment. She gave him an imperceptible nod, encouraging him.
"I… I don't remember, Captain," he whispered. "There was a great light, screaming… and then, I found myself there, with the dead all around me. I didn't do anything. I swear."
Valerius slammed his gauntleted fist onto the table. "'Didn't do anything'? Dozens of our best men are gone, and you are the only survivor left unscathed, aside from the mangled body of the soldier who saw you and died calling you a—"
"He was in shock, Captain," Elara interrupted, her voice soft but firm. "The magical explosion could have altered his memories. He bears no marks of combat, and his hands are those of a child, not a killer."
Valerius narrowed his eyes. "And what about you, Master Mage? You insisted on bringing him back. Is your intuition about this boy more reliable than the evidence of a massacre?"
Elara's smile widened slightly. "Evidence can be deceiving, Captain. My role is to find the truth, not just easy culprits. This child is an anomaly. He deserves to be examined more thoroughly at the Solis Academy of Mages."
The Captain stared at her, then shifted his suspicious gaze back to the boy, who was trembling slightly.
"Fine. But my report will state that he remains a suspect. And if it turns out he is linked to this horror, you will be held responsible, Master Mage. For now, he travels with you to Solis. He is under your guard."
Elara stood up, her crystal staff clacking softly against the ground. "Understood, Captain. Come, 'Little Dragon,' we are leaving for Solis. And do not worry—no one will harm you as long as I am here."
Despite his anxiety, the boy felt a strange glimmer of hope. The road to Solis, alongside this enigmatic mage, promised to be a long one.
The military camp faded behind them, giving way to the shifting dunes of the Whispering Desert. The nameless boy walked beside Elara, the heavy silence broken only by the whistling wind. The escort knights, ever cautious, maintained a respectful distance.
"You know," Elara began, her crystal staff echoing softly against the sandy ground, "it isn't every day we find a survivor without a single scratch after such a battle. Especially one with a… passenger."
The boy looked up, his blue eyes locking onto hers. "A passenger? What do you mean? And these gauntlets… they are too big for me, I feel like—"
Elara smiled—that strange, soothing smile that had the power to both reassure and terrify him. "Those gauntlets, 'Little Dragon,' aren't there for show. They are much more than simple knight's armor. They bind you. They protect you. And above all, they protect others from what slumbers inside you. They are a gift… or perhaps a prison."
She left the sentence hanging, watching him desperately search for meaning in her words. He was there, an amnesiac in the middle of nowhere, without a flag, a family, or a past. Only these gauntlets and the shadow that seemed to haunt him.
Several hours passed under an orange sun that was beginning to sink toward the horizon. The tension was palpable. The desert was never empty at night.
Suddenly, the sand in front of them began to ripple. Not from the wind, but from an underground force. Massive rings opened on the surface, and creatures of rock and dust emerged: long sand worms with gaping maws bristling with fangs, and formless golems made of cracked earth, their heavy fists ready to strike.
"Formations!" the escort leader shouted. "Protect the Mage and the child!"
The knights scrambled into position, their swords clashing against the stone hides of the golems. But the sand worms were too fast, too many. One of them, its deformed head reared back, lunged at a group of struggling soldiers, ready to swallow them whole.
Frozen by fear, the boy saw the despair in the knights' eyes. He felt a heat rising within him—an instinctive rage that had nothing to do with his shadow. Without thinking, without even knowing how, a word burst from his throat, torn out by terror and a burning desire to save them.
— "FIREBALL!"
An explosion of orange flames erupted from his bare hands. It wasn't a small spark, but a searing torrent that incinerated the sand worm in an instant, reducing it to flying ash. The other sand monsters, startled, ground to a halt.
Silence fell again, even more deafening than before. The knights, their faces hidden behind their visors, stared at the boy, then at the smoking remains of the monster. Elara, her strange smile frozen, looked at him—not with surprise, but with a calculating intensity.
As for the boy, he stared at his hands, stunned. He hadn't chanted. He hadn't even intended to. He had just… screamed. And a basic fire spell had hit with the power of an expert-tier mage.