His eyelids parted slowly, reluctantly, as if the desert itself had settled into his bones. The light hit him like a physical blow, white hot, merciless, searing through his vision and into the base of his skull. For a moment, there was nothing but pain and the copper taste of blood where he'd bitten his tongue.
'Where… am I?'
The thought came sluggishly, wading through tar. His body felt wrong. Too light. Too weak. His small hands, calloused, trembling, rose before his face, and something primal in him recoiled. These weren't his hands. Or were they? The memory slipped like water through his fingers.
A chain rattled as he shifted, the sound harsh and metallic against the endless whisper of sand. Rusted iron clamped his wrists, the skin beneath raw and weeping. Strange markings, triangles within circles, were etched into the metal. They meant nothing to him. Or maybe they once had. The thought twisted in his gut before dissolving like smoke.
Around him, men shuffled in the dust, their faces hollowed by hunger and sun. Some met his gaze with empty eyes. Others looked through him, already ghosts.
"Get up, boy."
The voice was cracked leather and venom. A slaver stood over him, whip coiled in one hand, the other resting on the hilt of a curved knife. His armor was studded leather, sun bleached and cracked, but the pauldron on his shoulder gleamed, a serpent coiled around a sunburst. The insignia meant nothing. It was just another detail in the nightmare.
He tried to push himself up. His arms shook. His legs, thin as kindling, refused to hold. The chain yanked taut as he collapsed, dragging down the slaves linked to him. A chorus of curses rose around him.
"Pathetic."
A boot connected with his ribs. The pain was bright, electric. He curled inward, gasping, but something hot flared beneath the agony. Rage. Useless, stupid rage, burning behind his eyes. He wanted to snarl, to bite, to tear at the hand that chained him. Some part of him screamed for vengeance;
'let me up, just let me up and I'll make you pay.'
The thought was wild, pointless. But it gave him something to cling to as the world shrank to pain and dust.
"Leave him be!" An older slave stepped forward, his voice rough but steady. "He's just a child."
"Then he should've died before he became my problem," the slaver spat.
A gaunt man with fever bright eyes shoved forward. "He's slowing us down. Cut him loose or put him down, I don't care which. But I won't die for some whelp!"
The whip cracked before anyone could react. The lash split the air, then flesh. The gaunt man staggered but didn't cry out.
"Next word from any of you," the slaver hissed, "and I'll peel the skin from your backs in strips."
Silence fell, heavy and suffocating.
The boy, was he a boy? Had he ever been? forced himself onto his knees. His vision swam. His lungs burned. But he rose.
One breath.
One step.
The desert stretched ahead, endless and indifferent. Somewhere in the haze of his mind, a voice whispered:
Survive.
**************
After hours of trudging through the unforgiving terrain, they finally found respite in a nearby oasis, and the air itself offered a breath of mercy.
The shade was a pitiful defense against the crushing sun. The kid lay slumped against a twisted tree, eyes half-closed, lips parched and cracked. His hands still trembled. Everything about him trembled, as if his body refused to be alive.
Footsteps in the sand.
The man crouching before him was tall, broad-shouldered, sturdy, with a frame that must have been imposing before hunger and chains hollowed him out. His brown hair, cropped short, was streaked with gray. But it was his eyes that struck hardest: green, a pale green as hard as crushed glass, that seemed to see through lies and fear.
He looks like a man who knows how to survive, the kid thought. But even he has limits.
In his calloused hands, a worn leather waterskin.
"Drink."
The kid grabbed it with animal desperation. Water flooded his throat, spilled down his chin, and for the first time since waking in this hell, he felt something resembling hope.
'Finally. Finally. I'm not going to die. Not yet. Not here.'
"Slow down, idiot," the man growled, yanking the skin away. "You'll choke yourself."
The kid gasped, chest burning. This time he obeyed. Sipped. Breathed.
'Why's he helping me? No one does shit for free here. Everyone wants something. Even so. I won't forget this.'
"I'm Ingward," the slave said after a silence. His green eyes scanned the camp, ever alert. "And you?"
The kid opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
'My name. I had one. I fucking had one. Why can't I remember? Am I... am I even really me?'
"I... I don't know."
Ingward nodded like he expected this. His thick fingers drummed against the empty waterskin. "You fall off the turnip cart or what?"
The kid didn't answer. Something in Ingward's voice twisted his guts. Not cruelty. Pity. And pity here was worse than a lash.
"Where are we?" he finally whispered.
Ingward laughed like it was a spit to the face. "In the wolf's jaws, kid. The Tower means nothing to you?"
The Tower. The word rang like a death knell. The kid closed his eyes, digging through the mud of his memory. Nothing. Just... fear. A visceral, animal fear.
"Don't worry," Ingward sneered as he stood up. "Three days from now, when we pass through the gates, you'll understand." He glanced toward the guards. "If you're still alive by then."
A whistle cut through the air. Chains rattled. The kid stood on shaking legs.
'Three days. Three days until what?'
Around him, the other slaves avoided his gaze. As if he was already dead.