"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."

- Henry David Thoreau

The sun beat down on the boy's head as he stumbled through the desert. What food and water he had been able to carry had run out the day before, and he had found nowhere to shelter through the day. If he lay down now, he was not sure that he would be able to rise to his feet again.

So he stumbled on. It was difficult to determine much about the boy's appearance. Sand clung to his hair and clothes, masking even his eyebrows and eyelashes in a gritty layer of dust. His clothes were faded and torn in places and his battered sandals barely protected his feet. He glanced up to search the horizon, revealing a thin, aristocratic face and deep blue eyes.

He was only twelve years old.

With a snap, one of the straps on the battered sandals finally broke. He bent down with a curse, voice slightly roughened by a peasant lilt. The sandal was ruined beyond his skill to mend. Carefully, he knotted the broken strap together. It would have to do. The boy straightened up and took a tentative step. The sandal was left behind. He stopped with another curse, and then with a sigh, kicked off the other sandal. Barefoot, he continued on.

The sand was hot under his feet. He grit his teeth and kept going, ignoring the discomfort. There! A faint smudge, barely visible in the distance. A city. Hopefully, the right one. But the desert was deceiving; it was possible that the image was nothing more than a mirage, or many days' travel away. He didn't have days. Not unless he stumbled upon an oasis soon.

Lost in his own thoughts, the boy did not hear the sound of horses until they were quite nearby. When the sound of hoofbeats finally registered, he braced himself for fight or flight, looking around, trying to pinpoint the source. To his left, he spotted two horses rapidly bearing down on him. He reached for his belt, drawing the knife that hung upon it.

With a whinny, the lead horse pulled up, flinging sand in all directions. The other horse followed suit, its rider clinging tightly to the reins as he fought to hold the spirited animal still. The man upon the first horse laughed.

"Well, what do we have here?" The boy looked up to see a sun-wrinkled face, two dark brown eyes gleaming down at him from under a crown of black hair. The man was dressed in loose-fitting robes, suitable for the desert. A well-used sword hung at his belt. His companion, who was nearly identical to the first, scowled.

"A little rock lizard."

The first man frowned. "Atsu..." he said. He nodded at the knife in the boy's hand. "I think the lizard has teeth."

"Do you accost all travelers this way?" the boy asked, drawing himself up indignantly.

The first man laughed again. "What's your name, little dragon?"

The boy stiffened. "You first," he said. "You began this encounter."

The first man gave a slight bow. "I am Akiiki. This is my brother Atsu."

"Seth," the boy said reluctantly.

"Seth," Akiiki said, sounding it out. "Where are you going, Seth?"

"The capital," Seth said. He didn't relax his grip on the knife.

Akiiki cocked his head. "That's a long way. I notice you aren't carrying any food or water." Seth was silent.

Atsu laughed. "Stupid little lizard won't live to become a big one at this rate."

"It's been a long journey," Seth couldn't resist saying. "And the oases are few."

Atsu rode forward until he was nearly on top of Seth. "Where exactly are you coming from?" he asked shrewdly.

"Tanis," Seth lied quickly. Men like these had been responsible for destroying his village. Tanis was a large city some weeks distant.

Atsu's eyes narrowed scornfully. "You walked all the way from Tanis?"

Seth lifted his head, making sure to meet Atsu's eyes directly. Atsu stared at him; Seth did not move. Finally, Atsu looked away. He has old eyes for one so young, he thought.

"The capital is three days from here on foot," Akiiki said, considering Seth closely. "You're going to walk the whole way without food or water?"

"I'll manage," Seth replied.

Atsu snorted. "I don't think so. Look at you; you're covered in sand, your skin's cracked, you probably haven't eaten in a long time. You won't last for a couple of hours, let alone a couple of days."

Seth gestured around with his free hand. "Do I have another choice?"

Akiiki studied him for another moment. "Can you ride a horse?"

Atsu scowled at his brother. "We're not taking him with us! Give him some water and send him on his way."

Akiiki silenced him with a look. "You want to leave a boy to die in the desert?"

"I would appreciate the water, if you can spare it" Seth interrupted. "But I don't need your charity."

"Don't be ridiculous," Atsu said with a resigned sigh. "Get on the horse."

"But…" Seth protested.

"My brother's right," Akiiki said. "We have food and water to spare. Get on the horse."

Warily, Seth approached Akiiki. The man sighed. "I'm not going to hurt you." He tapped the sword at his belt. "If I had wanted to, I would have done so long before."

With surprising agility, Seth sprang up behind Akiiki, sheathing his knife at the same time. The man twisted in his seat and handed Seth a waterskin. "Have a drink of that. At nightfall, we'll stop for dinner."

"Thank you," Seth murmured, but his words were lost as Akiiki and Atsu spurred their horses, trotting through the desert towards the smudge on the horizon.

Seth found it difficult not to stare as Atsu and Akiiki walked their horses through the gates of the capital. There was much to attract his attention. Venders cried out their wares at the top of their lungs, their shrill voices strangely accented to Seth's ears. Waves and waves of people thronged the wide streets, moving, talking, laughing, and complaining. The smell of food and sweat permeated the air, filling it with a sticky sweet odor.

Seth clung surreptitiously to Akiiki's saddle. Apparently, he wasn't discreet enough, for the man twisted in his seat to look back at his passenger.

"The city can be a little overwhelming if you're only seeing it for the first time. A bit bigger than Tanis, huh?" he added with a wink.

Seth didn't reply, focusing on keeping his mouth tightly closed.

Akiiki laughed. "Don't be shy, boy. It's alright to be impressed. After all," he said, looking at Atsu, "The Pharaoh has done a great deal to ensure that we are."

"The Pharaoh?"

"Pharaoh Aknankamon," Akiiki replied, spurring his horse through a crowd of people. They parted briefly to let him through. "A good enough king, as kings go."

At that moment, a merchant in a rich tunic embroidered with gold shoved up to Akiiki and laid a hand on the man's knee. Akiiki reined up the horse, but his expression was anything but pleasant.

"How much for the boy, Akiiki?" asked the merchant. His voice was oily and cold and Seth felt himself shiver, despite the heat of the sun. He did not like the way the man was looking at him.

"He's not for sale," Akiiki replied gruffly, trying to spur his horse past the man.

"I will pay a great deal," the merchant persisted in a low tone, tightening his grip. "With exotic looks like his…" He gazed up at Seth with open avarice.

"We told you," Atsu said, spurring his horse alongside. "He's not for sale."

"Do you intend to keep him yourselves?" the merchant demanded. "A slave is an inconvenient thing to cart between cities, Akiiki. You'd do better to sell him to me."

"I know full well what becomes of slaves in your house, Odji," Akiiki growled. "He's not for sale!"

"Very well," Odji said, stepping back. "But there's no other way to turn a profit on him, you know that as well as I." He disappeared into the crowd. Seth relaxed his grip on the knife at his belt.

"Be glad you didn't use that knife," Atsu told him as they continued through the city. "It is death for a peasant to attack a merchant or a noble, even for giving one so much as a scratch."

"That's not fair!" Seth protested. "He would get no punishment for hurting me."

Atsu laughed sourly. "That's the way of the world, little lizard." He hunched down a little on his horse. "Life is never fair."

Seth had just opened his mouth to frame another question when there was the sound of shouting. Fifty or so men armed with swords and with the look of soldiers were marching down the main thoroughfare, parting the people as they came. Among them, Seth caught a glimpse of a golden chair, carried on poles by four more burly guards. A canopy of white cloth arched over the chair, protecting the occupant from the hot sun.

"This day just keeps getting more and more interesting," Akiiki said, directing the horse towards the edges of the road, picking his way through the throng. "It's the prince."

The prince! Seth craned his neck to look at the chair as the procession passed. The prince was young, hardly more than a boy it seemed. He was also very short. But the rest of his appearance more than made up for his lack of height. His hair was black and red and stuck up strangely, like a star. Blonde lightning bangs hung in the prince's face, and as Seth watched he brushed them aside impatiently. He had a narrow, angular face, dominated by a pair of beautiful crimson eyes.

Seth couldn't help it. He stared. He was not aware that Akiiki and Atsu had slid from their horses until Akiiki tugged at his tunic and hissed, "Kneel!"

Startled, Seth slid quickly from the horse and knelt in the street. The prince's procession was only a few feet away. As it passed, Seth looked up. The crimson eyes swept over the crowd…and stopped. The prince stared at Seth, who stared frankly back.

"You!" shouted one of the guards. "Keep your eyes on the ground."

Seth dropped his gaze. But even with his head lowered, he could feel the curious eyes of the prince upon him all the way up the street. No one moved for a long moment after the caravan passed. Then, abruptly, the entire mass of people surged to its feet and continued about the business of living.

Seth stood more slowly, but as Akiiki reached down to pull him up on the horse again, he took a step back.

"Thank you, Akiiki, Atsu," he said. "I appreciate your kindness in aiding me. But I will make my own way from here."

"Don't be ridiculous," Atsu scoffed. "This isn't Tanis. You don't know the first thing about surviving in this city."

"I'm a little rock lizard, remember?" Seth said softly, but his lips quirked with a faint hint of a smile. "We can survive anywhere."

Before Akiiki or Atsu could say another word, Seth vanished into the crowd. Akiiki turned his horse, sparing one last glance for the place where the boy had been.

"I hope he doesn't do anything stupid," he said ruefully to Atsu.

Atsu snorted. "He's a boy. They are fated to do stupid things."

"Maybe so," Akiiki conceded, spurring his mount on. "Let's hope then that he's more of a dragon then he looks."

Seth had not gone two dozen steps when he felt a hand clamp down hard on his shoulder. He gasped with pain and turned to see Odji, the merchant who had accosted them before.

"Alone at last," the man leered.

Seth had only moments to decide what to do. His knife was within reach at his belt, but he remembered Akiiki's warning that to attack a merchant meant death. If he called for help, it was probable that no one would help him for much the same reason. That left only one option: run.

He twisted futilely in Odji's grip, but the merchant had him fast. The man began to drag him towards a doorway along the street, drawing a length of stiff cord from his tunic as he did so. Pinning Seth's wrists with one hand, he began to tie the cord tightly around them. When Seth struggled, the merchant cuffed him sharply. There were hundreds of people around them, but nobody paid the scene any attention. No one came to Seth's aid.

Seth felt extraordinary anger welling up inside him. To be attacked and forced towards a life of slavery and degradation violated every human instinct he had. He glared at Odji, hating the man's oily hair and greedy smile. At that moment, what he desired more than anything else was to hurt him, destroy him.

And something in him responded. A latent power he could barely sense, let alone control. If Akiiki had been nearby, he might have called it the blood of a dragon. Perhaps it might have been more accurately called Shadowmancy – the pure desire to dominate and destroy. But whatever it was, it exploded from Seth's skin with hurricane force. Odji shrieked as the hand gripping Seth's wrists started to bubble. Then suddenly Seth was free.

He did not stop to ponder what had happened, or to see the end result. He was too busy running: down a narrow side street and emerging in the heavy crowds on the other side. He could hear Odji shouting for someone to "stop that boy", but he didn't slow. In his peripheral vision, he saw a hand coming for him. He dodged nimbly and sprinted into another alley. Halfway in, he spotted a niche in the wall of one low building where the material had worn away. He used it as a stepping stone and fled across the roof, jumping from one to another until at last he left his pursuers far behind. Finally, panting, he returned to the street level and stopped in the shade of a building to get his bearings and consider the situation. Using the rough stone wall, he worked the leather bindings loose and dropped them to the ground.

It was only then he took time to wonder, What happened to me? He didn't have the answer, he knew, not yet at least. The power that had exploded from him with the force of his anger had been frightening, but also…exhilarating. He wanted it back.

He rested for a few more minutes in the shade of the building, then set off through the city, keeping a sharp eye out both for Odji and for somewhere where he could begin to accumulate the things he would need to survive.

Unknown to Seth, a pair of curious eyes watched him as he trudged through the streets, and a small smirk flitted across the watcher's face.