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Chapter 2 - Ashrakas Dust

The sand always found a way in. In his shoes. In his mouth. Even in the seams of the blanket his mother had stitched from torn scraps and dried leather. Levi Zahir didn't hate the sand—it was just always there, like the heat or the chains or the way the guards looked at his mother when they thought he wasn't watching. He was five—maybe six. No one really knew. Ashraka didn't keep records. It kept bodies. And somehow, Levi wasn't one of them. Not yet. He sat cross-legged in the shadows of a crumbling wall, where the sun couldn't quite reach, tracing the pattern on his forearm with a dirty finger. He didn't remember when it first appeared, but his mother said it came the day he was born—that it lit up the cell before he ever took a breath. It didn't glow anymore. Not unless he was angry. But it had to be seeing red angry. But it was always warm, and always watching. Like it knew more about him than he did.

"Stop showing it off," his mother hissed, kneeling beside him with a half-broken bowl of barley mash. "You want someone to see it?"

"No one's looking," Levi mumbled, still staring at the black, curved runes on his forearm, "Cover it, Levi. Now." She demanded

He obeyed. Pulled his sleeve down and wrapped the old cloth tie around it the way she taught him. Hide the mark. Don't talk about it. Don't ask questions.

But he was full of questions.

Why did it move sometimes?

Why did it glow when he was mad?

Levi didn't know he was Veilborn, All he knew was that Ashraka had rules. And if you were different… you didn't last long.Saina handed him the bowl. "Eat fast. You're on water duty this morning."

Levi's stomach twisted. He hated water duty. Not because of the weight of the buckets, or the cracked skin from the cold well—it was the others. The older boys. The guards who laughed when he stumbled. The overseer who watched too closely when his mother walked by.

"I did it yesterday," he muttered, mouth full of dry barley.

"And you'll do it today," Saina said, brushing hair from his face with a calloused hand. "Better me beat you for whining than one of them." He didn't argue. Just nodded and finished the food in silence. It wasn't much but the stale bread was enough to halfway fill his tiny stomach.

——-

The well rope burned his palms.

Levi cranked anyway—small hands tight around the handle, scrawny arms straining with every turn. The wooden wheel groaned like it might splinter, dry from sun and years of neglect. He leaned his weight into it, jaw clenched.

When the bucket broke the surface, he scrambled to pull it up. His knees slipped on the grit-polished stones, and the iron handle bit into his fingers, but he didn't let go. If he spilled it, he'd have to start again.

The water in Ashraka wasn't just scarce.

It was currency.

He staggered as he lowered the bucket to the ground. The water sloshed with each step, soaking his fraying sandals and caking more dust on his ankles.

"Faster!" someone barked.

A tall man with a whip coiled at his hip strode by, not even looking at Levi. Just another voice shouting. Just another boy to break.

Levi bowed his head, muttered a "Yes, sir," and kept moving.

He passed other children—some younger, some barely standing. One girl with sunburned cheeks swept sand from a stone path that would be buried again within the hour. Two boys with bruised ribs carried grain sacks that sagged like corpses.

No one spoke.

Ashraka didn't allow talk during labor hours. Only breath. Only obedience.

As Levi poured the water into a cracked cistern, he felt eyes on him—then a sharp sting across his back. He gasped, stumbling forward.

"Idiot," snarled Rusk, a broad-shouldered boy with a face too cruel for fifteen. "You got drops on the stone."

"I—I didn't mean—" Levi started, eyes wide. Rusk raised the ladle again.

Levi braced, but the blow didn't come. Not yet. Rusk leaned close, breath foul with sour ale. "You better start meaning better. Then he was gone. Levi stayed still for a moment. Heart pounding. Legs trembling. Then he picked up the empty bucket and walked back to the well. No fire burned in his chest. Just pain.

Dust. A silence that felt heavier than chains. But he didn't cry. He didn't speak. He just worked. After so many hours your body eventually gets numb.

But tomorrow was moving day, every so many months, the slave traders move as to not get caught by bounty hunters. And usually these days were the hardest.

The wind changed when the sun sank.

It didn't bring relief—only colder grit, thinner air, and the smell of smoke. Levi sat near the tent's edge, bare feet tucked beneath him, watching the sky lose its light. He liked this part of the day. Not because it was peaceful—Ashraka was never peaceful—but because the world stopped talking. The overseers drank. The guards drifted into their tents. The older boys fought quietly behind the grain sheds. And no one paid attention to a small boy sitting alone.

The broth was barely warm.

Levi cradled the bowl with both hands, his fingers curled around the chipped clay like it might slip away if he wasn't careful. The liquid inside was thin as tinted water—oily, yellowish, with a single sliver of turnip sinking slowly toward the bottom. A chunk of hard, blackened bread floated at the top like driftwood in a dying sea. He dipped his fingers in to fish it out. Took a bite. Chewed until it turned soft enough to swallow.

Slow.

If you ate slow, you could pretend it filled more. The tent around him sagged under the weight of dust and heat. Outside, the camp was quieting—just the hiss of wind dragging over coarse sand and the distant clatter of pots being cleaned for the next day's slop. One of the guards laughed somewhere in the dark, short and sharp. It didn't sound kind.

The flap rustled behind him.

"You saved some," a quiet voice murmured. Levi didn't need to look. He knew it.

His mother crouched beside him, her movements as silent as the shadow she'd become over the years. Her gray tunic was faded and stained with ash, the sleeves rolled past her elbows to keep from catching fire in the kitchens. Her hands, wrapped in rags damp with old sweat and newer blood, rested gently on her knees.

"I wasn't that hungry," Levi mumbled, keeping his eyes on the bowl. She gave a tired smile—the kind that didn't reach her eyes anymore. "You're always that hungry." He shrugged. "Didn't want to finish it without you." "I've already eaten," she lied, too quickly.

He didn't call her on it. She always said that.

A few beats passed. Then, quietly: "Rusk hit me again." Her hands stilled. The air between them tightened. "Where?" she asked, voice carefully neutral.

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter." She didn't press. That was something she'd learned too—how not to dig when the answers only hurt. Instead, she reached out and gently tugged at his collar, adjusting it like it made a difference. Like keeping him tidy somehow kept him safe.

"You're growing," she said, eyes scanning his face. "Getting taller. Stronger. They'll notice soon." Levi dropped his gaze to the dirt floor. "I don't want them to."

"I know." They sat like that, side by side, as the wind whistled through the thin seams of the canvas. The firelight outside flickered against the tent walls, casting long, twitching shadows that made it look like the fabric was breathing. "Close your eyes," she whispered.

He obeyed. Without hesitation.

She leaned in, resting her forehead against his, her breath warm against his cheek.

"What do we say?" she whispered.

Together, their voices slipped out like breath through cracked stone.

"We're still breathing. Still here. We hold on."

It wasn't a prayer. Not really.

Just a string of words they told each other. Something to keep the silence from swallowing them whole.She lingered a moment longer, then kissed his temple. A soft press of lips, dry and trembling.

"Eat the rest," she said, rising to her feet. "And sleep while you can."He nodded, still holding the bowl.

She slipped back through the flap, the canvas stirring like the exhale of a sigh.

And then he was alone again, the only light coming from the dying coals of a nearby fire, the only sound the shifting hiss of sand.

Levi took another bite. Slower this time.

Not because it helped.Just because he didn't want the moment to end. And soon it was time to go to bed.

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