Levi woke to silence—not the uneasy, too-quiet kind he'd grown used to in cages or caravans, but a heavy, warm kind. Like the desert was holding its breath outside.
His body ached. His back felt tight beneath fresh bandages, and the skin along his ribs pulled every time he shifted. But the sharpest edges of pain had dulled overnight, fading into something manageable. Bearable.
The tent was dim, the sun filtered through woven slats and thin fabric walls. He blinked up at the ceiling for a long moment before turning his head.
Kaan sat a few feet away, slumped against the far wall, arms crossed loosely over his knees. His chin had fallen against his chest, and his breathing was steady. Asleep, somehow—though Levi had trouble believing someone like Kaan ever truly let his guard down.
Levi pushed himself upright slowly, careful not to tear any stitches. The blanket fell from his shoulders, and cool air skimmed across his bare chest. He was still dressed in the healer's linen wraps, the robe loose around his waist. His hands were stiff, knuckles scraped, fingernails ragged and still stained faintly red.
There was a small stack of clothes near the edge of the tent—folded neatly, left by the same hands that had stitched his wounds and pressed burning salves into his skin. A muted clay-colored tunic, lightweight trousers, a soft belt. A pair of sandals beside them.
Levi looked around. No healer. No noise. No one else in the tent except Kaan and him.
He shifted off the sleeping mat and crossed the space slowly, each step deliberate. He picked up the tunic and ran his fingers along the hem—softer than anything he'd worn. It didn't itch. It didn't cling. It smelled faintly of sun and smoke and something herbal, but not unpleasant.
He slipped it on with some difficulty, teeth grit as fabric grazed the bandages. Then the pants. Then the belt. His fingers fumbled with it for a second before he gave up and tied it in a simple knot.
Something caught his eye—just a flicker.
He turned.
Off to the side, half-shadowed by a crate and a draped cloth, stood a tall piece of dark metal propped against the wall. A mirror. Not silvered glass, just polished bronze—but enough. Enough to catch his shape in blurred reflection.
Levi paused mid-step, catching sight of himself without meaning to.
He blinked.
And stared.
The boy in the bronze didn't look like someone he recognized right away. Taller. Thinner. Shoulders hunched, arms marked with thin, crisscrossing scars and darker smudges. Hair uncombed, curls still damp from yesterday's wash, sticking in uneven waves around his face.
But what threw him wasn't the bruises or the bandages.
It was the expression.
The way he looked—quiet. Tired. But… calm, almost. Not blank. Not empty the way he usually felt.
He tilted his head a little.
The reflection did too.
It was him, of course. It always had been. But he had never seen himself like this—clean, not in rags, not covered in sand and filth and old blood. Still battered, yes. Still sore. But… not invisible.
"Huh," he muttered under his breath.
Behind him, Kaan stirred.
Levi turned.
The other boy blinked awake slowly, rubbing a hand over his face before dragging his gaze to Levi. He looked him up and down without comment, then nodded once, approving.
"They fit," Kaan said.
"Sort of," Levi replied, tugging at the belt knot. "I think I tied it wrong."
Kaan stood, crossed the few feet between them, and wordlessly fixed it—nimble fingers re-looping the cord and cinching it with ease.
"You were looking at yourself," Kaan said after a moment.
Levi shrugged. "I didn't mean to."
"But you did….don't worry it's not a bad thing."
Levi didn't answer. He didn't really know what to say. It hadn't felt like anything worth talking about. And yet… something still lingered in his chest. Some quiet pull. Like he'd seen a part of himself he hadn't realized was still there.
Kaan stepped back, nodding toward the tent flap. "She told me to bring you when you woke up."
Levi glanced once more toward the bronze mirror—just a glance—then followed Kaan toward the door. golden hush, filtered through layered fabric stretched high above the Sandwalkers' camp. The tents were no longer just ragged shapes to Levi—they were woven with meaning, with people moving between them like currents in an unseen river. And beneath his feet, the soft sand had been pressed smooth by countless careful steps.
Kaan moved ahead, quiet but steady, leading him around the central fire pit and toward the larger tent set farther back—the one guarded by two figures draped in deep blue, their faces masked save for watchful eyes.
Levi's steps slowed as they neared. He could feel the thrum of something in the air—not fear, exactly, but tension. Hope, maybe. Worry. His hand brushed against his side, where the bandage wrapped around his ribs. His fingers twitched.
The guards didn't stop them. One simply nodded at Kaan, who gave a short gesture in return.
Kaan didn't speak as he pulled the flap aside, letting Levi step through first.
The light inside was soft—lamplight instead of sun, flickering gently across the canvas walls. The air smelled faintly of herbs and warmth, like boiled roots and desert flowers crushed into steam.
And there—across the room, lying on two low mats—were them.
His breath caught.
Sera was curled on her side, her fiery hair dulled by exhaustion, but her expression was peaceful. A thin blanket was draped over her shoulders, and one hand rested across her chest, the bandages at her wrist barely visible in the low light.
Next to her, still as stone, was his mother.
Her dark hair had been combed back, braided loosely down one side. The bruises along her cheekbone had faded into yellowing shadows. She was resting too—but her chest rose and fell, slow but even. Alive.
Alive.
Levi didn't move at first. He just stared.
All the fear that had coiled in his gut since the caravan—the helplessness, the guilt—shifted under his ribs. It didn't vanish, but it quieted.
Behind him, Kaan waited silently, a respectful distance away.
Levi stepped forward slowly. Not wanting to wake them. Not wanting to break the moment. He dropped to his knees beside his mother, hesitant fingers reaching out but not quite touching. His throat burned.
He sat like that for a while, watching the soft rise and fall of her breathing. He didn't realize how tense he'd been until something in his chest finally eased.
He stayed until the healer's shadow fell softly across the entrance.
"She'll wake soon," she murmured. "So will the girl. Let them rest until they do."
Levi didn't turn. "I'll stay."
The healer nodded. She left him in peace, with only the hush of breath and the soft warmth of the tent to fill the silence.
And for the first time in a long time, Levi let himself feel safe. Not free. Not yet.
But safe.The tent was silent save for the rustle of fabric and the faint sounds of the camp beyond—muffled voices, soft footfalls, the occasional low whistle of wind brushing across the outer walls.
Levi sat still, his knees drawn up loosely, hands hanging between them as he kept his eyes on his mother's sleeping form. His thoughts drifted, unmoored. He couldn't remember the last time he'd sat like this without being ordered to move, work, obey. Stillness felt… foreign.
A quiet shift of movement behind him caught his ear.
Kaan didn't say anything as he moved closer, but Levi heard the soft scrape of layers being undone—the rustle of a scarf unwrapping, the faint creak of leather straps sliding free. The protective head covering Kaan always wore, the one that shielded him from sand and sun alike, was finally being taken off.
Levi turned slightly, brows drawing together.
Kaan let the last of the veil fall away from his face and dropped it beside him with care. His dark hair—longer than Levi expected—fell just past his jaw in soft, uneven lengths. It framed a face both striking and harsh: sharply defined cheekbones, a faint bump along the bridge of his nose, and long, arched lashes that softened the steel of his eyes. He was handsome, but not in the way nobles or statues were. His face was too lived-in. Sun-bronzed skin marked by thin pale scars. One swept from just above his right brow to his temple. Another crossed the edge of his jaw.
But it was the way he sat that made him seem older than he was.
Not his size—though he was tall, well over Levi's height, with a fighter's build beneath the wrappings—but his stillness. The kind earne. from years of learning not to flinch.
Kaan sat cross-legged beside Levi, stretching out his long legs before folding them again.
He didn't speak for a while. Just sat there, shoulder a few inches from Levi's, gaze fixed on the two sleeping women across the room.
"I don't usually take it off," he said eventually, his voice low, almost a murmur. "Not unless I'm alone."
Levi glanced at him sideways. "Why now?"
Kaan shrugged one shoulder. "Didn't seem fair anymore. You've been seen. Figured I could offer the same."
Levi blinked, unsure what to say to that. His throat was still tight from the weight of everything—seeing his mother, hearing her breathe—but something about Kaan's gesture grounded him. Made the world feel a little less cold.
"They did that?" Levi asked quietly, nodding toward the scar above Kaan's brow.
"Some of it," Kaan said. "Some was before."
"Before what?"
"Before I stopped letting people decide what pain I deserved."
Levi sat with that for a long moment.
Outside, laughter echoed faintly—brief and soft, like the Sandwalkers knew not to raise their voices too high, not here.
"Does it stop?" Levi asked suddenly.
Kaan looked over. "What?"
"The… I don't know. Feeling like you have to earn everything. Even this. Safety. Food. People not screaming at you."
Kaan was quiet again, his expression unreadable.
"No," he said. "But it changes. When you're not alone in it."
Levi stared at the floor for a moment. Then nodded. Just once.
"I'm not used to this," he admitted.
"I know," Kaan said. "You will be."
They sat together in silence, the bruises of their pasts unspoken but understood.
And in that quiet, Levi realized: maybe he didn't have to figure it all out yet. The silence stretched, but it wasn't uncomfortable.
Levi found himself glancing at Kaan now and then, not out of suspicion, but curiosity. There was something about the older boy that unsettled him—not in a threatening way, but like a riddle that didn't quite make sense. He moved too quietly, watched too closely, like he was always calculating something. But he'd helped. He hadn't had to.
And now he was sitting here, face bare, scars uncovered, like it meant something.
Levi leaned back slightly on his palms, studying him for a beat. Then, quietly, "You were a slave too?"
Kaan didn't answer right away. His eyes stayed fixed forward, but the muscles along his jaw tensed.
"Not the same kind," he said finally. "Not collars and chains. But I was owned, yeah. Used."
Levi blinked, surprised at the bluntness of it.
"By who?"
Kaan's lips quirked—not a smile. Something bitterer.
"Merchant prince from the Outer Sands. Said I was a gift. Trained me in languages, numbers, how to fight. Called it generosity." He shook his head, the motion small. "But it wasn't for me. It was for him. So he could sell me to someone richer when I got 'valuable enough.'"
Levi stared. "And then?"
"I killed him," Kaan said flatly.
The words landed like a stone dropped into still water.
Levi didn't react—not visibly—but something in his gut clenched. Not in fear. Not exactly. Just the understanding of what kind of life etched that sort of stillness into a person.
"How old were you?"
Kaan turned to him then, gaze steady, dark as storm-shadowed stone. "Seven at the time."
Levi didn't respond. He didn't need to. The look in his eyes said enough: I believe you. He's only been here with the sandwalker for atleast two years now then.
Kaan looked away again, fingers loosely clasped in his lap. "I ran. Sandwalkers found me half-dead, starving, delirious. Their matriarch almost left me behind. Thought I was cursed."
"But they didn't," Levi said.
"No," Kaan agreed. "She didn't. She gave me a job instead. Told me if I wanted to live, I had to earn it. Not with obedience. With effort. With choice."
He paused, then added, "I've been here ever since. Helping find people like you."
Levi swallowed hard. "People like me."
"Too many of us out there," Kaan murmured. "Too many no one sees."
There was something in the way he said it that made Levi think of ghosts—of the dead he didn't know he was carrying until someone else said the words aloud.
Kaan drew a small blade from his belt—no threat, just a habit—and turned it idly in his hand, letting the bronze catch the lantern-light.
"I used to stare into fire at night," he said suddenly. "Before the Sandwalkers. Thought if I watched it long enough, I'd burn away the parts of me I hated."
Levi looked at him again. The firelight danced across Kaan's face, throwing the ridges of his scars into sharper relief.
"Did it work?"
"No," Kaan said. "But it taught me which parts I wanted to keep."
They sat in silence again, but it was different this time. Heavier, yes—but not unbearable. A silence made not from fear, but shared weight.
Levi didn't quite smile, but the tightness in his chest loosened a little.
Maybe he wasn't the only one still figuring out which pieces of himself he could live with.