The healer worked quickly, hands steady despite her age. She dabbed his forehead, felt the pulse in his neck, then reached into her basket for a wrapped pouch of herbs. She unrolled it with care, her fingers moving like she'd done it a thousand times—which she probably had.
"He's not in danger yet," she said, more to Levi than anyone else. "But if this fever climbs any higher, he will be."
Levi didn't move from his spot. He was crouched beside Kaan now, watching every twitch of his friend's brow, every uneven breath.
Mireya passed a shallow bowl of water forward. "What should we do?"
"Cool compresses. Small sips when he wakes," the healer said. "And keep him out of the sun. His body needs rest more than anything else."
Saina returned a minute later with fresh linens. Her mouth was a hard line, eyes sharp despite the tremble in her hand as she passed the cloths down. Levi caught the way she looked at Kaan—like she recognized something too familiar in his stillness. Like she remembered a boy once who had burned in his sleep, too quiet, too strong until he wasn't.
The healer set to work steeping a fever draught near the tent's coals.
Levi sat back slowly, cross-legged again beside Kaan's mat.
The quiet returned—but it wasn't peaceful.
It was a waiting kind of silence.
Sesi stirred from her sleep, rubbing her eyes. She looked around groggily, then noticed Kaan. "He's sick?"
Levi nodded once.
She crawled over quietly and laid her little hand on Kaan's blanket. "I'll stay with him."
Saina moved to guide her back, but Levi shook his head. "It's okay."
The girl settled down beside him, close but not touching, her small presence oddly grounding.
The tent dimmed as the sun dipped lower, shadows growing long across the sand outside. The wind had picked up again, hissing softly at the flaps.
Kaan didn't wake.
He didn't speak.
But Levi didn't move either.
He stayed where he was.
The horn sounded again—short, clipped, impatient this time.
Levi stood.
No one asked where he was going. They all knew.
He buckled the half-filled water satchel over his shoulder and reached for the wrapped parcel near the entrance—rations meant for the northern sentries. Kaan usually took the western edge. They'd split the routes. Balanced the load.
But now?
Kaan was in the medic tent, unmoving.
Burning.
The same fever Levi had barely pulled through days earlier had found its way into his closest friend. Quieter this time. Slower. But no less dangerous.
And so the balance had shifted.
No patrol rotation. No shared routes.
Just Levi.
Just his legs. His hands. His breath.
The heat outside was heavier than usual, hanging low and stagnant in the air like steam off boiling stone. He walked fast anyway, weaving between tents, his pack bouncing against his back with every step. His muscles were tight, his joints stiff from lack of rest, but he didn't slow.
He couldn't.
No one had asked him to pick up Kaan's share.
But no one else had offered either.
That was how it always went.
He delivered the rations. Spoke to no one.
Walked the western trail in near silence, alone with the wind and the crunch of sand beneath his boots. Checked the water lines. Flagged a broken post. Adjusted a torn tarp over a storage crate that had begun to split. All things Kaan would've done.
Things Levi now did without a word.
By the time he circled back to camp, the sun was high and he was soaked in sweat, the satchel clinging to his side like a second skin.
The tent felt too quiet when he ducked in.
Saina was napping, one hand over her belly. Mireya had taken Sesi to the healer's quarters. Only the soft creak of the canvas moving kept him company.
Levi crouched in the corner and slowly set the pack down beside him.
His fingers ached from gripping the straps. His legs pulsed with the soreness of being pushed too far too fast. He pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes and let the shadows settle.
And he thought of Kaan.
Of the way his body hadn't stirred in hours.
Of the pale sweat soaking through his collar.
Of how quiet everything felt now that Kaan wasn't beside him.
It was only day one.
And Levi already felt like he was cracking.
But he'd keep going.
Because someone had to.
Two days passed like sand through cracked fingers—fast, gritty, and impossible to hold onto.
Levi barely slept. Barely sat. The ache in his shoulders had settled into something deeper now—an ache that lived in his spine, behind his knees, in the back of his teeth. Every hour brought another task. Another errand. Another patrol.
There was no one else.
Not for this.
He ran the lines twice a day now—north and west. Hauled crates with the supply crew at dawn, then filtered water after noon. At night, he checked the perimeter again before dragging himself to the tent, where silence wrapped around him like a second skin. He didn't talk. He didn't sit long enough for anyone to ask how he was holding up.
He just worked.
And Kaan didn't wake.
Not the first morning. Not the second.
His fever stayed low but steady, clinging to him like a second breath, shallow and strange. The old Sandwalker healer tended to him regularly—pressing cool cloths to his neck, trickling broth past his lips, checking for signs of deeper infection. She said it wasn't as bad as Levi's had been.
But Levi wasn't convinced.
He stayed outside the tent most of the time, sitting with his knees drawn up and his arms looped over them, chin resting on folded wrists. He listened for movement. Watched the flap like it might flutter in the right way and mean something.
It never did.
Until the third morning.
He'd just returned from the west line, dust clinging to his boots and the back of his throat. The sun was just clearing the dunes when he slipped into the tent, expecting the usual quiet—heat, sweat, shallow breathing.
Instead, he heard a rustle.
Not the wind.
A shift.
And then—
"…Levi?"
Levi's head snapped up.
Kaan's voice was dry. Fragile. But real.
He was awake.
Levi moved without thinking, crossing the space in three quick strides. Kaan was blinking slowly, squinting against the light filtering through the canvas. His skin was still pale, his curls damp with sweat. But his eyes—they were open. Focused.
"Hey," Levi said, voice quiet, sharp with relief.
Kaan gave a weak smirk. "You look worse than me."
Levi exhaled a shaky breath and sat beside the cot, brushing a damp cloth off Kaan's forehead.
"Yeah," he said. "You've been asleep for two days."
"Feels like a year."
"You scared me."
Kaan didn't answer that. He just stared at the tent ceiling for a long moment.
"Water?"
Levi reached for the flask and lifted it to his lips, helping him sip slowly. Kaan coughed once but kept it down.
"You've been doing both our routes, haven't you," he said, rasping.
Levi didn't answer.
But the dirt under his nails, the fresh cuts across his knuckles, and the shaking in his hands said enough.
Kaan turned his head, just slightly. "You're an idiot."
"Yeah," Levi muttered. "I know."
.....
The moment Kaan drifted back into a fevered sleep, Levi rose stiffly from where he'd been crouched at his side. His knees popped. His shoulders ached. There was dirt ground into the seams of his sleeves, and a faint rawness beneath the strap of his satchel that hadn't healed since he started pulling double duty.
The tent flap rustled.
The old Sandwalker healer stepped in, carrying her worn satchel of supplies. She paused just inside, her eyes landing on Kaan, then flicking to Levi. They narrowed, sharp as flint.
"You're still here," she said.
"He had a rough night." Levi crossed to the basin and splashed a bit of water over his palms, wiping the sweat and dust from his face. "Didn't sleep much."
"You mean you didn't sleep," she muttered, setting her satchel down near the cot. "He's stable enough now. You don't need to hover like a shadow ready to break."
Levi dried his hands on the edge of his shirt. "Somebody's got to watch him."
"I'm watching him now," she said simply, pulling a bundle of herbs from her pack. "And the camp won't fall apart if you rest for once."
Levi didn't answer. He was already slinging his satchel over one shoulder, adjusting it with tired, practiced fingers. His gaze moved toward the flap, toward the open light beyond it where the camp stirred with morning breath—water lines, beasts braying, children laughing somewhere between tents.
"I've got the east patrol," he said, voice low but firm.
"You've had the east and the south for two days now," the healer snapped. "You've fetched supplies, checked fences, dug latrines, and haven't sat longer than it takes to chew your food."
Levi shrugged. "Not much else to do."
She gave him a long, pointed look. "That's not duty anymore, boy. That's running."
Levi hesitated.
But didn't respond.
Kaan let out a quiet breath behind them—something between a murmur and a cough. Levi turned slightly, just enough to see the way his friend's face had relaxed. Still pale. Still sweating. But not gasping. Not burning.
The worst was over.
And yet the weight in Levi's chest hadn't lightened.
He adjusted the satchel again. "If he wakes up, tell him I'll be back by dusk."
The healer said nothing. Just began grinding her herbs.
Levi paused at the tent flap. For a moment, he stood there—half in, half out—watching the sand shift beneath the wind and the sky begin to stretch into brightness.
Then he stepped through it.
And disappeared back into the work.
Levi adjusted the strap of his satchel as he moved past the last row of tents, the sun already low and casting the camp in long, copper-colored shadows. He should've left earlier. He knew that. The check at Edge Rock was never done this late—not without backup.
But Kaan was still down, still burning with whatever sickness had gripped him. And the job still had to be done.
He crossed into open dunes without looking back.
Edge Rock loomed ahead like a half-swallowed ruin, jagged and silent, bone-white where the sand hadn't yet buried it. The old ruins weren't part of any route anymore. They were relics, overrun by wind and time and worse. The kind of place the elders told stories about just to make the young ones afraid of wandering too far.
Hyenas nested nearby. Sand worms passed through. And the wind never carried the same way twice.
Normally, Levi would crouch on the ridge while Kaan pressed his ear to the ground, waiting. Listening. Feeling for the tremble beneath the earth that meant danger. That meant run.
But today, he was alone.
He dropped to one knee beside a warped stone marker and pressed his hand to the sand.
Nothing.
But nothing didn't mean safe.
He waited a little longer, trying to feel what Kaan always did—the hum, the shift, the whisper of something moving beneath miles of grit. He wasn't as good at it. Never had been. That had always been Kaan's part. He was the listener. Levi was the eyes.
Still… nothing.
Levi stood, slowly. He began to circle the ruins, scanning the half-collapsed columns, the slope of dunes beyond them, the place where the rock cracked into a hollow ridge.
Then he heard it.
A scrape.
Not wind.
Not sand.
Something heavier.
He ducked low, moving toward a broken slab of stone just as a hyena darted from the far end of the ruins—mangy, limping, but not alone.
Three more followed, their laughter low and broken like cracked teeth.
Levi didn't hesitate. He turned heel and ran—not toward camp, but around the edge, angling for higher ground.
But the sand was loose here. Trickier. A misstep could be worse than claws.
The ground gave slightly beneath him.
Too much.
A tremor followed.
He stopped.
The hyenas stopped too.
Their ears went back. Their bodies hunched low.
Not at him.
At the ground.
Levi turned, breath caught in his throat.
The sand behind him buckled once—twice.
Then a deep, guttural hiss rose from beneath the surface.
Shit.
Worm.
And he was alone.
No scout.
No listener.
No backup.
Just him, the ruins, and the sudden realization that he may have gone too far—too late—without someone to keep him from being swallowed whole.
And this time?
No one was listening for the rumble but him.