The sun of Helios was a tyrant.
It ruled from dawn until dusk, flaying the land with a radiance that split stone and boiled blood. To live beneath it was suffering; to defy it was death.
The people of Veythra Prime had learned to worship their tormentor. They named it the Furnace, the Light that tested all. And each generation, youths were cast into its embrace with a single iron torch, a stingy flask, and a command: Walk until you are judged worthy.
This was the Furnace March.
Archimedes' feet sank into sand hot as shattered glass. The torch seared his palm even through the handle's leather wrap; the flask clicked against his hip, a cruel promise already half-spent. Twelve other marchers trudged with him. Some muttered prayers through split lips. Others already reeled, pride draining into the dunes.
He kept his pace measured. Not too fast to court thirst, not too slow to invite despair. His father's lessons rode his breath: A healer's hand does not hurry. A healer's breath does not waste. Life is a thread. Hold it steady.
A cry. To his right, a boy buckled. The iron torch fell with a hiss. The youth's lips had gone slate-grey; his eyes rolled white.
The others walked on. That was the lesson most learned: pity was weakness, and the desert was owed its tithe.
Archimedes knelt. Two fingers to the throat—there, a flutter. "Rise," he rasped.
No answer.
He unstoppered his flask and tipped a thread of water to the boy's mouth. Not a drop more than needed. The youth coughed, then sucked breath as the trickle woke him. Archimedes capped the flask and slid it away. He lifted the boy across his shoulders. Flesh screamed along his back, but his hands stayed steady.
They went on.
When another marcher collapsed, Archimedes hooked an arm beneath the youth's chest and dragged him too, torch held aloft in his other hand like a judgment that would not be denied. Each step was agony. The Furnace climbed and climbed, the world a white roar of heat.
Hours later, as the sun bled into a black horizon, he reached the gates. His shoulders were flayed raw where straps had bitten in. Blisters had risen on his arms like waxen pearls—marks he regarded through the haze not as wounds, but as pages his body would keep. Flesh remembers.
The elders cut the torch from his burned hand. They did not praise him; they never did. Their faces were stone, their eyes hard. But in their silence, he recognized something more than approval. It was recognition—of one who carried others, not only himself.
He had endured. He had preserved.
And in that recognition, Archimedes found his first truth:
Strength endures. Worth preserves. The healer must do both and count neither as his own.