the desert didn't sleep.
It rustled and breathed, a constant low whisper of sand sliding over sand. The fire in the center of camp burned low now, nothing but red coals and the occasional spit of smoke. Most of the tents had gone quiet, the slaves too tired or too broken to speak after the day's march. Levi sat curled near the back wall of the tent he shared with six others, a ragged blanket wrapped tight around his thin shoulders. His arms ached from hauling barrels that sloshed with half-spoiled water. His feet were blistered, the raw skin stinging where the leather had rubbed clean through. He didn't cry. He hadn't in days. Not since he'd watched a boy his age fall behind and get left there—alone in the dunes. Outside, the low murmur of voices reached his ears. Familiar ones. He shifted silently, crawling toward the small gap in the tent's canvas wall. One eye pressed to it, he could just make out two men hunched near the firepit. The light made their faces dance with shadows. Hook-Nose and Brant.
The former sat cross-legged, flipping a bone-handled knife between his fingers. He had a wide-brimmed hat and a red sash tied across his chest like a badge. Brant was older, broader, with a white streak in his beard and the stink of sour wine clinging to him like sweat.
"They say there's a buyer up north, looking for strong backs," Brant muttered, poking at the fire with a stick. "Real coin, not this dribble we've been scraping."
Hook-Nose grunted. "North's a week out, and every day burns food and water."
"Ain't much left here but rocks and sand."
"There's the ruins. Old ones. Buyers like that sort of thing. Makes 'em feel like kings, pickin' through the lot with gods watchin'." Brant chuckled. "That preacher we sold last month near pissed himself when we took him past the black obelisks. Called it fate." "Exactly," Hook-Nose said, grin sharp in the firelight. "Fate's expensive."
Brant leaned back, looking toward the dark rows of tents. "That woman—the quiet one with the burns. She yours?"
Hook-Nose's smile faded. "Mine to sell."
"She's not bad. Even with the scars. Clean her up, give her wine, she might still bring in a nobleman's coin."
"Already thought of it," Hook-Nose said. "She's got discipline. Doesn't whimper. Doesn't talk back."
Brant's eyes narrowed. "She got a kid, right?"
Hook-Nose didn't answer at first. Just toyed with his knife, letting the firelight flash on the blade.
"The boy," he said finally. "Scrawny, but quiet. Got her eyes."
"You sell them together?"
"Could," Hook-Nose said slowly. "Some buyers like pairs. Mother and child. Makes them feel… sentimental."
"And if they don't want both?"
"Then the mines'll take him. He's small. That's worth something." He stood, stretching his arms behind his back. "They always want hands. Doesn't matter how young."
Brant said nothing. Just stared into the fire.
Levi pressed his forehead to the canvas, breath shallow.
The mines.
The word made his stomach twist. He didn't know exactly what it meant, but he'd heard the whispers. Underground. Cramped. No light. Men screaming until they couldn't anymore. No one came back.The slavers' voices drifted away as they moved toward the guards.
Levi sat in the dark, unmoving.
He wasn't crying. Not really. Just breathing harder than usual, trying to make sense of the cold sinking into hischest. His fingers clenched the edge of the blanket tighter, like holding on to it might keep him from falling into something worse.
He didn't want to go underground.
He didn't want to be sold.
He just wanted to disappear.
Levi stayed curled in the corner of the tent long after the traders' voices had faded into the wind. But their words didn't leave. They hung in his mind like smoke, bitter and thick. The mines. They always want hands. Doesn't matter how young.
He pulled the ragged blanket tighter around his small frame, but it did nothing to ease the cold sinking into his bones. It wasn't the desert chill—it was something worse, a fear so deep it made his stomach twist. He'd heard the stories whispered between boys in the back lines, the ones missing teeth or eyes, who'd seen what waited underground. The mines didn't just break your body. They erased you. Took your name, your face, your thoughts. And no one ever came back the same. If they came back at all.
If they took him, he knew what that meant. They wouldn't let her follow.
He turned his head toward the shape of his mother, curled on her side across the tent. Even in sleep, she looked small, drawn in on herself as if trying to disappear. Her thin hands tucked beneath her chest, her breaths shallow. The flicker of firelight outside cast soft shadows along her face. She didn't stir.
He wouldn't see her again if they dragged him away. He'd be alone in the dark, and she'd wake up to nothing. Just an empty bedroll and another loss to carry.
A tight pain bloomed in his chest, and his eyes stung. He blinked quickly, rubbed the back of his hand across his face. He couldn't cry. Couldn't fall apart. If he let go, even for a second, it would swallow him too.
He sat up, slowly, carefully. The blanket slipped from his shoulders, but he didn't reach for it. His hands were still trembling, but underneath the fear, something new began to stir. It wasn't strong—not yet—but it was there. A flicker. Like an ember beneath ash. Faint, hot, and stubborn.
He couldn't let them take him. Not because he was too scared to go. But because he refused to leave her behind. Because he'd already lost too much.
If they thought he was useful—too valuable to waste in the mines—maybe they'd keep him with the others. The older slaves that worked around the camp, fetched water, cleaned boots, dug trenches. He'd seen them stumble under their loads and still keep walking. Not because they were strong, but because they were desperate.
He could do that. He would do that.
Tomorrow, he'd rise before the sun. He'd be the first to the fires, first to the wagons. He'd carry more than they gave him, scrub harder, stand taller, and speak less. He'd bleed if he had to. Bite down and take it. He'd make them need him, make himself so useful they couldn't afford to send him anywhere else. Not to the mines. Not away from her.
He looked over at her again, at the woman who had wrapped herself around him since the day he first drew breath, who had nothing but still gave everything. The only person who had ever looked at him like he was something more than a number, more than a chain waiting to be sold.
He crossed the tent on quiet feet, careful not to wake her. He knelt beside her sleeping form, leaned in, and pressed his forehead to her arm. Her skin was cool and dry, worn thin by the wind and the work. But he felt it—the quiet pulse beneath the surface, steady and soft. It calmed something in him.
"I'll stay," he whispered. "I won't let them take me."
She stirred slightly, a breath catching at her lips, but didn't wake. Still, he held onto the hope that maybe, deep down, she heard him.
He lay down beside her, curled close, and stared into the darkness. The tent was silent but heavy with promise.
Levi Zahir, five years old and already marked by a world that wanted to forget him, closed his eyes and made a vow.
He would not vanish. He would survive. He would grow strong. And no matter what it cost him, he would stay beside her.
No one—no mine, no man—would take that from him.
The morning came hard and colorless.
No sun pierced the horizon—only a sickly haze that blurred the edge of the dunes and turned the world into smears of gray and gold. The camp was already awake when Levi rose, his legs stiff from the cold and his arms sore from sleep. Tents flapped in the breeze. Carts creaked. Boots stomped through dust. And the bark of orders carried over it all like crows.
He didn't wait for his mother to stir. Didn't let her see the tremble in his fingers as he tied the frayed cord around his too-thin tunic. This was the only way. She would try to stop him if she knew. Tell him to keep his head down, to be still, to survive quietly. But there was no surviving quietly anymore.
He stepped outside their tent just as the first line of slaves formed near the water barrels, waiting for their rations. Most were older—broad-shouldered men with sun-cracked skin, women with bent backs and dead eyes. A few glanced at him as he slipped into place, but no one spoke. No one ever did. You didn't talk unless you had something to trade, and Levi had nothing.
The water was stale and lukewarm, and his cup was a rusted scrap of metal that left the taste of iron on his tongue. He drank quickly, wiped his mouth, then moved.
He went straight to the closest wagon, where two traders stood tossing heavy sacks from one cart to another. One was Rusk—the crooked-toothed guard with a voice like sandpaper—and the other, a lean man with sunburnt arms and a permanent scowl. Levi didn't wait to be seen.
"I can help," he said.
Rusk turned, blinking down at him like he wasn't sure if Levi was real or a bug that had crawled up from the dirt. "Can you now?" he said, voice mocking. "And what would you lift, pup? A pebble?"
Levi stepped closer, jaw clenched. "I'm fast. I can carry things. Run messages. Whatever you need."
The sunburnt one snorted. "He'll break before noon."
"Maybe," Rusk said. But his gaze lingered. Weighing.
Levi met it without flinching. Let him see the shadow under his eyes, the fire behind them.
Finally, Rusk jerked his chin toward a stack of bundled hides. "Start with those. Stack them by the fire pit. If you drop one, you don't eat."
Levi didn't waste a breath. He bent low, arms wrapping around the heavy bundle, his knees buckling under the weight. It smelled like salt and blood. His fingers screamed, but he locked his jaw and moved.
Step by step, he crossed the camp. Dust kicked up around his bare feet, stinging his eyes. When he reached the pit, he set the hide down gently, then turned and ran back.
Again. And again.
No one praised him. No one offered water. But they didn't stop him, either.
By midmorning, the traders began to shout his name—not kindly, but often. Levi, haul that. Levi, scrub this. Levi, run and fetch. His body ached, every joint burning, but he didn't stop. Couldn't. He stole glances at his mother when he passed their tent. She was awake now, bent over her tasks near the kitchen tent, arms wrapped in cloth, stirring pots she couldn't taste.
She looked up once. Their eyes met.
He thought she might call out. Might order him to rest.
But she didn't. Her mouth pressed into a thin line, and she gave the slightest nod.
And just like that, the ache in his limbs dulled. He kept moving.
By nightfall, his legs barely held him. But he'd done it. He'd worked like the older slaves. Taken every command, every insult, and given back sweat and silence. And when they passed out the food—thin broth, a scrap of root—one of the guards shoved an extra crust of bread into his bowl.
Not as kindness. As investment.
Levi sat by the fire that night with his mother, his body bruised and sore, and ate in silence. She touched his shoulder, firm and quiet.
"You were seen today," she said.
He didn't answer. Just nodded once and looked into the fire, where the coals glowed like the ember he still felt inside him.
Tomorrow, he'd do more.
He would be useful.
He would stay.