Chapter Text
The desert was not silent.
It breathed, hot and merciless, like a sleeping beast with one eye open. The sun did not shine but pressed. It felt like pressure on the shoulders, on the back of the head, on the eyelids. The caravan stretched as far as the eyes could see. Dozens of carriages covered with thick canvas, linked together by a steady rhythm of wheels that creaked in the sand. Riders on either side, forming a living chain around the convoys. Horses and camels, loaded to the limit. From a distance, they looked like a long scar drawn across the shifting gold of the dunes.
Duncan wore no armor. Metal would have been a death sentence here. He was wrapped in thin layers of sand-colored cloth, too thin to really protect him. The material lets the air through, but also the sun. The skin was red on his shoulders, cracked at his wrists.
His head and half of his face was covered with a rough, flimsy material that didn't stop anything. Sand seeped through the sparse fibers. It touched his lips, got into his eyes, settled on his tongue. Every time he clenched his jaw, he felt tiny pieces of sand crunching between his teeth.
He didn't protest, didn't shake his face. He had gotten used to it. He was further back, near the last carriages. The place where the attackers would try to break the formation, where fatigue made the men careless. His hand hung close to the hilt of his sword: a simple, curved blade, bought in Essos.
His eyes remained open and never stood still. They watched the dunes, watched the lines that changed almost imperceptibly and the way the wind began to drag different sand over the tracks. Sometimes he told himself that he was seeing too much, that the desert was playing tricks on him.
The sun had dried his mouth to the point of cracking. Water was rationed, food was scarce and harsh, and sleep was almost a luxury. He had accumulated too few hours of rest in the months spent on the road, and nights in the sand were not real rest, but just another form of wakefulness. Sometimes, when he blinked too rarely, the dunes seemed to move in rhythms that did not exist. Shadows lengthened where there was no one. He moistened his lips. The taste was still sand.
He knew almost nothing about the caravan. He did not know the names of the merchants, nor what was in the tightly tied boxes. He was not interested in gold, nor silks, nor spices. He knew only that the destination was the southern city of Al-Safra, and that the road there was contested by people who recognized no law but the sword.
When Ser Arlan had named him as a potential guard companion, Duncan hadn’t asked why. He couldn’t have said no, not from the way the old man had looked at him with seriousness, but also with something resembling confidence. "You stood in the rain and mud without faltering," he had told him. "You can stand in the sand too."
Duncan had remembered the tone more often than he would have liked. He didn't want to disappoint him. Moreover, when he heard the proposal, his heart had jumped in an almost embarrassing way. A short jump, too strong for a simple order.
Pride.
Someone deemed him fit to defend. To be a shield for those who could not lift the sword themselves. Not for glory, not for gold, but because he was capable. He clenched his jaw, and the sand crunched between his teeth. A nearby knight pulled his cloth from his face and swore softly, spitting to the side. “Cursed place,” he muttered. “It feels like it’s eating you alive.”
He didn't answer. He let his gaze drift back over the line of dunes. He was tired enough to doubt his own instincts. And yet the wind wasn't blowing like it used to. Not steady, not in long whispers, but in short, clipped pulses. Like a breath preparing to scream. Duncan straightened his posture slightly, without drawing attention. He wasn't sure if he saw something or if the desert was just testing his patience. But if he was going to make a mistake, he'd rather be prepared.
The night is much less patient with man than the day.
At night, the cold bites your bones, your lips, your eyes. It's as if winter only comes at night, hardens everything around and disappears with the first rays of the morning. The warmth doesn't gradually go away, it breaks. The sun falls behind the dunes like a sword drawn from flesh, and the air suddenly becomes something else: thin, sharp, almost empty. The sand that burned underfoot a few hours before begins to retain the cold like an open wound. The caravan slowly stops, with a collective sigh.
Carriages are set in a wide circle. The animals are unloaded; the fires are lit one by one, small orange dots in the all-consuming darkness. Voices are lower at night and laughter is shorter. People eat little, drink even less. Some fall asleep almost immediately, exhausted. Others pretend to sleep, hands on their daggers.
Duncan doesn't sit by the fire, he takes a few steps away, enough to get out of the circle of light, but not so far that he disappears into total darkness. He tightens his cloth around his shoulders. The rough material touches his wind-chipped body. The cold catches him faster than the others.
The skin that had been burned during the day now hurts differently, as if someone had run a cold blade over it. He sits down on the sand but doesn't completely lower his back. He stays in a position from which he can quickly get up. His eyes are uncovered again, and again, they don't stay still.
Night changes into the desert. The dunes are no longer golden. There are heavy shadows and contours that seem closer than they should be. The sky is vast, dotted with stars so clear they almost hurt. The silence is not silence; it is an expectation.
The wind is no longer steady. It comes in short, almost jerky gusts, like a breath held too long. Duncan rubs his fingers, trying to get the blood back into them. Fatigue begins to pull him down, pressing down on his eyelids, slowing his thoughts. For a moment, the dunes ahead seem to be getting closer. They retreat, undulating in a way that is not the wind.
He blinks. Nothing.
Only darkness. He clenches his jaw. The sand is still there, between his teeth. He doesn't sleep because the night in the desert is not made for people who close their eyes. The fires burn low, almost extinguished, the wood crackling softly like a broken bone. Duncan fixes his gaze on the line of a distant dune. The darkness is not uniform, it has layers, it has shadows within shadows. And for a moment, just once, he sees something. A break in the outline. A spot darker than the rest. He blinks. It disappears. He licks his lips. The taste is metallic and dry.
Fatigue presses down on the back of his neck like a heavy hand. It tells him that he sees things that aren't there, that the mind, when it's been awake for too long, begins to invent movement where there's only wind. He stands up slowly, without a sound. The cold sand sinks into his shoes. He takes a deep breath; the air is so thin it almost hurts his chest. He looks again. The dune is the same and yet, it isn’t. Its contour seems slightly shifted, as if a piece of it had slid lower. As if something had been sitting on the ridge and had come down. Or maybe it was just the wind.
A horse suddenly snorts behind him. Duncan turns instinctively, his hand on the sword. The animal stamps its hoof restlessly, its eyes rolling into the darkness.
“Shhh…” one of the knights murmurs in his sleep, not waking up.
He remains still, listening. Nothing. Then, very faintly, a sound. Not clear, not defined. Like a rustle that doesn’t belong to the wind. As if sand had been trampled. He holds his breath. The sound doesn’t repeat. He realizes he’s shivering from the cold or something else.
His mind begins to play images behind his open eyelids: slender figures moving among the dunes; eyes peering out of the darkness; curved blades reflecting starlight. He knows he is exhausted, knows that sleepless days are unraveling the edges of reality. One of the fires suddenly flickers brighter, as if touched by a short breath. The shadows lengthen and for a split second, he swears he sees a human form on the crest of the dune. Still. Watching him.
It doesn't blink; it doesn't breathe. The shape doesn't move.
Maybe it was never there, maybe it was just a gathering of shadows, but Duncan no longer tries to convince himself of its fatigue. His hand remains on the hilt of his sword. And, without realizing it, he whispers almost inaudibly: "I know you're there." The wind answers or maybe not.
It’s a cold, steady rain. The smell of wet earth.
Ser Arlan stands before him, but he’s not quite as he was. He’s straighter, younger. His cloak isn’t wet, though the rain is falling.
“If you come back,” the voice says, but the voice comes from more than one place at once. It’s not just in front of him. It’s behind him, it’s in the wind. “If you come back…”
Duncan tries to answer, but his mouth is full. Not of sand, but of water. He swallows.
“Not because you are strong.” The old man’s face begins to melt in the light. It blends with the desert fires. “But because you have within you—” The words break. In their place, on the crest of a dune, stands a figure. Not Ser Arlan.
Someone else. A man. His hair is blown by the wind. He wears long, light-colored robes; fine chains cross his chest. His face is in shadow. He looks at him, not speaking, just looking at him. And Duncan feels, in his dream, the same thing he had felt when he heard the promise. A brief leap in his chest. Pride. Or fear.
He doesn’t realize it yet. He reaches out, and the figure takes a step back. The sand begins to rise, the stars fall. And suddenly a noise.
Sharp. Real.
Duncan wakes up suddenly, his hand clutching his sword. The fires are almost out. The sky is still black. And something, very close to the circle of carriages, has just moved.
A shadow.
Too close to one of the camels. It wasn’t the wind. The shadow broke away from the dune behind him and descended silently. It wasn’t alone. Two, three figures. They moved low, almost glued to the ground, using the darkness as a second skin.
He took a short breath. It wasn’t a hallucination. He took two steps outside the circle of fire, positioning himself between the attackers and the nearest carriage. He didn’t want to start a panic. If he shouted too soon, he would create chaos before the others were ready.
One of the attackers raised his arm. A curved blade reflected faintly the starlight. Then Duncan shouted. “Up!”
And the attackers came. There weren’t many of them. Maybe four, maybe five in all. But they moved quickly, accustomed to the darkness. The first one reached him before any other man could rise. Duncan parried instinctively, his blade hitting the metal of the other with a dull thud. The impact vibrated in his arm.
The sand slid underfoot, unsteady. The attacker was shorter, faster, striking from low angles.
Duncan was not elegant, he was not refined, but he was strong. He pushed with all his weight, forcing the other back. The second attacker came from the side. Duncan saw him too late. A sharp pain shot through his flank. Not deep, but enough. His breath caught for a split second. He clenched his jaw, feeling the sand crunching between his teeth again.
He did not fall. He turned his body, ignoring the heat that was beginning to dampen his thin clothes. His sword cut through the air, then flesh. A short, muffled cry. Someone in the caravan woke up screaming, another drew his sword.
The fires were rekindled with desperate movements. Duncan struck again, forcing the attackers to retreat a few steps. One tried to go around the circle, but an already awakened rider intercepted him.
“To arms!” someone shouted. Chaos flared up suddenly.
The battles in the stories were loud, glorious. This was short and dirty. Gasping breaths, blades sliding on metal, sand swallowing footsteps.
Duncan shouldered one of the men down, feeling the wound in his side protest violently. He saw two more figures running back toward the dunes. The rest were surrounded. In a few minutes, it was all over, too quickly to be real. The caravan was left with heavy breathing and a few superficial wounds. Duncan lowered his sword without saying anything. His blood flowed warm under the thin layers of cloth. Not in a stream, but steadily.
One of the knights came toward him. “Good thing you shouted.”
He just tightened his cloth around his body. He didn’t mention the blade that had touched him or that his breath was burning him. It was one of the few fights in which he had been the first to strike, the first to decide, the first to stay standing until the others had organized themselves. Pride held his back straight and he wasn’t going to sully it by complaining about a scratch.
The sun paid no attention to night or blood. The caravan set off again. Duncan mounted his horse, and then he felt the true consequence. The pain was no longer sharp, it was dull. Heavy, even. It spread slowly from side to back. Every movement tugged at the skin and flesh. He didn't complain, but his sweat was cold.
By noon, he began to feel dizzy. The sand seemed to move differently again. This time it wasn’t just fatigue. A young woman in the caravan, perhaps no more than eighteen, had looked at him several times.
She was not a merchant, nor was she a servant in the strict sense. Probably a relative of one of the merchants. She had noticed the way Duncan held his body slightly stiffly, the way he avoided lying down completely. At a short stop, she approached. “You’re hurt,” she said simply. It wasn’t a question.
Duncan looked up at her. “No.”
The girl crossed her arms. “Blood doesn’t lie.” Only then did he feel the canvas on his side grow heavier. He looked down. The material was dark. He didn’t answer immediately because she didn’t want to be seen as weak. “It’s not serious.”
“I didn’t say it was serious,” she replied calmly. “I said it was an open wound.” She sat down beside him without asking permission. She took a clean patch of cloth and a small vial from a pouch.
“If you leave it like this, it’ll hurt twice as much all the way to town.” Duncan clenched his jaw. Regret was beginning to take shape. Not for the fight; for pride.
Maybe he should have said something. Maybe it wasn’t weakness. Maybe Ser Arlan wouldn’t knight him for his stubborn silence. The girl began to clean the wound. It burned. Duncan made no sound, but his fingers clenched in the sand.
“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone,” she murmured, concentrating on the bandage. He didn’t answer because the truth was that he had to. Or so he thought.
The city was still a day away.
The bandage was tight, just enough to stop the bleeding. He told himself it was okay, that it had been worse in the past. He mounted his horse with a controlled movement. The pain bit briefly, sharply, but disappeared as soon as he found his balance.
“It’s okay,” he told himself. “It’s nothing.”
The caravan resumed its slow, almost hypnotic pace.
Wheels. Footsteps. Breaths.
Duncan didn’t want to sit still. The immobility made him focus too much on his own body, and he didn’t like that. So, he began to move. At first, he stayed behind, chatting with two knights who were still debating the night’s attack.
“A few,” one said. “Too few for real plunder.”
“They were testing,” another knight replied. His voice was calm. The other looked at him for a long time. Duncan shrugged.
He continued walking past the carriages, checking the ropes, exchanging a few words with a merchant who was complaining about minor losses. He listened to him without seeming hurried, helped him lift a crate that had moved. The lifting made him muffle a sound. The pain was no longer just a line on the side; it had begun to spread. A dull heat under his skin. His sweat had become cooler than it should have been, but he kept going. He moved toward the middle of the caravan, then to the front. He spent his time chatting with the riders, checking their positions, offering brief suggestions.
No one commented on the fact that he moved more than the others. Some even looked at him with respect. It kept him upright. By noon, the sun had become almost unbearable, and Duncan felt his vision playing tricks on him.
Not the dunes, but the nearby contours. The edges of the carriages seemed too sharp. The light is too white. He stopped for a moment, leaning against his horse. He breathed deeply. The air burned his lungs.
“You’re pale,” one of the knights said.
“It’s the heat,” Duncan replied immediately. It wasn’t a complete lie. The pain was now throbbing in time with his heart, and the bandage under his clothes had become stiff.
He realized, with cold clarity, that he hadn’t checked the wound since that young woman had bandaged it, but he didn’t want to stop. He forced himself to walk on, to get back to the back, then to the front. He told himself that if he could keep going, it must be no big deal.
A few steps later, the sand felt softer, too soft. He lost his balance for a split second, but he didn’t fall. Still, his hand instinctively reached for the edge of a carriage.
“Are you sure it’s just the heat?” the same knight asked. Duncan looked at him. For a moment, the other man’s face seemed to double. He blinked, and everything returned to normal.
“Yes.” His voice was lower than he had intended.
The caravan continued, but Duncan was beginning to feel something different. Not just pain; heaviness. As if his blood was slowing, as if each step was pulling a little harder than it should have. He didn’t realize it until he was trying to adjust his cloth. The material was damp. Not just since morning. The bandage hadn’t held completely. It wasn’t bleeding heavily, but enough to slowly loosen it.
He stood still for a few seconds, then sighed briefly, almost irritated. Not at the pain, but at himself. He should have said it. He should have let someone else take some of the burden, but the pride was still there. Ser Arlan had seen him as a potential knight.
A knight does not fall for a superficial wound. He does not complain, he does not demand. But his body did not consider unspoken oaths. When he tried to mount his horse again, his leg trembled. This time he could not completely hide the movement. The young woman who had bandaged him was looking at him again. She said nothing, but there was something new in her eyes.
Not worry, but certainly.
Duncan avoided her gaze. Not because he was guilty, but because he did not want a discussion. He tightened his cloth tighter around his waist and started back toward the center of the caravan, although his steps had become heavier.
At first, he thought it was just dehydration. The sun was high, white, and merciless. The air shivered over the sand. Every breath seemed to dry inside of his lungs. But then he noticed something strange. He felt cold under the sun. A brief shiver ran down his spine, almost imperceptible. He ignored it. He moved his shoulders as if he just wanted to adjust his coat.
"It's just the wind," he muttered. There was no wind.
One of the knights, an older man with sharp eyes, looked at him sideways. “Did you say something?”
“No.” Duncan quickened his pace. He didn’t want to stay in one place too long. The immobility made him feel the wound, and the wound was beginning to hurt in a different way, not sharply, but deeply. Like pressure from within.
edges of the carriages vibrated. He looked at the knight, but his face seemed slightly delayed as if he was reacting a split second too late.
He suddenly realized that he was having a hard time concentrating on one thing. The sounds were too clear. Every creak of a wheel, every breath of an animal, every rustle of cloth. They were all coming into his mind at once. Too many. He walked to the front of the caravan, determined to occupy his mind with something concrete.
“The distance between the carriages is too great,” said two of the riders.
“It’s not,” replied one.
“It is.”
“It’s just right.” Duncan stopped. He looked from one to the other. He tried to measure with his eye. It didn’t seem big, but it didn’t seem small either. “It’s good,” he said finally. The two of them looked at him. “It’s good?” one of them repeated.
“Yes.”
“What do you mean ‘good’?”
Duncan hesitated. “I mean… not bad.”
The younger rider laughed briefly. “Very accurate.”
Duncan felt something inside him tighten. “You asked,” he said.
“And you didn’t tell us anything.” Duncan frowned. “I told you it was good.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is.”
The knights exchanged another glance. Duncan didn’t understand what he had done wrong. He had answered. Wasn’t that enough? The pain in his side flared suddenly, more intensely. It took his breath away for a second. He turned, pretending to watch the horizon. He didn’t want to seem confused, didn’t want to seem like he wasn’t keeping up with the conversation, but the truth was that his mind was moving slower. His thoughts weren’t connecting as quickly, and it was starting to annoy him.
Behind him, the young woman was watching him again. She saw him rubbing his temple, breathing too deeply, avoiding conversations that required more than brief answers.
For a moment, he thought he saw the figure on the dunes again. There was nothing, just heat. "It's just the sun," he murmured. But it wasn't just the sun; the fever was slowly rising. And Duncan, stubborn and a little too simple in his way of understanding things, continued to believe that if he could stand, it meant it was nothing serious.
The young woman finally approached. “If you say you’re okay one more time,” she said calmly, “I’m going to start thinking you don’t know what the word means.”
Duncan looked at her. He tried to process “It means I’m okay.”
“No,” she said. “It means you’re not dead.”
He blinked. He thought, then said honestly, “Isn’t that the same thing?”
She looked at him for a long time. And for the first time, he realized that maybe, maybe things weren’t as simple as he made them out to be. The young woman didn’t ask him any more questions, grabbed his forearm firmly, without hesitation, and pulled him into the shade of one of the carriages. Duncan wanted to protest. Not because he didn’t want help, but because he didn’t like being moved.
“Wait,” she said simply. Her tone wasn’t authoritative, it was certain. And in his state, Duncan found he didn’t have the energy to contradict someone else’s certainty. He sat down and untied the cloth with slower movements than usual. When the young woman removed the bandage, the air touched the wound and Duncan gritted his teeth.
“It’s not deep,” she murmured. “But it’s open.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he replied, as if it were an accusation.
“Exactly.” He cleaned the wound with a little water and a dark substance. Duncan held his breath. It burned, but the burning was clear.
“You should have said something, ser.”
“It’s not serious.”
She looked at him without scolding him. “Not everything that’s serious knocks you out right away.”
Duncan didn’t answer. After the new bandage was tied better, tighter, the fever seemed to recede. At least for the moment his head became clearer, the outlines no longer quivered. His breathing returned to a normal rhythm. He stood up on his own. "See?" he said almost triumphantly. "I'm fine."
Something had changed in the air. A murmur passed through the caravan.
Duncan looked up slowly. His head was heavy. He moved toward the front of the caravan, driven by curiosity and the remnants of pride that still held him upright. At first, he saw nothing, only dunes. Then a shape. A dark spot on the horizon, not clear, not defined. Like a shadow that didn’t belong in the sand.
The city.
To the others, the city was beginning to take shape: low towers, walls, perhaps even reflections of light. To Duncan, it was just a trembling figure. He leaned back slightly in his saddle. He told himself it was excitement or heat or the fact that he had slept badly. Then the cold hit him again.
Not subtly this time. A violent shiver ran down his back; his breath came in short spurts. The bandage on his side began to throb. The pain was no longer dull, it was hot, deep, as if something beneath his skin was inflamed.
“You’re pale again,” one of the knights said.
Duncan tried to answer, but the words slurred. “No… it’s not…” The sentence didn’t finish.
For a moment, the city disappeared completely from his field of vision. Everything went white, the sounds faded. And then it came back suddenly, too strong. The smell of sand, the smell of animals, the smell of his own skin.
And something else. Sharper, more alive. Blood. Not just his own, but the blood of those around him. His heart began to beat too fast. Not from fear, but from something he couldn’t name. The young woman reached him just as his hand slipped from the saddle. “Ser” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. He tried to sit up straight.
“You can see the city,” he murmured, as if that were important.
“I know.” She touched his palm and immediately withdrew her hand. “You’re burning.”
Duncan blinked. “I am cold.”
“You have a fever.”
This time he didn’t protest because the world had begun to move too slowly and too quickly at the same time. The wound pulled violently. Under the bandage, the skin had become inflamed, infection was setting in. And his body was reacting differently than a normal beta would.
Not visible to everyone, but subtly. His breathing was becoming deeper, more irregular. His eyes were more sensitive to movement, and something around him was beginning to change. One of the horses became restless. Another knight turned suddenly. “Can you feel that?” someone murmured.
“What?”
“I don’t know…”
The young woman understood first. She grabbed him firmly. “Don’t move.” Duncan didn’t understand. “What?”
“You’re an omega,” she said quietly, almost to him alone. Not as a label, but as a biological fact.
“I know.”
He blinked. His mind was racing. “It means I’m hurt.”
“It means you react differently.” Around them, the atmosphere was growing slightly tense. Not because people had clearly realized what was happening, but because instincts reacted before reason. Duncan felt everything more intensely.
The sound of others breathing, the warmth of skin, the closeness. And for the first time in his life, it wasn’t just pain, it was vulnerability. And he didn't know what to do with it. The city, in the distance, continued to grow, the shadow turning into walls, into towers. In the promise of a meeting that would change everything.
And Duncan, feverish, confused and a little too simple for the complexity of his body, was beginning to understand that sometimes being strong didn't just mean staying standing. Sometimes it meant admitting that you couldn't anymore.
The city walls became clearer with each step. They were no longer just a shadow. Now the low towers, the carved battlements, the domes that reflected the harsh light of noon could be distinguished. The stone seemed light in color, almost golden, as if the city had grown directly from the sand.
The caravan began to change its rhythm. People talked more, the horses felt the approach of water and shadows, the merchants adjusted their clothes, wiped their faces, checked their crates.
Duncan walked forward anyway. Not because he had been assigned to, but because he didn't want to be seen behind. His steps were calculated, too calculated. The fever burned beneath his skin like a hidden ember. The wound throbbed steadily, and the bandage had become damp again. His breathing was labored, but he kept it under control. At least he thought he did.
The city was coming closer. To others, it was becoming more real. To him, the outlines were beginning to unravel. The towers seemed to bend in the light. The walls moved slightly, like an image reflected in water. He blinked, focused.
“It’s just the heat,” he murmured. But it wasn’t just the heat anymore. He felt too much at once. The smell of the city, heated stone, stagnant water somewhere inside, people. Lots of people.
His body reacted before his mind could process. A wave of dizziness hit him and he stopped abruptly. A knight from behind almost ran him over with his horse. “What are you doing?”
He tried to answer. The sounds seemed distant and his heart was beating too fast. His skin was hot and cold at the same time. "I am..." he began, but the word did not finish. For a moment, he saw everything with extreme clarity.
The city gates, tall, carved, guards lined up, flags moving slowly, and then the noise became a roar. The light exploded white, his knees gave way. Not slowly. They simply stopped responding. His hand slipped from the saddle, and the sand greeted him coldly. Voices erupted immediately.
“Ser!”
“Grab him!”
“He’s hurt!”
The young woman was first to him, kneeling in the sand without caring about her clothes.
“I told you,” She murmured, but her voice trembled slightly. Duncan didn’t answer, he was breathing hard. His fever had risen violently. Under the bandage, the infection had flourished, and his body, wounded and exhausted, had finally given in.
The gates of the city were opening. The guards were approaching. The caravan could not remain blocked in front.
“He must be taken inside,” one of the knights said. “To the healers.”
Two men lifted him up. His head fell back for a second, the rough cloth sliding gently from his face. For a moment, the sun illuminated his features, and beyond the gates, in the cool shadow of the walls, someone watched.