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Kai stood with Mia just inside the threshold where stone turned the outside world into a quieter one. The air smelled of warm dust, boiled water, and the shallow sweetness of cooked grain. Deeper in, the mountain's breath was old and clean. He listened a heartbeat longer to the night beyond —the scrape of shields being stacked, the low murmur of count and recount, Alka's one last circle over the ridge— and brought his attention back to the woman in front of him.
"We'll talk tomorrow," he said, gentle but final. "You need rest. I need to sit the roof with Miryam."
Mia's eyes flicked up toward the unseen altar and softened. "Go, then," she said. "If she wakes and sees anyone else first, she'll make trouble just to make it fair." (She knows almost everything from Kai soul communication.)
