---
By midmorning the mountain had the sound it makes when many hands move and no one wastes a footstep. The ward's last patient shimmer was gone. Sun wrote honest shapes on the stone. On the desert face, shade crept down in careful fingers the way it does when a hill is deciding who is allowed to be cool.
Kai stood at the lower mouth with Shadeclaw to his right and Silvershadow somewhere he could be found if you knew how to look. Azhara had taken the east ledges to teach a dozen drones how to hold a line without needing to be told every breath to do it. Skyweaver watched air currents with her head tilted — the scholar of wind reading a book only she could see. Belowground, the egg chamber hummed. Miryam's chrysalis lay in silk that liked its work.
"Runners from the forest line," Silvershadow said, not moving his lips. "Not ours."
Kai waited for the rest.
"They carry nothing," Silvershadow added after a beat. "Not even water skins."
