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(Next morning... A few hours later….)
Morning loosened a gold thread across the ridge and pulled the night off the mountain by hand. Kai stood where stone met sand, a single figure with a spear planted butt-down and two shadows to either side that weren't shadows at all — Shadeclaw with his shield low and sure, Silvershadow with nothing in his hands and everything in his posture. Overhead, Alka cut the air once, a slow wingbeat that put her where horizons begin.
Behind Kai, the ledges breathed. Two thousand drones stood in ten cohorts, a living wall that inhaled together and exhaled together until the air between ranks felt measured. Vexor kept his voice soft and his hands busy. "Wall, then teeth, then wall again," he murmured up and down the files. "No songs. You are not songs; you are answers."
