The night comes down like a blanket stitched from ash.
Bonfires sputter low across the Fang camp. Men and women huddle close to simmering stewpots, to slow, careful lanterns that swing on ropes so their light will not catch the wind and carry signal. The air tastes of smoke and iron and the narrow-sweet of dried meat. Tents sag beneath the weight of too many bodies. Laughter is brittle, conversation guarded; the whole place moves like a thing that has been wounded and now tries to pretend it is only tired.
Leo sleeps in fits—shallow, dream-riven naps where the shard talks to him in the voice of a crowd. He dreams of chains, of the Inquisitor's pale light wrapping around his throat, and always he wakes with the same dry-raw loneliness in his mouth. When he opens his eyes the shard under his ribs is a dull throb, not yet roaring. He cannot tell whether that is mercy or danger.
