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The sun climbed. The dome's shadow shifted. Miryam drank a little. The Friend drank a little less and then fell asleep with its head on her arm. Miryam rested her cheek against its ear and listened to its small breaths. She did not cry. Her face stayed dry and very stubborn.
She watched a beetle cross the sand line by line, each leg lifting like a careful thought, then vanish where the shade ended and the glare began. The mesh smelled of old water and reed sap.
When the wind changed it brought her the faint taste of salt and something like wet clay, proof that the nets had been soaked and cured in a marsh far from here. She counted her breaths to keep the worry small. She did it the way Kai had taught her, four in, hold, four out, hold, and she let her shoulders settle each time the numbers came back to one.
