---
A few hours later…
Twilight came with a long bruise of color along the west. Mia's team made a silent camp under a low bank where the wind had brushed sand thin and left a hard face that faced the wrong way for strangers to spot. They did not light a fire. They ate cold. They ran a thin cord from peg to peg and wrapped their wrists in loops so startled sleepers didn't lurch into the open when a dream tugged.
Om wrote by feel, then read his notes out in a whisper with no flourishes: the distances, the signs, the lack of drums, the way the old caravan cut still had the ghosts of wheel ruts deep enough to break an ankle if you walked there at night like a fool. He slid the lens into its sleeve and closed his eyes under his forearm like a man who has learned to steal rest in coins instead of paper money.
Kiva took the first watch. Serit took the second. Mia took the dawn. No one argued with those choices.
