The morning was a thin thing, pale behind the mists that clung like ragged veils to the orchard. Liora's breath came out in small white ghosts as she worked, a steady rhythm of motion, the broom scraping the compacted earth, the sweep of leaves, the small rituals of maintenance that, at one time, had felt like a kind of worship. Now they felt like survival.
Elira moved beside her, younger by a season and older by everything they had both lost. She hummed under her breath, a tune their grandmother had taught them for times when work needed to soften sorrow. The sound should have been comfort, but today it was a fragile thread stretched thin.
