"Where are you going?" Elira's whisper trembled through the orchard's cool dawn.
Liora paused, one hand brushing aside a low bough heavy with dew. "Just… outside," she said. Her voice was low, husked with the sleepless night. The stars were fading, but one or two clung stubbornly above the orchard like eyes that refused to close.
Elira hugged her shawl tight. "You shouldn't wander before sunrise. Kael's guards—"
"They won't see me." Liora's gaze drifted to the far end of the orchard, where mist gathered like a nest of ghosts. "I need to breathe where the air isn't watching."
The path was narrow, lined with fallen fruit and the faintest smell of fermentation. Elira hesitated, then followed anyway, the sound of her bare feet brushing against leaves. "I'll come," she muttered. "If they punish one of us, they'll punish both."
