Lara climbed the tree like someone who had learned the cost of falling.
The bark scraped her palms. The wind cut across the canopy. She moved carefully, calculating every shift of weight. One wrong sound, one snapped branch, and the entire stronghold would wake.
She was grateful Sandro wasn't fragile.
The boy climbed behind her with the ease of someone who had grown up hanging in branches. He was faster than most grown men she'd trained with. Light. Precise. Silent.
When she told him to cling to her back and leapt from the final branch to the stone roof of the leader's safe house, he didn't flinch. No gasp. No scream. Just trust.
He wrapped his arms around her shoulders as she tied the rope beneath his armpits.
"I'll lower you down. Go through the window. Straight to the bed. Tug twice when you're safe inside."
He nodded.
She hoisted him down into the darkness. The rope trembled with his weight, then stilled. Two tugs.
He made it.
