Lucius woke up to silence, which was wrong.
Not the silence of a quiet camp, he had learned that sound over the past weeks, the specific feeling of three people breathing in proximity, the small shifts of someone turning in their sleep, the particular quality of air that had been shared and warmed and settled into something familiar. This was different, there was a gap in it. Something absent that should have been there.
He lay still for a moment and listened.
Valeria's breathing, slow and even against the far stone. The fire reduced to coals, ticking quietly as they cooled. The night insects doing their usual work along the trees.
Seraphine's side of the camp was quiet in the wrong way.
He sat up.
Her bedroll was empty, the blanket folded back deliberately, which meant she had left carefully, not in a hurry. He quietly studied the tree line to the north.
