The camp looked different in daylight.
Vane had expected it to feel harsher.
Smaller, maybe.
More desperate.
Instead, it felt almost domestic.
Not normal. Nothing about forty-one people hiding beneath a cliff while Imperial patrols crossed the surrounding valleys could be called normal.
But people adapted to almost anything if they had to live inside it long enough.
The cookfires were small and carefully vented so the smoke broke against the rock instead of rising above it.
Clothes hung beneath overhangs rather than in the open.
Children played games that kept them close to the ground.
Nobody had to tell them to keep quiet.
They simply did.
Two boys chased something imaginary between the tents, laughing in short bursts and falling silent the instant one of them noticed Vane watching.
Then, once he looked away, the laughter started again.
A woman sat near one of the fires repairing a fishing net.
Someone else sharpened three mismatched knives.
