CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
The ice dome had grown so thick that the outside world was now only a faint golden haze, like a memory seen through frosted glass.
The sisters had marked three full months on the rock wall. Ninety lines. Ninety days of thinner air, shorter days, and longer silences.
Elena stood at the edge of the black lake, which had frozen halfway across. The water that remained was dark and still. They had lost two of the salvaged tarps to the cold.
Food rations were down to one meal a day. The guardian had begun teaching them how to fish through holes in the ice, her hands steady despite the guilt that still shadowed her eyes.
Mara led morning exercises to keep bodies warm and minds sharp.
“We move every day. We talk every night. We do not let the silence win.”
Sienna tended
