Aria’s POV
We didn’t pack at dawn. We packed after breakfast.
That felt revolutionary. Ten years, packing meant knives first, food second, hope never. Today Ridah set a pile in the middle of the quarry and said, “Only take what you want to carry.”
No one moved for a minute. Want was a new rule.
Tav went first. He left his spare blade. Took his carving knife, the new stone bowl, and three of his crooked flowers. “Bigger things to carve down there,” he said, nodding at the valley.
Coren rolled his map, but not the ward-maps. He took the blank one. “Roads first,” he said. “Borders later.”
Lyra left her second knife. Kept the braid beads she’d carved from quarry stone. And Mara’s lumpy braid. She tucked it in her pack like it was steel.
Mara was the hardest. She picked up a blade,
