I woke to Soren moving quietly through the camp, stoking the fire back to life. The sky was still dark—that thin, bruised hour before dawn when the world felt suspended between night and morning. My body ached in ways that sleep hadn't fully resolved, but my mind was sharp, running through the ambush again and again, cataloging what we'd learned.
Soren glanced over and saw me awake. He didn't comment on the fact that I'd only managed a few hours of restless sleep. Instead, he brought me water and sat across from me, Dimitrius's captured order spread open on his knee, the patrol map weighted flat beside it with a stone.
"You should rest longer," he said, though his tone suggested he already knew I wouldn't.
"I've rested enough." I hadn't, not really, but there wasn't time to pretend othe
