Morning light filtered through the cabin's small windows, pale and thin, the kind of light that promised warmth but hadn't delivered it yet. Leo woke on the hearth room cot with the smell of woodsmoke in his clothes and the faint sweetness of Lira's garden drifting through the cracked window. Someone was already moving in the kitchen. The soft clink of cups. The low murmur of water heating.
He lay still for a moment, letting his cognitive sense map the cabin. Aria was still asleep in her room, her prana signature faint but steady, the cold at its edges no worse than yesterday. Kai'sa's oceanic mana pulsed from the spare room, already awake, already circulating. Lira was in the kitchen. Vesra had not returned yet, she had said she would be back by midday.
