They spent most of the first day walking in a comfortable near-silence.
The coast road unwound ahead of them through country that had not quite decided whether it wanted to be forest or farmland, fields giving way to copses, then opening again into long stretches of pale grass under a wide sky.
Vane noticed the change in everyone gradually.
Shoulders loosening.
Steps lengthening.
The small habits of vigilance easing one mile at a time.
Leaving Meridine whole behind them had done something that resting inside it never quite had.
They were done there.
Properly done.
Nothing was waiting behind them to collapse the moment they left.
That mattered.
Mara counted mile markers whenever the road offered them and invented her own system when it didn't. At some point she began measuring distance by how many ration breaks remained before sunset, apparently satisfied that this was more useful than trusting the road signs.
Isole hummed quietly to herself.
