Ten minutes earlier.
The camp lay quiet beneath a veil of fading dusk, its distant watch-fires flickering against the barren plain. Outside the palisade, in a small wooden shed built from scavenged boards and scraps of hide, a slender figure busied herself with practiced hands.
Mino worked quickly. Her pale fingers, calloused from survival, moved with precision as she peeled the skins from several small lizards and three field mice. The smell of blood mixed with smoke filled the cramped space. She slit the bellies, scooped out the glistening innards, and tied the carcasses together with thin rope before hanging them above the firepit to smoke.
When she finished, the girl rubbed her palms with coarse sand until the stains faded from her skin. There was no clean water here—only grit, wind, and the will to stay alive.
> "Why has Luciel been gone so long?"
