The motion was careful and precise. Neither woman stirred. He extracted himself from the blanket with the practiced ease of someone who had occasionally needed to leave a bed without announcing his departure, found his boots, and stood.
He looked down at both of them one last time. The oil lamp had burned down to its last inch of wick, casting everything in the dim, amber warmth of nearly-dark.
He left.
The camp at night was a different creature.
The fires were banked to coals, breathing slow orange light across the packed earth in irregular pulses. The two guards posted at the main gate were a woman with a crossbow and a young man with sleepy eyes, both of whom tracked Viktor's emergence from Lira's tent with mild, exhausted curiosity and said nothing when he raised a hand in silent acknowledgment.
