Location:Northern territories → Seven Peaks
Date/Time:TC1855.02.03-15
They left at dawn.
The settlement gathered at the gate — all 200 of them, the lean people with the hard faces and the quiet children, standing in the cold to watch the Southern healer leave with their chief's daughter. No ceremony. No speeches. Northern departure protocol was the same as Northern arrival protocol: you stood, you watched, you said what needed saying, and nothing else.
The chief held Bryn.
The girl was wrapped in furs — layers of insulation that Mira had approved and the settlement's women had produced overnight, cutting and stitching with the practiced speed of people whose lives depended on being able to make warm things fast. Bryn was light. Thirty-eight percent essence and five years of drain had left her body with the particular fragility of a child who had been consuming herself to sustain something larger. She could be carried with one arm. The chief carried her with two.
