They walked northwest until the dry grass thinned into harder ground, Kiuga talking with his hands the way he always did when a plan had already worked, and he still hated how close failure had come.
"Seyika did not send us like dogs on a leash," Kiuga said, eyes on the horizon while dust stuck to the sweat at his temples, "hell, he read three things that only made sense together."
Sagiri kept pace beside him, Archive still sealed, listening for the Safaya-border presence that kept thinning whenever he reached for it with memory.
'Route math,' Sagiri thought, measuring Kiuga's anger against the care underneath it, 'not obedience dressed as friendship.'
"First was Galka," Kiuga continued, jabbing two fingers toward the northeast as if the battlefield still stood in view, "you leave a Grand Zorath on his knees, then you don't run south like a man hunting a throne ceremony."
Kaka grunted agreement without softening the hard northern line of his face against the wind.
