NEVA POV
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We waited three days for Silo to be stable enough to travel, the whole convoy settling into the specific suspended patience of a family unwilling to leave one of its own behind even temporarily.
Vael didn't leave his bedside except when Bena physically insisted she eat or sleep, and even then she returned within the hour, the specific fierce devotion of someone who had nearly lost the person she'd built her whole rebuilt life around.
"You should rest properly," I told her, on the second night, finding her in the chair beside Silo's bed, exhausted but awake.
"I will," she said. "When we're home. I need to see this through first."
I understood the specific need — not rational, entirely emotional, the compulsion to witness every step of someone's recovery when you'd come cl
