~Matteo POV~
Paulo died at the second hour of the morning watch.
He had been with me for six years, longer than most, the kind of person whose reliability you stop consciously noting because it becomes the ground you stand on rather than a feature you track. He was covering the southeast corner when the strike came from an angle the rotation had not accounted for, and by the time I reached him the accounting was already done.
I stood there for thirty seconds.
That was the only time I gave it. Not because Paulo did not deserve more, but because giving more meant losing ground on every other front, and losing ground meant more names to stand over later. I filed him the way Lucas had taught me without teaching me, which was simply by watching Lucas do it over and over and understanding through observation that this was the only functional way to keep moving when the list kept growing.
I moved.
