Smaller strategy room still carried smell of ink and crumpled paper when Luara returned, and way Kade remained there, standing, with tense shoulders and attention stuck to maps he wasn't really reading, made clear he hadn't withdrawn to work, but to control himself. Rayder's exile closed chapter, yet opened another with same silent violence: Council hadn't left, had just changed posture, and now observed like someone evaluating investment, measuring where power accumulated and where it could ...