LOKI'S TERRITORY — COMMAND HALL
They had finally arrived a few days later, having pushed through the nights after nights without rest.
Loki was awake — he often was at odd hours, the demon lord's relationship with sleep being as unconventional as everything else about him. He was in his command hall with three of his senior advisors when Cassius came through the door, and something in the vampire's face stopped whatever conversation had been happening.
"Report," Loki said.
The room had gone very still.
Cassius stood at the center of the hall, his eight fighters behind him, and gave the report with the precise, sequenced delivery of someone who had spent the last eight hours organizing every detail into optimal order.
The empty gatehouse. The empty way-stations. The farming settlement with the toy in the mud and the clothes on the washing line. The open gates of Tempra. The city intact and empty and abandoned mid-task. The full food stores. The temporal absorption signatures.
