Chapter 73: The Covenant
The quiet in the cottage in the days that followed was different. It was not the silence of exhaustion or siege, but the deep, humming quiet of a decision being forged in the heart of a storm. They had faced their own ghosts, their most perfect and hollow reflections, and turned away. That collective choice had welded them into a single, unbreakable unit. The question now was not if they would confront the source, but how.
They gathered around the worn table, the story-stone from the beach placed in the center as a paperweight, its white light a steady reminder of truth. Morwen's salvaged, annotated log lay open beside it, a map of the enemy's mind. Kaelen had sketched a detailed diagram of the Trench and the four anchor points.
