The air in Haven’s Heart was thick with the smell of antiseptic, scorched metal, and slow-burning triumph. The wounded from Grax’s assault were being tended to by a team Lia had organized, their moans a soft counterpoint to the brisk efficiency of the medics. Kael’s arm was in a stasis cast, his face a mask of grudging respect as he watched his people, his people, work alongside the farmers and scholars to clear the debris from the secondary hangar. They had been tested in fire, and they had held.
But Roewi felt no triumph. Standing before the main crystalline slate, he watched the replay of the Fractured Crown’s attack on his mind. The cold, logical seduction, the way it had twisted his own power against him. It had been too intimate, too knowing. It wasn't the brute-force assault of a w
