War acquired a rhythm, and the rhythm was exhaustion.
By the third week the eastern corridor had become a scarred, continuous front rather than a series of discrete engagements. Smoke lived in the folds of the land. The medical posts no longer emptied between actions; they only rotated the nature of the damage. Blackridge held. That sentence remained true every morning and cost more every night to keep true. Darien’s forces, denied the quick fracture they had designed for the opening, had settled into the uglier ambition of attrition—testing the belt, cutting at supply, looking for the hour when the future Alpha pair’s unbroken presence at the forward edge would finally become a liability instead of a standard.
Tristan refused to allow that hour.
He slept in fragments. He ate without ta
