Malachi's P.O.VI have always preferred rooms that other people avoided. This one sat at the highest point of The Covenant's northern stronghold — circular, windowless, carved from stone so old it had forgotten what it was before men decided to shape it into walls. No torches, no candles, I had never needed them. Light, like most things, was a comfort designed for people who were afraid of what the dark revealed about themselves. I had made peace with what lived in mine long before I inherited this office.The reports were spread across the stone table before me, arranged with the precision I required from every person in my employ. Ironclaw's breach, the border ambush, the smoke deployment, Mirela's retrieval.I turned the last page over and set it face down not because the information displeased me but because it had proceeded almost exactly as I had designed it to, and satisfaction, in my experience, was best observed briefly and then set aside. Men who lingered in satisfaction sto
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