For two full weeks, Eiravyne remained trapped beneath the surface of consciousness, her body clinging to life by the thinnest thread.
She knew nothing of the fever that tore through her broken ribs, nor the frantic, terrified hands of Karl who patched her raw, drained skin back together.
While she lay insensible, Duke Ilkar worked with an unhinged, frantic fury to erase every single scar Crown Prince Evander had left upon Wandova.
Day and night, the relentless rhythm of iron hammers against stone replaced the screams of war.
Hundreds of forced laborers worked under the sharp, watchful glare of Ilkar's remaining sentries, clearing thousands of tons of scorched timber, scrubbing the blood-slicked mud from the courtyard, and raising massive wooden scaffolding around the shattered keep.
The outer walls were rebuilt higher, thicker, and reinforced with brutal iron spikes.
