Chapter 79: The Rising Storm
The war room hummed with a new kind of silence. It wasn't the quiet of anticipation, but the dense, buzzing stillness after a bomb has gone off and the world is still figuring out how to reassemble itself. The air smelled of cold stone, old parchment from the maps spread across the central table, and the sharp, metallic scent of the shield emitter prototype that sat beside Kael's clenched fist.
The broadcast had stopped echoing in the physical world, but it reverberated in the space between every heartbeat. On the table, the small data chip Elias had brought from the Vault glinted, an unassuming sliver of metal holding the genesis of their species. And the lie that had fueled its near-extinction.
Ronan stood opposite, his bulk a steadying anchor. "Grynn's taken the knife. Didn't say a word. Just looked at it, then at the northern maps. He and his lieutenants left an hour ago. They're moving."
