Chapter 146: The Rift in the Road
The silence over the cove was not peace, but the held breath after a scream. The corruption-seed was dust, but the psychic scar it left on the community's trust was raw and tender. Aurora spent two days moving through the cove like a healer checking pulses, listening to the fragile, restarting rhythm of connection. She heard apologies whispered over garden fences, saw shared meals restart with a clumsy, determined kindness. The home was healing itself, but it was weakened.
On the third morning, the decision could no longer be postponed. They had stabilized the cove and the Glade, but Frosthold remained under its silent siege, and the capital was a bureaucratic quagmire. The Tripartite Compact was not defeated; it was pressing on all fronts. They had to regroup, to strike back with a unified strategy.
