The preparation floors below the Origin Palace were never intended for comfort.
The wide stone chamber was stripped of all soft depressions and replaced with hard targets, shifting lock-frames, and residual law patterns Damaris and Lilith had painstakingly recreated from memory of the harvest feeds. The air smelled of dust, ozone, and the edge of live authority.
Damaris stood at the center though the recovery in his body had been only partial. Gold light pulsed beneath his skin in carefully measured increments as he surveyed the mixed line of battle-ready faces waiting before him. Francisca, Remu, Temmy, two Origin support captains, Heron stationed at the very end as a measuring blade, and three younger Clan fighters who had fought for the block after the roster had been set in stone.
