Gregoris returned from Donin with ether dust on the hem of his coat, frost caught in the seams, and the distinct irritation of a man who had been forced to endure someone else's domestic sulking while trying to conduct a serious inspection.
The trip itself had not been a failure.
That was, perhaps, the most annoying part.
He had gone south to inspect the Shadow base in Donin, fully prepared to find at least three procedural problems, one security lapse, and a commander somewhere in the chain who thought confidence was a substitute for discipline. Instead, what he found was an installation that had been sharpened by two decades under Christian's authority and Astana's administrative precision into something efficient, heavily warded, and unpleasantly competent.
