The loyalists who survived the siege did not retreat.
They scattered.
Some fled into the suppressed realities. Those realities were built on impossible geometries, and even Lord's substrate couldn't track anything that went into them. Others went back to the traditionalist zones and sealed their borders behind them. They were preparing for a war they still believed was coming.
But many of them simply stopped.
They stood in the courtyards and corridors of Drak'thar with their forms flickering and their eyes uncertain. They had followed Kael'thar for eons. They had believed in the cage. And now their master had walked away from it, and from them.
Owen found three of them in the eastern courtyard.
They were ancient beings. Their shapes kept shifting from one state to another, and even in their confusion, their power still pressed out around them. Owen could feel it on his skin from where he stood.
"You're not fighting," he said.
