Two weeks passed with the pace of a drunk snail.
Dean and Arion spent most of them buried in decisions, wounded pride, sealed reports, and the increasingly horrifying possibility that someone had been controlling the beasts for years.
There were briefings with Saha, Palatine, Rohan, and Draxil. There were censored field records, rewritten emergency logs, and enough restricted channels to make even Hendrik look tired.
Officially, Andrea Vale was dead.
Unofficially, Andrea Vale was breathing beneath the palace because everyone needed to know who had taught him to turn infection into command.
Nero recovered in about three days, if one used the word "recovered" with great generosity. It meant he no longer had open wounds, no longer bled from the nose when irritated, and only looked half-dead instead of theatrically murdered.
Chris still kept him under watch.
Dax helped by pretending not to enjoy that.
