The far corner of the camp felt like a different world, or at least a very sullen neighborhood of the one they currently occupied. It sat well away from the shouting at the command center, but still within the camp's protected area. Someone, likely a weary logistics guard with a dark sense of humor, had dragged a couple of reinforced supply crates together to form a jagged, splinters-and-all worktable.
Across its scarred wooden surface, the evidence lay in a row. A handful of Hearth Stones, some still glowing with a sickly, rhythmic amber pulse, others smashed into glittering quartz shrapnel.
Cherion stood over them, his arms stiff at his sides, glaring at the rocks as if they'd just insulted his mother in a particularly creative dialect. He looked, quite frankly, like he was one bad minute away from starting a fight with an inanimate object.
