Chapter 45: The Ghost in the Machine
The war room felt different. The air, once charged with the scent of ozone from holographic maps and the sweat of military planning, now smelled of cold kolfa and the faint, metallic tang of data corruption. Finn's domain of blinking servers and light-code projections had become the new front line.
Elias Hale stood before the central holotable, his posture straighter than it had been in weeks. The lingering stiffness from his injuries was now masked by a coiled readiness. He was no longer just Lyra's recovering brother; he was an asset, and the intelligence packet Finn had just shown him was his target.
