By the seventh day, the castle no longer looked like the place I'd inherited. Zereth had spent every waking hour since the war scroll reshaping it stone by stone, and standing now on the upper rampart, watching demons haul reinforcing beams up scaffolding that hadn't existed two mornings before, I understood for the first time just how much of him had gone into the work.
"You haven't slept either," I said, joining him at the rail.
"I sleep in increments, My Lord. It's a different discipline than not sleeping at all." He didn't look up from the plan spread across the low wall in front of him, weighted at its corners with stones instead of the usual paperweights, since half the study's furniture had been requisitioned for something more urgent than holding down paper. "I'd rather show you the work than describe it. Walk with me."
