Chapter 158: The Forge of Grudges
The recovery of the cove was a tender, green shoot. The Kethran Dynasty's recovery was a reforging in a furnace of spite. Deep in his mineral-choked caverns, Krath the Unyielding was no longer a failed invader. He was a sculptor of vengeance, and his material was the shame of his people.
He stood before the assembled clan-chiefs, not on his geode throne, but on a dais built from the shattered rubble of the Deep-Vibrator a monument to failure. His voice, amplified by the cavern's acoustics, was a grinding stone of pure will.
"They think their soft magic won," he roared. "They think their feelings are a shield. They are wrong. They beat a tool. They beat an alliance. They have not beaten iron." He let the silence hang, thick with the smell of ozone and hot metal. "Our error was in fighting their kind of war. We played with echoes and quiet. We tried to mine a feeling. Fools!"
