The sun hadn't risen yet when Liam found Thrak again on the eastern rampart, staring at nothing.
Or maybe not nothing.
Maybe patterns only a three-hundred-year-old mind could see in the pre-dawn darkness—troop movements that hadn't happened yet, tactical probabilities written in the shape of distant hills.
"You don't sleep," Liam observed.
"Sleep is inefficient. Four hours every seventy-two maintains cognitive function. I slept six hours ago." Thrak didn't turn. "You, however, have not slept in forty-one hours. Cognitive degradation will begin affecting tactical decision-making soon."
"I'll sleep when I'm dead." Liam said, perhaps as a joke.
"Statistically probable if current pattern continues." No judgment, just data. "Average survival time for demon commanders in active combat zones: six months. Your current operational tempo suggests accelerated timeline."
Liam almost laughed. Almost. "Comforting."
"Truth is not meant to comfort. Only to inform tactical planning."
