Rowan did not strike again the next day.
She waited.
That was what made the next three days feel worse than the attack itself. Grimridge had been built to answer force. It knew how to close ranks when blood hit stone, how to turn shouted orders into motion, how to treat open violence as a thing with shape and direction. Waiting was different. Waiting stretched every corridor thinner, made every misplaced object feel intentional, made every servant's lowered gaze and every clerk's delayed answer feel like a possible seam.
Cassian responded the way he always did when the enemy refused to show their full hand.
He made Grimridge harder to read.
