Location:Zhū'kethara — Kael'thoren Fortress
Date/Time:22 Voidmarch, 9942 AZI
Realm:Demon Realm
The awakening schedules were four hours behind, and Ren had been at them since before the light.
There was a discipline to it that he had built deliberately and had chosen not to examine. Numbers first, in the cold part of the morning, when the beast was quietest — allocations, rotations, which of the newly awakened could be trusted with a border and which could be trusted with a plow. Nine thousand souls this cycle. He had signed for every one of them personally since the schedule accelerated, because the acceleration had been his decision and he was not going to have another man's hand on the consequence.
The pendant lay against his chest under the shirt, and it was warm, and had been warm every day for something over two years.
