We rode back through Duskrail's gates on the seventh day to find Aldric waiting for us personally, an unusual courtesy from a man who typically sent word through lesser channels rather than standing at the gate himself, his posture rigid enough in the fading afternoon light that I knew before he'd said a single word that something had happened in our absence, something significant enough that he had not trusted it to a messenger or even to Callan, who normally handled matters of this delicacy in my absence.
I need to speak with you both, privately, he said, before we had even fully dismounted, his expression carrying none of its usual measured calm, none of the steady, unhurried authority I had come to associate with him over four years of leadership, the composure of a man who had weathe
