The fragile peace was a tapestry, and I felt every pull on its threads. The success of the Moot had bought us goodwill, but goodwill was a currency that depreciated with hunger and fear. As the moon cycled toward its next quarter, reports began to trickle in—not of attacks, but of unease. Strange sounds in the deep woods where there should be none. Livestock from outlying farms found drained of blood, not by fang, but by some unknown, precise means. A creeping, silent malaise that was somehow more sinister than open war.
The shadow of Morgath was long, and it seemed she had apprentices, or acolytes, or simply scavengers drawn to the psychic carcass of her power, picking at the bones of the chaos she left behind.
Kaelen, Grynn, and I met in the strategy room, maps once more spread before
