Victor moved on Aldric in thirty-six hours, not forty-eight.
I learned it the same way I learned most things in this fortress—through the quality of the silence afterward.
The healing stores went quiet in a way they never did on a normal day.
No low conversation between apprentices, no clink of glass measures, just the soft rustle of one set of footsteps and then nothing.
An hour before I expected him, Evan appeared at my door.
“It’s done,” he said.
“Clean?”
“Clean. Aldric didn’t resist. He tried to send a message out through a garrison rider, but the rider was intercepted.” Evan’s voice stayed level.
“Cassin’s people will know something went wrong within a day or two. Aldric is in administrative detention now. Victor locked the correspondence channels.”
My wolf exhaled, s
