The Howl of Betrayal
The Unity Moot was only three days old when the first act of betrayal split the dawn. Vera Lanst awoke to shouts echoing through the palace corridors—clamor of running feet and panicked cries. She vaulted from her bed of soft furs, fastening her wolf-skin cloak over her riding leathers, and raced toward the eastern bastion, where the city's water reserves were stored in vast cisterns beneath the marble plaza.
By the time she arrived, the great iron gates of the cistern complex had been flung inward. Frozen water dripped in rivulets through collapsed stone arches. A dozen Grayrock militia and city guards stood amidst waist-high flooding—faces ashen—while frantic laborers struggled to plug the breaches with torn cloth and broken masonry.
“Majesty, thank the moons you'
