The wood did not splinter; it groaned under the flat of a heavy iron axe-hilt.
The latch to the secondary tower quarters shattered with a sharp, dry ping that cut through the mid-watch silence like a crossbow bolt. Selene did not jump from her chair by the hearth, but her hand froze an inch above the small square of vellum she had been marking with charcoal.
The charcoal point snapped, leaving a dark, jagged smudge across the table, a microscopic error in a world where errors were paid for in teeth.
“Out! Flat against the basalt!”
The command was a thick, alcohol-fueled roar. Three vanguard enforcers spilled through the broken threshold, their heavy leather brigandines caked with the frosted mud of the lower trenches. They didn't look like men executing an audit; they looked like a pa
