Marcus's point of view)
Finn brought me the scout's report three days after a patrol found unfamiliar tracks along the western border, boot prints that didn't match any pattern our own warriors wore, circling twice around the same stretch of forest before disappearing entirely near a stream that would have swallowed any scent trail worth following.
"Foreign make," Finn said, setting the sketched boot pattern on my desk. "Whoever wore these wasn't local, and they weren't careless either. This is someone who knew exactly how to disappear once they'd finished whatever they came here to do."
"Finished what, precisely?" I asked, though something cold was already settling in my gut, some instinct I hadn't fully trusted myself to name yet.
"That's the trouble," Finn said. "Nothing appears to
