Doran's scouts returned nine days after my father sent them, weary from hard travel and carrying exactly the confirmation none of us had wanted to hear.
"Foreign tracks along Blackthorn's western border," the lead scout reported, kneeling before my father's study desk with a rolled map already spread flat between them. "Same boot pattern as the one recovered near our own trade office. Same careful movement, no plunder taken. Whoever's responsible has been active on both sides of the border for some time now, likely longer than either kingdom initially realized."
My father studied the map in silence for a long moment, tracing the marked points with one finger, and I watched something settle behind his eyes that looked less like surprise and more like grim confirmation of a suspicion he'd
