The news traveled south on the fourth day after the great hall incident.
It traveled the way dangerous news always traveled — not through official channels, not through the clean architecture of formal communication, but through the lateral network of people who made their living knowing things that other people did not know and selling that knowledge to whoever was willing to pay for it.
A dismissed scullery maid. A supply merchant who ran routes along the Lycan border. A traveling trader who carried more than goods and fewer scruples than his legitimate business required.
Three days and four hands, and the information arrived at its destination before dawn.
Serena did not know this yet. She was in the eastern study with Lucien and Elder Voss, learning the shape of her own history, an
