The message came wrapped in a horse blanket, and it took Ivy a full minute to understand that was deliberate.
Petra brought it to her at the edge of camp, where Ivy had been checking the water line Corwin still hadn't come back to finish. "Trader passed it to one of ours at the crossing," Petra said. "Said a boy gave it to him three days out, paid to make sure it landed with 'the pack that isn't a pack.' Those words. Not yours."
Ivy unfolded the blanket. Inside was a strip of leather, tooled with a mark she almost didn't recognize because she'd never seen it outside a training yard — Ashworth's patrol insignia, but cut through with a second line that didn't belong there. A demotion mark. She'd watched Kade carve one into a belt once, years ago, for a sentry who'd fallen asleep on watch.
