Sebastian
Denford’s return came with a bitter wind.
He entered the chamber with the same grim expression he always wore, but this time, I noticed the tremble in his fingers as he unrolled the scroll of parchment and laid it out across the table. My top advisors watched in silence, waiting for me to speak first.
“Well?” I asked, my voice low.
Denford cleared his throat. “We’ve corroborated some of the prisoner’s claims. Several parches of forged documents and coded letters were found hidden in homes near the Høtenhiem border—most of them abandoned. A few were not.”
“And the occupants?”
“Dead before we arrived,” he said grimly. “Slit throats. Clean. Professional.”
I ground my teeth. That meant someone was cleaning up.
Soren leaned over the table, eyes scanning the scribbled maps. “I
