The implication settled between them like a third presence. The attack had not come from outside the borders alone. It had used knowledge that only a handful of people in the south possessed, and it had been delivered by a boy who lived inside their own walls.
Thorne looked toward the rising light. "Lila needs to hear this before the elders start calling for blood."
Elara already turned. "Then we don't make her wait."
They walked the length of the passage together, the stolen root and the blackened seeds heavy in Thorne's hand, the bitter scent still clinging to his clothes like an accusation that had finally found a name.
Lila received them in the small yard behind the healing halls, away from open ears. The first light had cleared the walls. Soren was already in the lower cells under double watch. The stolen root and blackened seeds lay on a low stone table between the three siblings.
