The reports came in throughout the night. One after another, they piled on Azariah's desk like fallen leaves. Thornwall: ten thousand dead. Millbrook: seven thousand. The numbers were cold, precise, the work of clerks who had learned to count corpses without flinching. But the names behind the numbers were not cold. They were farmers, merchants, children. People who had trusted the north to keep them safe.
Azariah read each report, his face expressionless, his hands steady. He had seen worse. He had done worse. They had been careless. The barrier had held, but the organization had found a way around it.
The messenger waited. Azariah dismissed him with a wave and turned to the window. Beyond the glass, the northern mountains rose against a sky still dark with the remnants of storm clouds. Somewhere out there, the organization had spies. Informants. Agents who had watched the hydras fall and reported back to their masters. They thought themselves hidden, safe.
They were wrong.
