Three days after the battle at Torshavn, a black, unmarked carriage entered the gates of Iron Hearth Castle.
Its escort consisted of only two men—knights clad in plain gray uniforms with no identifying insignia, their faces concealed by unadorned helms. They did not speak. They offered no answers to the gatekeepers' inquiries. They merely handed a black wooden box to Grimm, who was waiting in the courtyard, before turning the carriage around and vanishing before the sun had fully risen.
Grimm stared at the box for a long time. His aged, wrinkled hands felt its weight—not just a physical burden, but a weight of a different kind. He had lived long enough to recognize the scent of trouble from a mile away. And this box reeked of it.
He carried it to Lucian's study without opening it.
