A courier who had ridden through two storms arrived with a package from the eastern coast on a grey morning.
Seren recognized the seal—the eastern coast, a university older than the kingdom itself. She broke the wax with trembling fingers.
Inside was a manuscript. Not a scroll, but pages bound in leather, the ink faded but legible. A letter accompanied it, written in a precise, careful hand.
*Your Majesty,*
*I have searched my archives as you requested. Enclosed is a partial manuscript describing human-to-wolf transformation in the First Age. The author is unknown, but the text dates to approximately eight hundred years ago. It references even older sources.*
*The transformation described here is not achieved through bonding. It is achieved through prolonged exposure to pack magic; the collective energy of wolves living in close harmony with humans. The process took years. It was not always successful. But it did not require the mating bond.*
