The intelligence report arrived at the fourth hour past midnight.
Not through the Ministry of Whispers' normal channels — those operated on a daily briefing cycle, aggregating field intelligence into structured reports that were reviewed by Vrenn, analyzed by his team, and transmitted to the Sovereign through the established divine communication architecture. This report bypassed everything. Direct field transmission. Priority code: Crimson — the highest urgency classification, reserved for intelligence that the Ministry deemed existentially significant.
Vrenn was awake. He was always awake at the fourth hour — the Kobold biology that required less sleep than Human physiology, combined with the professional paranoia that treated unconsciousness as a vulnerability, produced a Master of Whispers who operated on four hours of rest and twenty hours of awareness.
He read the report.
[FIELD INTELLIGENCE — MINISTRY OF WHISPERS — PRIORITY CRIMSON]
