Kael’s POV.

Kael found the envelope exactly where it shouldn’t have been, on the war table, between two closed intelligence reports, addressed to no one, sealed with nothing. He picked it up without ceremony. The paper was coarse, the ink dark and deliberate. No signature, no symbol, only a message written in Council cipher, a language extinct to all but the oldest spymasters.

“The traitor walks beside the Blade. You built her. She will unmake you.” And beneath it, smaller. ...