It happened on a Wednesday morning, twelve days after Seraphina's return.
She had been pushing harder than she should have been, she knew that in retrospect with the clarity that retrospect always provided. The intelligence from Ironmoor had accelerated the pace of work across the whole pack, the war council meeting three times in ten days, the communication with Brennan ongoing through Vera's contact, the parallel work of maintaining the pack's ordinary functions while the senior people were heavily engaged with the Crest situation.
She had been doing deliberate access work every morning, reaching into the inheritance for specific knowledge relevant to the current situation. Mira's understanding of how compromised pack Alphas recovered their authority. Her knowledge of how dark influence networks operated. What she had observed over a century about the dynamics of inter-pack conflict and resolution.
