The smell reached them before the object did.
Burnt wood.
Charred metal.
And something faintly metallic beneath it.
Luca was the first to notice. He stood at the edge of the north courtyard where the defensive line had been reinforced after the boundary breach. The morning sun had barely climbed higher when a scout approached, face tight, hands wrapped in cloth.
"They left this," the scout said.
Not dropped.
Left.
Deliberate.
He unwrapped the cloth slowly.
A crest lay inside—blackened, edges warped by flame. The carved wolf emblem of Alessandro's house was barely recognizable beneath the ash.
The air in the courtyard shifted.
Ouch.
The word slipped from a younger wolf's mouth before he caught himself.
Luca took the crest carefully, his jaw tightening.
"They burned it," he muttered.
"No," the scout corrected quietly. "They returned it burned."
A message.
Alessandro arrived moments later, drawn by the tension alone. He did not need explanation.
