The news leaks the way rot always does.
Not all at once. Not cleanly. It slips through cracks in routine and courtesy, carried by runners who talk too much and elders who talk just enough to shape the narrative without owning it. By the second day of containment, everyone knows I am no longer in the packhouse proper. By the third, they know where, and the knowing curdles into judgment before it ever reaches understanding.
“They put her in the artifact vault,” someone says loudly enough for the words to travel down the corridor, intentionally careless.
“They put what in there?” another voice snaps back. “She is not an object.”
Arguments ignite in places Adam cannot control. Training yards where sparring slows into shouting. Hallways where wolves stop pretending to pass through and start
