Frost Glaive City, the Northern Frontier Governor's Office.
The fire burned quietly, and the room was filled with the scent of pine resin and wine.
Duke Edmund leaned back in his high-backed chair, toying with the silver knife on his desk. The wax seal on the envelope bore a familiar sun design-the seal of Red Tide Fief.
He gave a low chuckle, a smile tugging at his lips. "That boy finally wrote... Could it be about the wedding?"
He tore open the envelope, unfolded the pages, and began to read.
The first few lines did mention the progress of the wedding preparations, such as the venue and the guest list... But soon, the handwriting grew hurried.
What followed was a list of horrors: swarms, parasitism, mind control, corrosive liquid, an explosive propagation mechanism, and combat puppets with purple-tinged pupils.
The letter trembled slightly in his hand. Duke Edmund's brows slowly drew together, and the savage scar slanting across his entire face quivered as though pulled taut.
This thing... He had heard of it before.
Three years earlier.
It had been the strangest battle the Northern Frontier had seen in a decade.
In late spring that year, an entire viscount's domain north of the Frostmark River had been affected.
Roughly three villages, two farms, and a knight's fortress had become empty shells in less than six days.
The initial reports spoke only of wild beast attacks. Then contact was lost with every villager, the garrison, and the relay station.
Not until a mounted reconnaissance unit escaped by sheer luck did news reach them, and the intelligence they brought back kept almost everyone at the Governor's Office awake all night.
"The dead were walking, as though suspended from strings, with light shining in their eyes... Something was beating inside their chests. Not