Act IV, Chapter 20: Rowan Marches South — the Wrong Man at the Wrong Hour

The morning Rowan Voss marched south, a raven arrived at Greyvane fortress bearing three words in a hand he did not recognize.

*She has it.*

He read it standing in the courtyard with frost still on his gauntlets, the bird's small warmth already fading against his palm. Around him the fortress breathed its habitual morning sounds — the clang of a farrier's hammer from the eastern stable, the low complaint of men rising from sleep into cold, the creak of the gate as a water-carrier passed through. Rowan read the three words again. Then again. Then he folded the small square of vellum into a precise rectangle and pressed it into the breast of his armor with a deliberateness that his captain, Aldwyn Farr, who had known him since boyhood, recognized as the particular deliberateness that preceded irreversible decisions.