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The enforcer said little as they moved, both of them running swiftly in wolf form through the darkening forest, their feet barely touching the earth. Their breath came in quiet bursts, their pace steady, silent. The deeper they went, the more the trees thickened, shadows knitting together like threads. The air changed—colder, heavier—and Hagan could feel it in his bones.

The southern border.

They stopped at the edge of a wide clearing where the shimmer of the protective wards flickered, silver-blue and faint to the untrained eye. The magic pulsed outward in slow waves, repelling anything that wasn't welcome. Ever since the attack on the patrols, the oracle and Seren had set up the wards. Inside those lines, Vargrheim was safe.

Or so they believed.

The Highclaw was already there.

He stood still as stone, hands clasped behind his back, jaw tight, his face lined with tension. Veyr hovered just behind him, arms crossed, eyes sharp and unreadable. Garrik stood further off with Lia beside him, her face devoid of emotion, cool and quiet.

Dain shifted from foot to foot, visibly tense, while Vir knelt near the scene, his eyes dark with concern.

Then Hagan saw it.

Just outside the ward line—mere paces beyond the border—a body hung from the crooked branch of a dead pine. Suspended by its ankles.

The blood had long since drained, dark and crusted along his face and torso. The body was ghastly pale and moved grotesquely in the slight breeze. His throat was cut deep, nearly through. His stomach was slashed wide open. Entrails spilt like a grotesque offering to the roots below. The face had been defaced—gouged, marked, erased.

Hagan's stomach turned.

"Gods" he murmured.

Vir stood and said quietly, "Not one of ours."

"One of the Forsaken," Veyr added, his voice emotionless, but his eyes glittering with something colder than fury.

"He was placed here deliberately," Draken said. "The wards held. No one crossed them."

"These are common forest paths," Garrik said. "Neutral spaces. Who would do this?"

"It's a warning," Lia added, flatly.

Hagan felt his fists clench. The boy couldn't have been older than thirteen.

"This was a child," he said, his voice hoarse.

Draken nodded grimly.

He turned to the group, voice low and commanding. "Cut him down. We need to tighten the patrols. No one walks alone. No one steps outside the wards without permission. Not for gathering. Not for scouting. Not for anything. Get the Oracle."

Vir gave a brief nod.

No one argued.

Even Dain, who usually bristled at containment, was silent—his eyes locked on the mutilated body, jaw rigid.

And through it all, Lia remained impassive. Cold. Watching.

Hagan stood apart, his heart pounding in his chest, blood roaring in his ears. His skin still held the warmth of Seren's breath from that morning.

Now he only felt cold.

There were no clues on the boy's body. No scent markers, and no pattern in the butchery. The only fact that mattered was this: it had been a message. The nearest tribe was Starnheim.

Draken sent word to their Highclaw Steine and received a quick reply—shock, horror, a demand for a meeting. He agreed to come to neutral ground. No one believed he had done it himself, but trust was not something easily given in the borderlands.

Hagan didn't return home the next day.