Kael rode out at dawn.
He took Tarn and three warriors, riding north to the scattered farmsteads at the edge of the kingdom, the outlying Lycan families who had not yet heard that their king had come home with a queen. It was a thing a king did, Vael explained: when something changed in the kingdom, he carried the word to the far households himself, so they heard it from his own mouth and not from rumor. He would be gone three days.
"He could send a messenger," I said, watching the small column cross the northern boundary.
"He could," Vael agreed. "He is not going to. He wants every family in these lands to hear from his own lips that Ashenveil has a Luna again, the first in five hundred years. He is proud of you, Aria. He is riding three days in the cold to show you off to farmers." He
