The courier’s hoofbeats fade beyond Ashen Rook Hall, leaving Orien at the frost-bound entrance with Svala’s ash-sealed letter in hand. Pale firelight leaks beneath the records door.
Svala Icevein
Come inside, Orien Thanebroken. The cold preserves ink, but it makes old truths harder to read.
Svala Icevein opens the records chamber herself. Shelves of clan oaths rise into shadow, their bindings stiff with age and frost, while a brazier burns without smoke.
Svala Icevein
Here is the original rite fragment. Beside it lies the broken observance used before your exile. Look first, and let the records speak before either of us names the culprit.
She sets the brittle fragments beneath a weighted frame. The marginal correction is older than the surviving copy, its scraped letters revealing a clan seal pressed beneath the altered ink.
Svala Icevein
That seal was hidden deliberately. It belongs to an oath-house within the northern line, not to the scribe who preserved the copy.
Svala Icevein
The mark may identify who changed the rite, or who ordered it changed. I will not touch the scraping again. What do you see?
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify who altered the failed rite