The alarm ward woke me before Vesha's footsteps did, which should have told me everything I needed to know about how the day was going to go.
It didn't ring like a bell. It sank — a pressure behind the sternum, low and cold, the specific sensation of the outer boundary of my domain being tested by something that meant it. I was on my feet and half into my coat before the second pulse arrived, weaker than the first, the way a second knock is always weaker than the one that finally gets an answer.
Vesha met me on the stairs anyway, ledger already open, quill already moving. "Thornwatch," she said, before I could ask. "The eastern post. Movement across the treeline in the last quarter hour. Zereth's awake."
"Everyone's awake now."
"That was rather the point of the ward, my lord."
