Back in his sparsely furnished room, lit only by dim candlelight, Lugh's eyes narrowed. A suspicion he'd long held had just been confirmed.
Enemy operatives had infiltrated the manor.
The details were now clear. Isolde had been attacked. But curiously, only the family's longtime guards had been killed.
To make matters worse, their quarters had collapsed in the night, taking even more lives.
Whether by accident or design, the Von Heim estate was being peeled open from the inside. This would necessitate immediate restaffing.
Backgrounds could be checked, of course, but loyalties? Loyalties were much harder.
And, just as he'd overheard earlier in the whispered conversation between Isolde and her lascivious brother-in-law, the usual vetting protocols had been... compromised. All thanks to a web of internal power struggles.
Infiltration, then, had not been some extraordinary feat. It had simply been inevitable.
Lugh sighed.
Now he needed only to determine the enemy's goal.
