“I’ll take it to him.” Aiden held out his hand for the letters. “Why don’t you get something to eat? I’ll talk to Lord Varden. He’ll make sure you have a place to stay tonight.”

Impatience mingled with dread as Aiden hurried over to the group of barons talking to Liam and Donovan.

“A message for you,” Aiden said abruptly, handing over the paper addressed to Liam.

He hesitated before breaking the seal on his message. Noticed Liam did the same.

Then he read the message. “Mother’s mercy.”

“What is it?” Donovan asked sharply, looking from Aiden to Liam.

“Wait,” Aiden said, looking around. “Hunter! Huntress!” When Ashk and Selena turned in response to his call, he signaled them to come over. Lyrra, catching the signal, said something to Fiona before hurrying to join them.

Liam looked at him. Aiden nodded.

“It’s a message from one of the northern barons,” Liam said. He cleared his throat quietly. “The Arktos and Sylvalan barons we were fighting in the north have surrendered. Or more to the point, the men they were leading put down their weapons and surrendered, leaving them no choice. The elders of the House of Gaian who were from the northern end of the Mother’s Hills drafted the terms of surrender, which our barons seconded. The men are being allowed to return home. The Arktos barons and the Sylvalan barons who sided with the Inquisitors will be held until the army has disbursed. Then they’ll be permitted to go home.” Liam closed his eyes. His hand fell limply to his side. “That part of the fight is over. We’ve won that much.”

“Did the baron say anything about captured Inquisitors?” Donovan asked.

“There were no captured Inquisitors,” Ashk said softly. “Were there, Bard?”

Reluctantly, Aiden looked up from his own letter. “No, Hunter, there were not.”

The barons around Liam muttered, but it was Donovan who expressed the outrage. “They escaped?”

Aiden shook his head. He glanced at Ashk—and remembered the chill that had gone through him after the dance the Bretonwood Fae had performed at the Summer Solstice, when those masked faces had stared at him. When her masked face stared at him. And Morag’s words: They’re the Fae.

“The Wild Hunt?” Ashk said, her voice still soft.

Aiden swallowed hard. “The Inquisitors who were caught were released in a woods, where the Lords of the Woods and the Ladies of the Moon were waiting for them…with packs of shadow hounds.”

“Justice,” Ashk said. “And vengeance. There is nothing quite so terrifying as trying to flee a shadow hound—or the Wild Hunt. The Fae were absent for too long, even when they were present. Now they have returned.”

The barons shifted uncomfortably.

“Was there anything else in your message?” Liam asked after an awkward silence.

“Just something a minstrel reported overhearing,” Aiden said, hoping Liam would understand the dismissive tone and let it go.