Chapter 79: The Unbroken Circle
The refusal of Seamarch's invitation was a stone dropped into the pond of their fragile peace. The ripples were subtle at first, but they reached far.
The most immediate effect was a shift in the petitioners. The desperate farmers and fishermen kept coming, but now they were joined by a new type: the strategically curious. A hedge-wizard from a valley three days' travel arrived, not with an affliction, but with a notebook. He asked precise, analytical questions about the "resonance of memory-based wards" and the "psychic conductivity of blood-ink." He was polite, but his eyes were those of a man reverse-engineering a weapon. Kaelen gave him only the most basic, non-actionable answers before Morwen, with a sniff of disdain, engaged him in a debate about the historical classification of "elemental attunements" and bored him into leaving.
