Ines had been pacing for over twenty minutes.
She knew because the candle on her desk had burned down a measurable amount since she'd started, and she was tracking it the way she tracked everything now. As evidence and data. As something she could use to anchor herself when the scope of what was happening threatened to become too large to hold in one mind.
The reports kept arriving whether she wanted them to or not. She'd stopped having them read aloud and started reading them herself, because hearing them read aloud made them feel like someone else's problem, and none of this was someone else's problem.
The rain had appeared in Thornwall. In Crestmere. In Aldewick and the port towns along the southern coast.
It was the same phenomenon each time. The sun shining overhead, the rain drizzling peacefully, and then half the street on their knees.
The rain touched both commoners and nobles, with no apparent preference for rank or proximity to power.
