The message from Aliyah Winters arrived on the first night in Irenmere, and it arrived through channels that the Countess had clearly been monitoring for some time.
Governor Harwick's administrative communication network, the crystal relay system that connected the provincial capital to the kingdom's broader information infrastructure, had been carrying the Countess's communications to the Order of the Seal at the Tekarr Arch since before the Horde crossed the frontier.
She had access to it through arrangements that Harwick, when asked, admitted he had never fully understood the technical basis of but had never been in a position to refuse.
The Order of the Seal did not ask permission for its communications infrastructure. It informed provincial governors of what existed and left them to incorporate that information into their administrative understanding of their own province.
