There was no brushing this off.
No chalking it up to a rare alchemical side effect or an old ritual flaring past its time.
This was something else entirely.
And that meant one thing.
It warranted thought.
Serious, precise thought.
Damien leaned back slightly in the bath, the warmth forgotten, his mind cutting through the fog like a blade.
'There's just no way this is normal.'
The Sanguis Bath wasn't something one stumbled into. It wasn't a commodity you picked up at a merchant auction or brewed in a fancy cauldron.
This formula—this exact mix—was buried under generations of secrecy and cost. Not just wealth, but legacy. Bloodlines.
Only the oldest, most entrenched families had access to it.
Which meant—
'If someone managed to embed an Authority signature into this...'
Then it wasn't about the bath.
It was about who was using it.
'They're targeting the Awakened of deep-blood families.'
The idea sat heavy in his chest.
Because it made sense.
