The heavy parchment envelope lay on the zinc tabletop like an unexploded shell.
Under the emerald-tinged glare of the overhead copper hood lantern, the five red wax wafers gleamed with deep, dark crimson power. Each wafer was as broad as a silver crown piece. It was stamped with the crisp, clear impression of a swift in flight—the ancient, inviolable seal of the Northern Postal League. Across the stiff, rag-paper surface, the dark oak-ink had rusted to a dark sepia-brown over months of transit, the pen strokes deep and deliberate:
TO: Chief Surveyor Edren Bale, Provincial Survey Office, Rookvale. FROM: Ansett Rill, Consulting Engineer, League of Free Cities. CLASSIFICATION: Priority Mechanical Dispatch #418. CONDITIONS: To be unsealed only in the presence of the chosen receiver or a sworn guild judge.
Doma Reel wiped her flour-dusted hands on her wet apron, stepped up to the edge of the table. Then she leaned her heavy forearms on the zinc sheet. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the crisp lettering and the unbroken seals.
“Four years,” Doma said, her voice dropping into a low, gravelly rasp. “Edren Bale caught the lung rot during the great frost of forty-six. They carried his box out of the Survey citadel before the second snow fell. Chancellor Morn stood on the granite steps, read a formal fine ticket of civic service, and had his name chiseled into the memorial slab in the central square.”
