In his first week on the road after leaving Ash Reed, Seyun might have fallen straight into Gate Steward Vorn’s trap. Back then, he had treated every object tied to his eleven years of solitary effort—his neat foundation notes, his spotless attendance tallies, his flawless pride—as something he had to defend with his body in front of any witness who challenged him.
Since then, he had watched Archivist Vel tear the true Balance name leaves out of the heavy catalogues at the Ravine of Unfinished Forms and drop the empty bindings onto Osen Tal’s pursuers. He had learned that preserving the truth didn’t need offering the real document to the first official who demanded a prize.
Without a trace of pause or anger, Seyun slipped the blue cloth-bound volume from his outer sash and laid it flat on the cedar registration desk beside his silver coins.
“You have a sharp eye for stationery seals, Steward Vorn,” Seyun said evenly.
Vorn snatched the blue volume off the wood with both hands before Seyun could pull his fingers back, as if convinced he had just captured the secret heresy that had caused all the rumours from Oran to the northern ridges.
“Warden Kael, note the witness!” Vorn crowed, holding the red wax inventory stamp up toward the waiting line of town apothecaries and village healers. “Cupboard Three, Series Seven—issued eleven years ago and unlawfully kept after expulsion! Let’s see what slanderous rubbish he has been writing about our inner court!”
