Beneath the notched Roman arch, half-buried in a pile of quarry chips and hardened lime mortar, Eren Tal’s boot struck a discarded eighteen-inch offcut of four-by-four green spruce. He picked the timber up and turned the sawn butt toward Korr Var’s lantern beam. Burned deep into the sapwood with a hot foundry iron was the clear three-sided procurement brand of Master Davin Sorell’s private works: CROWN AUX · LOT 14 · NIGHT SHIFT.
“They didn’t even plane off the yard brand,” Eren said grimly. He tapped the pine-scented wood against his palm before wrapping it in oilskin for Korr Var’s evidentiary satchel. “Any carpenter in Lathmere could testify where this timber was sawn.”
Up on the Fish Street boat ramp, the legal war had finally collapsed into a battle of brute iron, flying sparks, and screaming muscle.
At eleven-forty, Captain Corvin Hest had run out of patience with Senior Surveyor Korr Var’s procedural objections. Hest stood atop a granite mooring bollard with his sword drawn and his yellow wool mantle flapping in the freezing sleet. He had ordered his six academy smiths to bypass the town water cart entirely.
“Clear the wharf!” Hest’s roar cut through the harbor wind like a whip. “By order of the High judge of the High Sluice Crown! Anyone obstructing the placement of the emergency flood seals will be arrested for high town treason!”
