Corvin Hest stepped to the direct platform speaking tube in the eastern gatehouse, his voice booming across the thirty-foot deep gap through the brass horn mounted on Sorell’s stone stand. It was the final, solemn reckoning between the student and the master.
“Master Davin Sorell,” Corvin’s voice cut through the wind like a chisel on cold granite. “Listen to the river beneath your boots. The three gates are open. The turning basin is drinking twelve thousand gallons a minute. The Eastern Flume is carrying the surge. Lowbank is dry. The people you called peasants have saved your city with three-inch ash planks and twenty-shilling canvas.”
Sorell’s head twitched toward the horn, his eyes wide and vacant. “You lie, Corvin! The Crown is the only shield! Without my seal, the river will rise!”
“The river has already risen, Master, and it has already passed,” Corvin answered with deep, unbending finality. “Your Crown isn’t a shield. It’s a broken toy sitting in an empty channel. Look behind you: young Varo is dying under two tons of fallen stone. Your platform is tilting five degrees into the deep pit. You’re no longer defending a city. You’re defending your own vanity at the cost of a boy’s life. We’re launching the timber sled now. Yield the counterseal key, or sit alone on that stone until the pier shears into the mud.”
