In the Grand Hall of the hill fort, Noll Vey kept the stone conduit open between his blue core and the token sewn into Sella Rusk’s collar.
The air in the high hall was quiet, smelling of cold lime and the woodsmoke from Hobb’s breakfast fire. Prit knelt upon the hearth bench, his bony fingers gripping a stick of grey audit chalk, his hollow eye sockets turned toward the western wall where the acoustic vibrations hummed through the masonry. Every word spoken in the mine drift three miles away fell into the room like lead shot dropped into an empty basin.
Beside the meal table, Cale sat hunched over a sheepskin-bound volume of Crown border statutes, his fingers thumbing through the brittle leaves with feverish haste.
“She has him,” Cale whispered, his eyes widening behind his spectacles. “Section Fourteen of the Border Articles—the Sanitary Prerogative of an independent field commander. Master Vey, an administrative auditor cannot supersede a field officer’s life-safety declaration without a direct royal signet. She has invoked the oldest common-law barrier in the realm!”
“Do not celebrate before the iron cools, clerk,” Prit rasped, his skull clicking as he marked a sharp grey chevron on his slate. “Vane does not count law; he counts volume, weight, and liability.”
