A con man never trusted a polite prosecutor, and Noll Vey had less reason than most to trust Lord Auditor Orin Vane when the man bowed.
Across the sunken witness ring, Vane stood with his head inclined toward Master Serit’s bench, his dark wool sleeves neat at the wrists and his pale fingers resting lightly beside the walnut casing of his portable register. High in the eastern clerestory, the thin blade of winter sun was creeping across the dressed limestone toward the brass noon mark above the water clock. The lead float in the glass cylinder bobbed with a steady, rhythmic drip, measuring out the remaining seconds of the morning.
MATURITY CLOCK: NINETEEN HOURS, FORTY MINUTES.
On the first bench of the military section, Captain Arda Dorn sat upright, her plain grey wool tunic—stripped of its royal captain’s braid since the morning she surrendered her sword at Fen’s aid station—buttoned to the chin. Her dark eyes moved from Vane’s composed face to the brass meridian line on the pillar, a slow crease deepening between her brows. Dorn had commanded Crown infantry for twelve campaigns; she knew every standard signal, every deployment timetable, and every tactical dodge in the March army manuals. She watched Vane not as an auditor presenting evidence, but as an opposing general repositioning his pieces under cover of a parley flag.
