The copper cylinder in Lord Auditor Orin Vane’s hands was cold, tarnished at the seams by twelve winters of handling.
Noll Vey watched from the witness rail as Vane turned the metal tube between his ink-stained fingers. Through his Dominion stone-sight, Noll could feel the distant footsteps of Captain Arda Dorn climbing the sleet-slick goat track toward the Raven’s Notch, and he could feel the cold stillness of the nine hundred border veterans waiting behind their shield wall. But here, in the buried amphitheater of the Hall of Witness, the air had condensed into a tight, brittle pocket of silence.
Above them, the amber inscription flickered:
THRESHOLD RESTRAINT HOLDING. TIME REMAINING: ONE HOUR FIFTEEN MINUTES.
“Seventy-five minutes,” Prit whispered, his dry bone hands resting on his slate. “Vask has the compact in his sight by now, Master. But Vane is winding a spring.”
Vane did not look at the imp. He looked up at Master Serit, then across the central well to where Noll’s single stone hand rested on the limestone coping.
“Under the third article of the ancient Hall charter,” Vane said, his voice quiet, polite, and completely unhurried, “any person standing before this assembly possesses the right to enter a personal deposition of record into the civic rolls before judgment is rendered upon his office. Is that not correct, Lady Serit?”
