The white fire of the illuminated inscription flared against the damp limestone vaulting, casting long, stark shadows across the amphitheater tiers. In that blinding clarity, every seam in the masonry stood exposed, as raw as an unhealed fracture.
Noll Vey kept his single stone palm pressed hard against the limestone balustrade. The blue light within his core chip thrummed with a heavy, rhythmic ache that vibrated through his granite collarbone. Down in the well of the court, the dust of crushed mortar still settled over the flagstones, drifting through the phosphorus lantern beams like pale winter gnats.
Across the third tier, Lord Auditor Orin Vane remained standing. His hands trembled against the cool brass casing of his impounded register chassis. The neat, unyielding dignity he had cultivated across thirty years of Crown service was slipping away, stripped down to raw nerves by the glowing words carved overhead.
MUNICIPAL ORDER 44-B CONFIRMED AS HISTORICAL RECORD. CLAUSE TWO OF THE CLAIM ACTIVATED: THE ENTITY KNOWS EVERY LIE IN THE VALLEY, EVEN THE ONES A MAN TELLS HIMSELF. THRESHOLD RESTRAINT: ONE HOUR ZERO MINUTES.
“An order of public precaution,” Vane said, his voice rising in an uneven register that broke the cold quiet of the Hall. He looked neither at Master Serit nor at Noll, but directly at the ceiling stone, as if addressing an invisible bench of high magistrates. “A necessary regulation. The mob was armed with cudgels and iron-tipped processional poles. Two rival sects, screaming curses over whose banner should cross…
