The sound of unfastening metal was small, no louder than the click of a pocket watch being wound in a quiet bedroom, but it resonated through the vaulted stone of the Hall of Witness like the crack of an iron bar snapping under tension.
Major Brek’s thick, scarred fingers worked at the nape of his neck. For thirty seconds he fumbled with the delicate, hair-thin clasp, his calloused thumbs clumsy against the fine royal jeweler’s craft. Then, with a dull snip, the mechanism released.
The engineer drew the collar forward over his head.
It was a slender band of royal oath-silver, no thicker than a quill, flattened into a smooth torque that rested flush against the windpipe. In the center hung a small circular medallion stamped with the three-tower crest of the Royal March Revenue Directorate, its surface glowing with that faint, feverish violet phosphorescence that marked all oath-metal forged under the Regency charters. The metal was warm, slick with the sweat of a man who had worn it through three years of siege and trench-work.
Brek stood up from the second tier. He walked down the stone stairs, his heavy campaign boots ringing against the limestone flags. He stopped at the clerk’s oak table, where Cale stood with a rectangular tray of blackened iron, grounded to the bedrock by three thick copper cables.
