The white glare coming off the portable register chassis did not look like lantern light or hearth fire. It had the flat, scalding brightness of lime dust thrown into open eyes, and everywhere it touched the curved masonry of the Hall of Witness, the stone began to forget who had carved it.
Lord Auditor Orin Vane stood behind the brass-and-oak stand with both palms locked over the unrolled parchment of the master siege charter, pressing its royal wax seal hard against the upper contact plate of Collar Anchor 2. His linen cuffs were dark with ditch water and coal grit, and his knuckles had gone the color of tallow, yet his posture held the rigid, joyless straightness of a clerk ruling the bottom line of a ledger that had taken thirty winters to balance. Beneath his hands, the oath-silver core unbolted from the Survey House vault hummed with a high, thin whine that set Noll Vey’s remaining stone teeth on edge.
Across the floor, the light hit the first tier of benches.
Noll braced his right basalt-and-lime hand—the only hand he had left since the noon barrage took the other—flat against the cold stone of the witness rail. Behind him, less than two paces beyond the red-chalked threshold restraint line, the Last Guest stood in its dark coat with the shrunk iron kitchen blade held low against its sash. Less than two hours of restraint remained on the line, and the white light washing off Vane’s register tasted enough like…
