A roll of coarse flax parchment slapped against the cedar table, scattering dried tea leaves across the planks.
Princess Valeria threw back the hood of her travel cloak, her dark hair tangled from a hard ride through the mountain passes.
“Deacon Vane’s report is accurate,” Valeria said without pausing for breath. “Morvane’s iron guards have completely locked down the Southern Customs Depot. Forty crates of Tier 4 spirit herbs are inside the vault.”
Kaelen Vance did not sit up from his canvas hammock. He simply tilted his straw hat back with a lazy flick of his forefinger.
“You rode twelve miles in the dark just to deliver bad news, Princess?” Kaelen murmured. “You could’ve sent a carrier pigeon. Pigeons don’t track mountain mud onto my clean porch.”
Valeria let out a sharp, exasperated breath. She unrolled the heavy parchment across the rough table, pinning the corners with two brass paperweights.
The parchment bore a dense charcoal rubbing of seven interlocking runic circles. Intricate celestial diagrams and sharp iron seal-scripts pulsed with faint residual warmth.
“This is the rubbing of the vault gate,” Valeria said, tapping the center of the diagram. “The Seven-Lock Iron Barrier. It was installed forty years ago by the Imperial Ministry of Works.”
