The heavy wooden cargo skiffs began ferrying crates across the quiet morning harbor at dawn.
Deacon Vane stood on the floating pontoon dock of Sky-Tether Two, an ink brush tucked behind his ear and an iron crowbar in his hand. Around him, three hundred dockworkers in gray Vance Clan tabards hoisted crates from the vault elevators, stacking them onto transport barges.
Beside Vane, Barnaby Holt was inspecting the stamped seals on the black iron chests.
“How many crates did the scouts count?” Barnaby asked, tapping a crate with his wooden ladle.
“Three thousand four hundred crates in this first shipment,” Vane replied, flipping through a vellum ledger. “All of them transported across the northern sea from Seven-Tower City over the last twelve years. It is the greatest accumulation of continental tribute ever gathered in one place.”
Linnea walked past with a tray of testing needles, her face pale in the dawn light. “Are they all filled with jade cores?”
“Not all of them,” Vane said, his voice dropping to a grim whisper. “We opened the first three rows. That was when we realized why the Censorate kept two separate ledgers.”
Vane jammed his crowbar beneath the lid of the nearest iron chest and heaved downward.
