At three in the morning, Iven returned the license unsigned.
The administration clerk read his refusal, looked at the College seal and asked whether he wanted to keep a copy of the appointment terms. He said he already had one. The clerk marked the return, gave him the receipt and put Veyr’s packet into the governor’s early box.
No door slammed. No guard seized his arm. The choice remained as plain and costly as the paper leaving his hand.
He walked back toward the assembly yard.
The two hundred and forty-first day had begun in lamps, low voices and the smell of porridge. Cooking crews had been awake for hours. Ward marshals carried household lists beneath clear covers. People stood with bedding rolls, medicine pouches, children leaning against them and the private belongings they had chosen from rooms they might never see again.
The lanes were ready.
The full opening census fixed Mercy’s emergency planning population at one hundred and eighty thousand. Stonewake’s acceptance covered them, the two thousand existing residents and the thirty-four thousand priority arrivals from the other cities. The neighboring transfers had used their earlier windows. Mercy’s own eight-day movement would begin before dawn.
Iven found Tavin beside the raised assembly step.
