The first sedative order had an ending date.
Linn Daver showed it to them on the second evening after they left Fallow Spoke. The order lay in Marl Steps’ receiving register, copied beside a water allocation and a bill for emergency roof timber. Its language was practical, almost apologetic: injured carriers, unstable crossings, a season of dangerous weather, temporary suppression during repair.
Below the ending date stood a renewal.
Then another.
The page had run out of space before the renewals did.
Iven looked at the ordinary ruled columns and felt colder than he had on the high ridge.
“About six and a half centuries,” Elian said.
He had Pella’s complete conversion table now, copied at High Recess before they left. Marl Steps used the receiving calendar consistently through this section. The control order matched a dated alteration on Fallow Spoke’s later panel and a separate levy recorded in the ridge store accounts.
