The grant came at the third hour of the morning, on the guild’s seal, witnessed.
Mara had not asked for it today. She had asked for it two days ago at the hearing, among the things she needed, and the guild had put it on its list and said it would be reviewed after the brace was proven. She had stopped thinking about it. Then the brace held through the night, through a spike nobody had planned for, with no listener in the field, and the governor’s flat line was in the log with the time beside it, and the guild met again before dawn.
A runner brought the sheet from the guild hall. Tavin took it at the yard gate and brought it to the bench and read it aloud, standing, in the voice he used for contracts.
“Authority to alter the local load of the heart,” he read. “Witnessed. For the brace and its district only. Granted to Mara Venn, Rusk Yard, under review, the review witnessed by the guild and by the keeper.” He turned the sheet so she could see the seal. “Third tier.”
At Lorn she had had permission to replace a heart. It was the second tier: she could build, she could seat, she could take an old heart out and put a new one in. But she could not decide where the load went once the heart was in. That was the Directorate’s. Hearth’s load order had been the Directorate’s since before she…
