Master Calligrapher Orelian Graves didn’t hurry as he dropped the spiral marble stairs that linked the Black Cabinet’s private loggia to the floor of the tiered arena.
His raw, unwhitened linen robes swished softly against the steps. His glow-stone monocle caught the white chalk-stone light. That turned his left eye into a cold, reptilian orb of pale emerald. In his right hand, held loosely like an aristocrat’s walking stick, rested the Bone-Stylus of the First Notary.
The mere sight of him silenced the assembly. The shouting country consuls lowered their voices. The prelates stopped muttering. Even Consul Harlen sat back down, his heavy brow furrowed with worry. In Khorat, men feared the Arch-High judge’s axe-spears. But they feared Master Graves’s metal pen far more. An judge could break your bones. But Master Graves could write an office footnote that erased your grandfather from the parish registry, seized your old family estate for back-taxes. Then he left your children legally unborn.
Graves walked to the center of the dark rock floor and stopped beside the iron lectern. He didn’t look at the crimson folio. He didn’t look at the raging consuls.
Instead, his green monocle fixed upon Ren Prime.
Graves tilted his head, studying Ren Prime with the cold and exact curiosity of an apothecary examining a rare, poisonous toad. His nostrils flared slightly.
