The offer hung in the cold air of the air-flow turret like a baited snare. Map maker Ulvan Dret held the folded supply order slip between his ink-stained fingers, the red wax seal of the building corps catching the smoky orange glow of the hard coal fire bowl. It was an elegant, office escape hatch. A quiet clerical maneuver that would release fourteen sacks of winter grain from the army’s deep reserve and send them rolling down to Alderfast under cover of darkness, fully bypassing Marshal Krail’s punitive embargo.
Kezra looked at the document with a trained eye. The supply order form was printed on thick, heavy linen parchment bearing the three-tower royal watermark along its left margin. Across the header, the words Emergency Upkeep Share-out — Fortification Engineering Division were inscribed in neat, blockish high court script. In the signed name block at the bottom, Ulvan’s counter-seal had already been pressed into scarlet sealing wax. Two crossed measuring tongs over a stonework plumb. It possessed all the outward power of a legal royal payout. Any sergeant at the outer gatehouse would snap to attention, unbar the heavy oak timbers, and allow two laden pack-mules to pass down the ramp without asking a single question.
