The air inside the tithe barn grew utterly still, save for the faint, dry rustle of old straw beneath the floorboards.
Tomas Reed stood before the rough pine frame stand table, his gaze fixed on the broad sheet of ancient thick parchment. The smell of cedar oil, lavender, and ancient sheepskin rose from the parchment. It mixed with the bitter-salt tang of lime dust clinging to his own sleeves. Beside him, Elder Bran waited, his weathered hands clasped over the iron head of his cane, his knuckles white with an eighty-year buildup of patience and grievance.
Tomas didn’t move rashly. In the practice of the Last Claim, haste was the surest path to office invalidation. A claim undertaken without rigorous satisfaction of the Four Immutable Laws was nothing more than secret cart hauling. A civil trespass that carried neither lawful protection nor court standing.
In his mind, he recited the four tests established under the ancient Crown Court trial of Recovery:
First, the Law of Archival Conservation: An duty couldn’t be destroyed by time, fire, or office convenience so long as its physical bond had not been lawfully accounted for and returned. The parchment lay before him, its lead and beeswax seals unbroken, its text uncancelled by any court strike-line.
