6
NYRIUS
The town hall records are kept in a back room that smells of damp wood and old ink, maintained by a clerk who goes pale when I ask to see them and spends ten minutes finding reasons why today might not be convenient.
I wait him out. He produces the ledgers.
The gaps aren't subtle. Three consecutive quarters where collection figures don't match the reported levy totals. Labor quota logs with entries crossed out and rewritten in a different hand. A page missing entirely from the winter assessments, replaced with a loose sheet that doesn't align with the binding. Someone did this quickly, or didn't expect anyone with authority to ever actually look.
I close the ledger and hand it back to the clerk, who takes it with both hands like it might bite him.
Outside, I try the farmers.
It goes poorly.
The first man I approach near the grain store listens to my questions with his eyes fixed somewhere past my left shoulder and answers in variations ofI wouldn't know, my lorduntil I run out of questions. The second farmer—a woman repairingfencing at the edge of her property—stops working when she sees me coming and doesn't start again until I leave. The third actually backs inside his house and closes the door.
They're not stupid. They're afraid, and they've learned that talking to authority figures produces worse outcomes than staying quiet. That lesson doesn't get learned from one bad experience.
Cyran is waiting near the lane when I come back through.
"The records are altered," I tell him. "Multiple quarters. Significant discrepancies."
He nods, unsurprised. He's been with me long enough to read a village the same way I do. "What are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know yet."
He walks with me for a moment, quiet in the way that means he's deciding how to say something. Cyran has served under me for decades and earned the right to say most things directly. He uses it carefully.
"You've been here several days," he says. "For horseshoes."
"The records?—"
"Are a problem in a dozen border villages." He glances at me from the side. "You haven't personally reviewed any of those ledgers. You haven't questioned farmers in Denvara or Westhollow or any of the other settlements on this route." He pauses. "You came back here."
I don't answer right away. A cart rolls past us on the lane, the driver keeping his eyes forward.
"The pattern here is worse," I say.
"The pattern here has a blacksmith in it."
"Cyran."
"I'm not wrong, my lord."
He isn't. I know he isn't. That's the irritating part. "I can't unsee what the ledgers show."
"No one's asking you to." He stops walking. "I'm asking you to notice that you're unusually interested in one small human village, and to decide whether that's about the ledgers or about something else."
I let my thoughts wander for a moment. "Both," I say. "And I'm not prepared to apologize for either."
He dips his head, which is how he lets go. "What do you need?"
"Nothing yet. I want to speak with Edria first."
He says nothing.
She's aloneat the forge when I arrive, working on something she covers with a cloth when she hears my boots on the threshold. A reflex, too fast to be casual. I file that away and don't mention it.
