The consensus held. The city, for a season, thrived on its new arithmetic. The "Currency of One" was not a economic system; it was a spiritual one. It required no minting, no central bank, no complex ledgers. Its value was declared, not traded, and in that declaration, its power was realized. Aethelburg's resilience became a quiet, humming constant, a fact of life as undeniable as the turning of the earth.
But Finnian of Silverport did not deal in spirit. He dealt in leverage. And a man who could not break a thing directly would inevitably seek to break what it depended on.
The new assault began not with a declaration, but with a constriction.
