Arion hated being late.
Not in the abstract, not as a preference dressed up as discipline, but with the very real and very irritating nuisance of a man whose time was usually measured down to the minute and whose word was meant to hold.
The meeting had run over by twenty-three minutes.
Twenty-three.
He was kept back by border logistics, contamination-response funding, winter transport allocations for the next year, and the quiet matter of how many mobile intervention teams Alamina could maintain near the capital without publicly admitting why they needed that many in the first place.
Ordinarily Arion would have sat through the extension without visible irritation and reduced three later appointments to compensate.
Ordinarily.
Today, however, he had promised Nero he would be the one in the ring for the exam.
He had said it directly. Not vaguely. Not 'if possible.' Not 'if schedules allow.'
He had promised.
