Marrick covered the salvaged door table with four authority sheets before the capital wagon reached the command house. Each page carried a beginning date, an expiration line, and an empty space for Lana's witness mark.
Hajin stood beside the route map with his cooling forearm wrap beneath a clean sleeve. Ferra's divided cradle waited inside the guarded wagon, and the refusal socket stayed sealed behind five disconnected ceramic surfaces.
"No temporary lord will sit in my chair while I am gone, and the region will not become a collection of guesses." Hajin said it while facing the blank heading Marrick had refused to fill.
Marrick pushed the first sheet toward him across the scarred wood. "Then give me the civil page, and let me keep the doors that already feed people without pretending I can make new laws."
