Samaryn Ascension — Prelude I
The Intelligence Warning
The morning had begun the way Valen Cor preferred its mornings: orderly, ink-scented, and convinced of its own permanence.
In the high chamber of the Economic Council, a winter-gray light pressed through tall panes of glass and fell in long bars across the table of pale stone. A dozen quills moved like insects across ledgers. Wax seals sat in neat rows beside stacked petitions. Brass weights held down curling parchment as if the wind itself might attempt a coup.
“Southern trade levies,” intoned Councilor Lorian Vell, as if he were naming a sacred rite. He did not look up from the figures. “The third revision. Again.”
Across from him, Councilor Maris Ordan pinched the bridge of her nose with fingers ink-stained to the first joint. “We have revised it three times because you insist on calling it a levy,” she said. “Call it what it is, Lorian. A tightening. We squeeze the south, they reroute their caravans, and our river docks go quiet for a season.”
“Then we shall squeeze the reroute.” Vell’s voice carried the mild, unreasonable confidence of a man born beneath thick walls and never once forced to sleep with a knife under his blanket. “Trade does not disappear. It adapts. We guide the adaptation.”
At the far end of the table, Councilor Severin Kael tapped a fingernail against a column of numbers. Tap. Tap. Tap. The sound was tiny, incessant—like a leak in a roof no one wanted to acknowledge.
“Guide?” Kael murmured. “Or provoke. We keep pretending the south exists to be educated by our hunger.”
A clerk cleared his throat sharply. The clerk’s name was Aster Neme, and his job was to clear his throat at precisely the right moments, like a bell in a temple. He did it now with practiced neutrality.
“Councilors,” Neme said, “the draft as it stands imposes a two-mark increase per wagon axle, exempting state-licensed grain and—”
The door at the back of the chamber slammed so hard the hinges cried out.
All quills froze. A drop of ink fell into the silence and bloomed like a bruise on parchment.
A junior councilor stood in the doorway, breathless and too pale for a room full of seasoned administrators. His sash hung crooked. One of his sandals was unfastened, the strap flapping like a flag of surrender.
Cassian Rell.
He was a name spoken rarely in the high chamber—junior, provisional, and usually confined to reading minor petitions aloud. Now he had made the mistake of entering as if his lungs were on fire and his fear deserved space.
Councilor Ordan looked up first. She did not rise. She did not ask if he had permission. Her eyes did the asking.
Cassian tried to speak. No sound came out. He swallowed, forced air into his chest, and tried again.
“Councilors,” he managed. “An intelligence warning.”
