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, plus an empty space for Lana’s witness mark.
Hajin stood beside the route map with his cooling forearm wrap beneath a clean sleeve. Every Ring remained closed while Ferra’s divided cradle waited inside the guarded wagon across the square.
"No temporary lord," Hajin said, reading the blank heading Marrick had refused to fill, "divide the work by what each person already holds."
Marrick received the civil spending page before anyone signed another temporary authority. Its authority preserved approved wages, food purchases, clinic supplies, ordinary repairs, shelter work, plus the existing Flint audit budget during Hajin’s absence.
It granted no power to sell regional property, create private debt, change vassal terms, pardon recorded crimes, or redirect military funds into another office. Any spending outside an approved ledger required its own public emergency entry.
{Temporary civil spending authority: Marrick.}
{Scope: existing budgets, payroll, food, treatment, shelter, repairs, and audited administration.}
{New debt, property transfer, private collection, or vassal amendment: prohibited.}
"I can keep every current door open," Marrick said, signing beneath the limits, "anything new waits for a named emergency or your return."
Hans placed his militia seal upon the defense sheet without touching the civil budget. He could command regional watches, activate shelter routes, close threatened roads, mobilize registered defenders, plus answer a Gate or invasion inside the Sixth.
His order stopped at the regional boundary except for rescue, pursuit of an immediate attacker, or protected withdrawal. It granted no authority over Flint’s civil household, Crown forces, guild parties, or Taren’s external intelligence routes.
{Temporary regional defense authority: Hans.}
{Scope: militia command, watchposts, evacuation, shelters, Gate response, and immediate territorial defense.}
{Foreign campaign, private territory war, and command over Flint forces: prohibited.}
"The mine remains a closure site, not a defensive post," Hans said, adding the eastern watch restriction, "nobody stations fighters inside unstable ground to protect an empty node."
Taren accepted the third page under the single name entered when he abandoned Seliza’s House clasp. His authority covered external road warnings, convoy protection beyond the gates, source handling, plus intelligence shared with Hans through recorded summaries.
He could pay existing scout rates through Marrick’s approved road fund, but he could not arrest residents, command internal militia, conceal evidence from Lana, or bind any source to inherited service.
{Temporary external-road and intelligence authority: Taren.}
{Scope: road protection, convoy warnings, external sources, hostile-route assessment, and recorded intelligence exchange.}
{Internal arrest, militia command, unrecorded payment, and House ownership claims: prohibited.}
He read the employment name above his signature before accepting the route keys.
"Urgent intelligence reaches Hans immediately," he said, placing one key beside the northern road, "source identities remain restricted unless their evidence enters an arrest, payment, or public warning."
Lana’s sheet granted no budget, soldiers, or road command. Every emergency order issued in Hajin’s name required her Witness Office mark beside the acting official, the stated danger, the authority used, plus its expiration.
She could refuse authentication when a page concealed its issuer or exceeded one of the three schedules. That refusal did not stop an immediate rescue, but it prevented anyone from calling the act Hajin’s standing order afterward.
{Emergency-order witness authority: Lana’s Witness Office.}
{Required record: issuer, danger, action, affected people or property, authority invoked, and expiration.}
{Unwitnessed permanent order in Hajin’s name: invalid.}
Lana pressed her marked wrist beside the final clause while Ash watched from his pallet behind the protected registry hatch. Two interior guards plus four rotating approach posts remained under the existing security ledger.
"He stays here with me," Lana said, keeping one hand upon Ash’s shoulder, "no rune, socket, artifact, or designation test enters the registry while you are gone."
"Emergency relocation uses the western clinic road with two witnesses," Hajin replied, crouching until Ash released the edge of Lana’s coat, "otherwise he does not leave this building."
Ash examined the provisional twenty upon Hajin’s coat before holding up one piece of chalk. Hajin accepted it in his left hand, preventing the child from reaching the cooling wrap beneath his other sleeve.
"Daddy come?" Ash asked, looking toward the travel wagon beyond the registry window, "Ash come?"
"I come back," Hajin replied, returning the chalk to Lana’s desk, "you stay where the old socket cannot reach you."
No halo, Ringlet, designation change, or mountain response appeared around Ash afterward. He kept one hand inside Lana’s while the authority pages received their final seals.
Marrick scheduled complete written reports every seven days from all four offices. Immediate threats traveled by alarm relay, while ordinary decisions waited for the joint packet instead of producing constant unsigned instructions.
One copy remained inside the Sixth Witness Office, another went east to Uriel, and a third would follow Hajin through bonded guild stations. Missing reports triggered an inquiry rather than permission to invent the absent office’s approval.
Uriel’s answer returned through the vassal relay before the wagon harnesses finished. Her seal remained beneath the acting civil authority she had accepted after Flint’s capitulation.
{Flint civil governance remains under the existing vassal schedule. I will maintain wages, granaries, repairs, treatment, protected releases, and the joint audit from the central estate.}
{I will not join an unprepared capital conflict or convert this summons into military authority the compact does not grant me.}
Hajin sealed her reply beside the temporary schedules without ordering another person into Flint’s chair. Uriel would govern the people already depending upon her instead of following Hajin toward an unknown palace threat.
They closed Gold Mountain before departure beneath the mine foreman’s lock, Hans’s defense seal, Ferra’s structural mark, plus Lana’s witness number. Stone barriers covered the unusable lift while numbered bars crossed the upper route.
{Gold Mountain lower route: physically sealed.}
{Ancient refusal response: exhausted.}
{Entry authorization before structural reconstruction: none.}
Ferra checked the travel cradle herself after every wagon compartment closed securely. The refusal socket remained inside five disconnected ceramic surfaces, with Hajin’s Legendary Chain wrapped around the divided case without completing an orbit.
Juna took the forward bench while Loccy secured her hammer beside the rear wheel. Vella counted treatment cases, and Ferra occupied the compartment nearest the socket instead of surrendering its custody to the royal road escort.
The five of them left the Sixth after Hajin signed the final report schedule. Marrick, Hans, Taren, plus Lana remained beneath four different authorities, while Uriel’s eastern seal stayed active beyond the vassal road.
Relay stations carried them south through three changes of horses without opening Ferra’s case. At each stop, Aria confirmed zero stored response, no aperture function, plus the preserved capital bearing inside the socket’s passive trace.
The final station stood beyond the last rural marker, where the capital walls occupied the southern horizon. Hajin felt one sealed inventory slot shift while the replacement team tightened the harness.
Breaker’s Lever turned inside storage without entering his hand. Its rusted curved end rotated toward the capital, aligning with Ferra’s cradle through the wagon wall before stopping against an unseen direction.
[ Breaker’s Lever directional response detected ]
[ Artifact seal: unchanged ]
[ Available function: none ]
[ Active boundary trace: capital bearing confirmed ]
Aria compared the movement inside Divine Eye against every preserved relay record. The Lever had remained still until the socket carried its trace within reach of the capital, proving the active boundary relationship had followed the evidence south.
Hajin kept the artifact stored and every Ring closed while the sealed tool continued pointing ahead. The relay gates opened, leaving one final road between Ferra’s guarded cradle and the foundation beneath the capital.