Early morning at the hub.
The light was softer than usual—low gold cutting through the high warehouse windows, catching dust in slow-moving streams that drifted across the stone floor. Everything was already in motion. Workers rolled crate carts along wooden rails, their wheels thrumming in steady rhythm. Scribes marked ledgers at the intake desks, pens scratching in unison. Horses were rotated through the stable lanes, their hooves clicking on packed earth.
The system was functioning exactly as designed.
Arthur was already at the central table.
But something was different.
He was not immediately working. A report lay open in front of him—the overnight inventory summary, routine, unremarkable. He had read the same line twice. A third time. The number was 247 crates processed through the eastern bay. He knew the number. He didn't need to check it again.
Still, his attention drifted.
