Vasa worked the routing map through the first hour of argument and let the officers talk over her. The bench spoke about jurisdiction while she counted where the nine tokens actually landed.
Nox listened to the presiding officer read the writ into the record and gave the room nothing back. He had learned inside Crowncast's arena that a hostile floor wants a reaction more than it wants an answer.
"The first token is food security, and it is not a phrase, it is Ironvale's old allocation authority sitting under a judge who never ran a grain train," Vasa said, turning the slate a hand's width toward him.
Her second trace resolved to medical priority, the standing that decided which wounded reached a bed first. Mercy Spire had lost the exclusive passage on the Hunger Road, but the office itself had never been dissolved.
