Page 107

“The previous period recorded eleven cuts, three burns, and two collapses.”

“The evidence favors your changes.”

“The evidence requires them.”

She picks up the second reform.

Every contracted worker will receive the full ration assigned to the labor performed. Race and caste will not reduce that ration within Morwen’thir service. Meal periods will be entered into the daily schedule and counted within the ten-hour limit.

Sarveth lowers the page. “That wording will provoke the Khuzuth officers.”

“Why?”

“They will see regardless of race or caste and hear a challenge to hierarchy.”

“The clause governs rations within my workforce. It grants no rank.”

“A human scullion will receive the same labor ration as a Zagfer assistant.”

“If both perform the same labor.”

“That resembles equality.”

“It resembles accurate accounting.”

Humans remain beneath every caste related to dark elves. A meal clause cannot alter Protheka’s social order or royal law. It can prevent an overseer from reducing food until a worker becomes too weak to complete an assigned task.

“I am not granting universal equality,” I say. “I am defining a useful exchange. Ten hours of competent service cost less than eighteen hours followed by mistakes. Full rations preserve the bodies performing the labor.”

“Efficient bodies,” Sarveth says.

“Efficient service.”

“Fiona would speak of suffering.”

“Fiona understood which argument this household could not dismiss.”

That is why her evidence matters.

She could have written only of exhausted humans and frightened children. Instead, she connected every injury to a schedule, every spoiled shipment to missed meals, and every failure to lost coin. She translated compassion into proof.

Sarveth watches me. “Her pride will be considerable.”

Warmth touches the limited connection between Fiona and me.

She is somewhere beyond the private wing, likely in the solarium. Distance blurs everything except a suggestion of green leaves and focused satisfaction. She may be working with Briar or arranging the newest planting beds.

I imagine placing the sealed reform before her. I picture the particular lift of her chin when she recognizes a victory and attempts to treat it as an expected result.

The anticipation matters more than it should.

“Irrelevant,” I say.

“Certainly.”

I meet Sarveth’s gaze.

She returns her attention to the contracts. “A temporary order would be simpler.”