Page 120
“Depends on the line.”
“Rank?”
Veyr nodded once. “Rank. Service history. Territory. Proximity to the Crown. Alliances.”
I looked up sharply. “Proximity to the Crown?”
“Yes.”
That word lodged somewhere in my memory. Not the concept. The phrasing.
I looked down at the records. Something scratched at the edge of my mind.
Veyr noticed. “What?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He shifted closer. “Think.”
I shot him a look.
He stopped himself. “Right.”
That almost made me smile.
I closed my eyes and saw Sera’n’s screen again, the rows of data with her manual annotations. Among the symbols I hadn’t understood, one tag stood out. Different from the others. It wasn’t military or laboratory. It had a crest-like marker beside it, and I’d assumed it was just an administrative classification, maybe because of its color or placement. But no. I had seen something similar before…in registration documents, formal assignments, official notices. Royal administration.
My eyes opened. “There was a tag.”
Veyr went still. “What kind?”
“On one of the altered records.”
“What did it say?”
“I couldn’t read all of it.”
“Describe it.”
I turned the terminal toward me and drew the shape from memory. A narrow symbol. Three branching lines. A small crowned marker at the top.
Veyr’s face changed. A small shift, the kind I’d learned to read—a pause, a narrowing of focus. Not much. But enough.
“That means something,” I said.
“Yes.”
“What?”
He stared at the crude symbol I’d drawn. “Restricted royal classification.”
My stomach tightened. “Royal as in Crown?”
“Yes.”
“Anik?”
“Not necessarily.”
