Sable Vane hated mornings.
Not because she was lazy, but because mornings were when the Registry reminded you who owned your time.
She stood in the wash room of her dormitory cell, sleeves rolled to her elbows, scrubbing ink from her fingers. The water was cold. The soap smelled of bitter herbs and old metal. The mirror above the basin showed her face in clean detail.
Dark hair braided back. Gray eyes. A thin scar under her left ear from a training ring.
A calm face.
A controlled face.
A face Captain Maera Flint swore she had seen stealing the Crown Seed last night.
Sable had not slept. She had not shouted. She had not begged. Begging was not a language the Registry respected.
When Maera and two officers had arrived at her door in the early hours, Sable had said one sentence.
"I was in my cell."
They had stared at her as if she were a cracked tool.
Now she dried her hands and held them up under the lamp.
No burns. No strange marks. No runes.
Just skin.
"If someone wore my face," she whispered, "how."
Her voice sounded steady. She did not feel steady.
Three sharp knocks hit her door. Official rhythm. Not a friendly visit.
Sable opened it.
A junior clerk stood stiff in the corridor. His eyes flicked to her hands, then to her throat, then away. He looked relieved that she was fully dressed, as if he feared she might try to flee in her night shirt.
"Warlock Vane," he said. "You are summoned."
"To where."
"The High Chamber."
"By whom."
The clerk hesitated. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again. "High Registrar Oren Vale."
Sable's stomach tightened. Oren Vale did not summon a junior warlock unless the matter was either enormous or convenient.
"I will go," she said.
The clerk walked ahead. Sable followed, keeping three steps behind. Enough distance to breathe, not enough to be accused of resisting.
Registry corridors were built to reduce sound. Thick stone. tight turns. Footsteps muffled. That morning, the silence felt staged.
People stepped aside too quickly. Eyes slid away. Whispers hid behind hands. She caught fragments.
"Vault breach."
"Seed stolen."
"Captain saw her."
"Could be glamour."
"Could be worse."
Sable kept her pace even. She did not glare. She did not flinch. Emotion was easy to use against you.
Inside her chest, something stirred, like a coal shifting under ash. She told herself it was hunger. It was not.
They passed the Hall of Oaths, where thin metal tablets hung on hooks, each carved with a vow. The air in that hall always felt heavy, as if words pressed down.
One tablet began to tremble on its hook.
Sable stopped.
The clerk stopped too, then turned, confused. "Warlock Vane."
The tablet trembled again, then stilled.
Sable stepped closer. The tablet was plain, no gold, no jewel. The name at the top had been worn down by touch.
She read what she could.
I SWEAR TO KEEP THE HEARTH.
A simple oath. Domestic. Old.
Her fingers tingled. She did not touch it. She did not trust it.
The clerk exhaled. "Are you ill."
"No," Sable said. "Continue."
They reached the High Chamber doors. Two guards stood there, faces blank. They opened the doors without being asked.
Inside, the High Chamber was lit by a skylight. Pale stone rose in tiers. The floor was polished until it reflected the people standing on it.
High Registrar Oren Vale stood at the center.
Captain Maera Flint stood to his right. Her armor looked the same as always, but her gaze was sharper than steel.
Three Registry officers waited behind Oren. Witnesses, not allies.
Oren gestured. "Warlock Vane. Come forward."
Sable walked to the marked circle in the floor and stopped.
Oren studied her with careful interest. "Do you know why you are here."
"I have been accused of theft," Sable said.
"Not theft," Maera said. "Treason."
Sable met Maera's eyes. "I did not take the Crown Seed."
Maera's voice stayed flat. "I saw you."
"You saw someone wearing my face," Sable replied.
Oren's eyes narrowed slightly, as if pleased by her choice of words. "A glamour, then."
"Or a shape," Sable said before she could stop herself.
One of the officers behind Oren shifted. A small ripple of reaction, then stillness again.
Maera's hand tightened on her sword hilt. "You suggest a shifter."
"I suggest options," Sable said. "If the Seed is gone, someone planned it. Planning includes misdirection."
Oren nodded once. "You were in your cell at the time of the breach. Correct."
"Yes."
"And yet Captain Flint saw your face in the vault. Correct."
Maera said, "Correct."
Oren's voice stayed gentle. "Then either you left your cell, or someone else used your likeness."
Sable said, "Yes."
Oren lifted a finger. An officer brought forward a thin strip of metal, etched with fine runes.
An oath measure.
Oren said, "We test the simplest thing first. Place your hand on the measure."
Sable placed her palm on the strip.
The metal warmed. The runes brightened, then dimmed.
Oren said, "Speak a true statement."
True statements were safe until the wrong person decided they were not.
Sable chose carefully. "I did not choose to take the Crown Seed."
The runes brightened.
Maera's eyes narrowed. "That proves nothing. A glamour can anchor to truth. A shaped creature can speak truth."
Oren said, "Then we test memory."
An officer offered Sable a small cup of clear liquid.
Sable stiffened. "Memory draught."
"Only a sip," Oren said. "It does not steal memory. It loosens it. We will see what you did, not what you claim."
Sable took the cup. Her fingers trembled once, then steadied. She drank.
Cold slid down her throat.
The coal in her chest flared. She almost coughed but forced it down. Heat rose behind her teeth in a way that made no sense.
Oren said, "Close your eyes. Describe your night."
Sable obeyed.
She saw her cell. The cot. The desk. The oath tablets she had copied for training. She saw herself writing by lamplight until her wrist ached.
Then the memory bent.
She saw herself stand.
She saw her hand open the door.
She felt no fear. No hesitation. Only calm certainty.
Her mouth opened in the memory, and a woman's voice spoke through her throat. Not her voice.
Sable's eyes snapped open. She gasped.
Maera took a step forward. "What did you see."
Sable's heart hammered. "I saw myself leave."
Silence dropped into the chamber.
Oren's face stayed composed. "So you lied."
"No," Sable said quickly. "I did not choose it. I remember leaving, but I also remember staying. Both memories are present. That should not happen."
One of the officers whispered, "That is not possible."
Oren said, "It is possible if the Crown Seed has already begun to distort what is recorded."
Maera stared at Sable as if seeing her for the first time. "If you left, you are the breach."
Sable swallowed. Her tongue felt sore, as if she had bitten it during sleep.
The coal in her chest rose into her throat.
Heat pressed behind her teeth.
Sable clapped a hand over her mouth, shocked by her own body.
A thin thread of smoke slipped between her fingers.
Maera's sword came free in one clean motion. The blade caught the skylight and flashed.
Oren's eyes widened, not in fear, but recognition.
Sable lowered her hand slowly. Her lips parted.
A small flame flickered on her tongue.
Sable whispered, "What am I."
Oren spoke softly, as if naming a fact he had been waiting to say aloud. "The missing signer."
Maera's voice went low. "That is a story used to scare trainees."
Oren did not look at Maera. He watched Sable. "Stories are how we hide records."
Sable's flame went out. Her mouth tasted of iron and ash.
She forced the words out. "If I am what you say, why was I never told."
Oren's answer came too fast. "Because you would have run."
Sable's hands curled into fists. "Or because you would have been forced to kill me."
Maera lifted her blade higher. "High Registrar."
Oren raised a hand, not to Maera, but toward the chamber doors. "Bring her to the Binding Room. No chains. No gag. No cruelty."
One officer hesitated. "High Registrar, she just produced flame."
Oren's voice sharpened. "No cruelty."
Sable stepped back from the circle. "I am not your prisoner."
Maera moved in front of her at once, sword not striking but blocking.
"You are," Maera said, "until we know what you are."
Sable looked at Maera's face and saw something new under the hardness.
Fear.
Not for herself. For the realm.
Sable said, very quietly, "Someone stole the Seed wearing my face. Someone can also make me remember what they want."
Oren's mouth tightened. "That is why we must move quickly."
The officers approached. Sable did not resist. She made herself walk. She made herself breathe.
As they led her out, she heard a bell ring in the distance. Then another. Then another, faster than the season order.
Maera paused at the threshold, listening.
Oren's voice followed Sable into the hall. "Warlock Vane. If you want your name back, you will help me recover the Seed."
Sable did not turn. "If I do not."
Oren replied, calm as stone. "Then the realm will rewrite you into something useful."