Princess Didi walked between the partitioned interrogation tents, her silver-trimmed cloak sweeping gracefully behind her heels past guards and waiting petitioners.
Didi stopped beside the nearest interrogation tent and let a shaken petitioner finish speaking before she asked the guards to open the flap.
Her six royal Shards spun slowly in a quiet crystalline orbit around her shoulders, radiating crisp, steady authority.
Behind her, two provincial guards escorted an elderly scribe in ink-stained robes, sitting him upon an unadorned bench.
Didi spent the last two hours questioning the surviving registry clerks separately, meticulously comparing their testimonies.
Most of the junior scribes were terrified civilians who signed work requisitions under threat of summary execution.
However, the elderly record keeper named Varon held an elected mandate from the town council, managing the grain records for thirty years.
