Mira Threadwell's Arc

Chapter 12 of 13

Mira left the storehouse with the partner's first finished panel folded under her arm. Outside, the sky was still dark, but a crowd had already gathered near the lodge fire pit. Ice chimes hung from a post above the platform, ringing soft notes as the tall fighter raised his sealed copy for the people to admire. He had worn the registered cloak for its first public test, and now he stood tall, smiling, ready to prove the work was his. A hammer struck his shoulder. The seam split. The patch tore loose and fell to the boards. The crowd went quiet, then loud. They turned away from him and pushed toward Mira, pressing her back against a tall frost statue at the edge of the yard. Voices climbed over each other. Prove it. Prove it before dawn, or the seal stands. Mira pulled the small compass from her coat. She had carried it through every fitting, its back plate scratched with her earliest stitch marks, the same locking pattern now sewn into the panel under her arm. She held the compass up, then laid the panel beside it on the statue's base. The marks matched, line for line. A guild apprentice stepped from the crowd and confirmed the stitch with their own token. The marshal arrived as the chimes rang again. He looked at the torn cloak, the compass, the panel, and the apprentice's nod. He struck the tall fighter's seal from the register and pressed a fresh mark beside Mira's name on the finished panel. The crowd shifted. The thief was done. But the panel was only one. The rest still waited inside, unfinished, and dawn was already gray.