“Burn this place to the ground.” The command bit into the twilight, sharp as the pine pitch smoking along dry pine brands. The cottage door, splintered and hanging on one hinge, offered a glimpse of the small, familiar space within – the sewing machine, the worn-smooth table, the cot where Stellor now lay hidden. Linni, still reeling from the shove, clutched her side, her face pale. Great-Aunt Hespa, who had been muttering indignantly about the sheer indecency of the officer’s tone, let out a choked gasp. Orange light sputtered against the drifts. The officer's mouth twitched into an uneven grin while his gaze flicked from Tamshen to the kindling. He expected panic, a desperate plea. He expected the quiet seamstress to dissolve into tears. He was wrong. Tamshen clamped her teeth together, letting the cold air settle into her ribs. Screaming or wrestling would earn them all iron collars by nightfall. Paper, on the other hand, carried sharp edges. She looked past the officer's shoulder toward Mistress Krovul, who stood wrapped in fox fur near the road. The senior matchmaker lingered with folded hands, gloating quietly over the imminent clearing of the plot. Her hubris was a ledger discrepancy waiting to collapse. Ignoring the officer, Tamshen turned her back on the doorway. Her steps were even, unhurried, crunching softly on the snow. She didn't look back at Linni, though she felt her sister’s trembling gaze. She didn't acknowledge Great-Aunt Hespa’s faint, distressed whimpers. Her focus stayed locked on the matchmaker, whose smug posture stiffened into wariness. When Tamshen stopped three paces away, she did not bother with pleasantries. Instead, with a deliberate slowness that drew every eye, she reached into the deep pocket of her apron. Her fingers closed around the folded, heavy parchment she had snatched from the Guild archives. The stolen account book. Its sheepskin leaves were stiff, the ink dense and black, detailing every private hoard. She snapped the binding wide in the gray dusk. Neighbors, drawn from their stoops by the commotion, stood in a tight semicircle of fogged breath. On the inside header sat the crimson wax stamp of the Provincial Board. “Mistress Krovul,” Tamshen said, projecting with the dry, hollow cadence of a courtroom clerk. “I believe these are your private records.” The matchmaker's cheeks drained of color. Her eyes darted from the pages to Tamshen, then toward the soldiers, who lowered their pitch sticks. “What is that rubbish? A fraud!” the woman sputtered, stepping back into the crust of the drift. “Some gutter forgery!” “Hardly,” Tamshen murmured. “This is the official Registry of Allocated Fuel for the Vloren district, under Guild seal. Here on folio seventeen, under 'Special Allocations,' sits an instructive audit note. Cycle 287 lists seven hundred and thirty crates of Grolan anthracite earmarked for the public infirmary.” The murmurs from the villagers grew louder. Seven hundred and thirty units of Grolan coal was a fortune, enough to heat a small hamlet for a month. “And yet,” Tamshen continued evenly, “the clinic froze through the second thaw for lack of anthracite. Turn to folio nineteen, under 'Personal Household Discretionary Overages.' For the private manor of Mistress Krovul, listed under the annex code, we find exactly seven hundred and thirty crates assigned on the identical day.” Murmurs broke out along the lane. The tax officer straightened, his attention shifting entirely away from the broken threshold. “The annex,” Tamshen added, turning the leaf, “is her private hothouse, where she keeps winter orchids at seventy degrees while cottages freeze. And here is the crown auditor's receipt counter-signature, making every lump classified state reserve.” The officer pushed past Tamshen, planting his boots directly in front of the matchmaker. “Are these figures logged in your name, woman?” he snapped. The woman shrank back into her furs. “She stole those drafts! It is an administrative misunderstanding!” She lunged toward the parchment, but Tamshen tucked it neatly behind her elbow. “Your personal signet is pressed on the margin, along with Appraiser Soltan's countermark,” Tamshen said. The officer checked the red wax under his thumb, tracing the imperial grain in the seal. Misappropriated state coal was an immediate court-martial offense under winter decrees. “Confiscate her keys,” the officer barked over his shoulder. “Take the book for evidence.” Her knees gave way, skirts dragging in the slush. “You cannot listen to a seamstress!” “You embezzled from northern crown stores,” the officer cut her off. “Remove her guild medallion. Escort her to the district stockade for inquiry.” Two soldiers seized the woman by her woolen mantle, unpinning the silver badge of office and letting it drop into the slush before hauling her down the lane. The officer swung back around, boots crunching through the trampled drift. “Douse the pitch,” he signaled with a short wave, and the smoky embers were thrust hissingly into the snow banks. The heat receded, leaving only the bitter mountain chill. In the broken entryway, Linni leaned against the doorframe, still holding her bruised ribs. The officer did not step away, however. He halted inches from Tamshen, his gaze dropping to the half-hidden doorway behind her. “The matchmaker's theft belongs to the magistrate,” he said quietly. “Your domestic status belongs to me. If this household is an unregistered evasion scheme, the scholar hangs and the girl leaves on tomorrow's labor wagon. Fetch the marriage bed-sheet, mistress. Now.”

The Embezzler's Fall