Orlen began making amends quietly, without fanfare, working through the list of harms the cold voice's guidance had caused him to inflict during his first years in Verath Hollow. He brought Mercer a detailed account one evening, three separate incidents beyond the mineral dispute, each one small enough to have escaped notice individually but troubling in their accumulated pattern.
"A merchant whose warehouse inspection I delayed deliberately, allowing minor theft to occur that I could have prevented," Orlen read from his careful notes. "A dispute between fishing families where I favored one side slightly, based on the voice's suggestion that creating resentment would prove useful leverage later. A smuggling investigation I conducted more aggressively than necessary, specifically to demons
