Maela Stonevein

Maela Stonevein administers the Vein Tithe with exacting patience and almost sacred respect for recorded obligation. She knows which clans overstate losses, which workshops hide surplus, which defences were paid for twice but built once, and which grief is being used as an accounting trick. Her office smells of wax, vellum, coal smoke, gem dust, and old ledgers warmed by lamps. Maela is feared because her records can make old honour look very expensive. She is needed because without her, wealth would learn to call itself innocence. In wartime her ledgers move ore to armories, coin to relief stores, carts to stair landings, furnace labour to gate repairs, and shame to whoever hid surplus while others starved.