Vextali

A merchant crushed when the ground beneath him became a cliff. Vextali sealed the record and filed it with the rest.

Two weeks later, another report. The same merchant, crushed when the ground shifted beneath him. Same man, different death date.

She checked the records this morning. Third report. Same merchant, crushed today.

The hexpriests were handling the bodies, severing the loops so the dead could rest. But Vextali saw something worse in the records. Each duplicate death created a branching point, a cascade. When someone died in Palifala's fractured time, the death itself triggered ripples that created more fractures, more timelines, more deaths. The pattern fed itself.

Palifala wasn't just breaking time. She was collecting the fragments like someone gathering yarn. Eventually she'd have enough threads to rewrite reality itself.

Vextali brought her findings to her bishop. He thanked her and said he'd take it to the grand bishop.

Days passed. More reports, more duplicate deaths. Her bishop told her the priory was still deliberating.

Vextali loaded her crossbow and walked out to join the march north. Someone needed to stop the cascade. Make death silent again.

The priory could discipline her later. Assuming there was a later.