All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 309: Uriel Chooses a Seat

The Crown examiner reached the unfinished command house with a provisional Flint appointment sealed inside a narrow blue case.

Uriel read its title before taking the chair left empty beside Hajin’s route table. Household liaison appeared above her name, followed by authority to deliver Sixth orders and calm Flint dependents.

Nothing beneath the title allowed her to sign a wage page, open a granary, remove a collection steward, or choose anyone working beside her. The former Patriarch’s confinement remained valid, but every ordinary civil decision would belong to outside clerks.

A Flint runner arrived before Uriel finished reading, carrying three rejected food orders from the central estate. Removing her father’s collection seal had also frozen the routine stamp used by kitchens serving household dependents.

"The kitchens have grain behind locked doors," the runner said, placing the rejected pages before her, "the remaining stewards refuse to issue anything without a recognized civil signature."

The Crown examiner pointed toward the liaison appointment rather than the waiting food orders. His office had prepared the position to display Flint continuity without restoring Flint control.

"A Sixth administrator can approve emergency issue," he said, keeping the blue case open, "your public recognition would prevent resistance while the Crown selects permanent officers."

"Then your administrator governs and I explain why strangers made each decision," Uriel replied, sliding the appointment back across the table, "that is my father’s portrait wearing my face."

Hajin left the rejected document exactly where Uriel had placed it between them. His bandages remained beneath a clean coat, and no Ring appeared while the argument crossed the table.

"What office will you accept," he asked, looking from the frozen food orders toward Uriel, "name the work before the title."

Uriel pulled the vassal compact beside the rejected Crown appointment resting nearby. Its civilian protections already required Flint to preserve lawful wages, homes, tools, plus ordinary employment during the audit.

"Acting head of Flint’s civil household," she said, placing one finger beneath those protections, "I sign food, wages, repairs, treatment access, and dependent transport under the compact."

The Crown examiner removed household liaison from the appointment draft without granting the replacement immediately. He opened a blank authority schedule, leaving each requested power to stand beside a matching limit.

Uriel claimed the right to appoint and dismiss civil stewards after their audit review. She also required authority to reopen estate kitchens, maintain ordinary payroll, fund repairs, and return displaced dependents without waiting for capital permission.

"I choose the people advising me," she continued, writing the first names beneath the office, "neither the Crown nor the Sixth fills my rooms with another household."

Her first road adviser was her mother’s former stablemaster, who had hidden the horse used during her escape. The second was an estate pay clerk whose original wage books exposed three altered servant rolls during the audit.

She reserved a third advisory place for a representative selected by Flint’s registered estate workers after Lana finished restoring their names. None of the three received any military authority through the acting appointment.

{Acting Flint head: Uriel Flint.}

{Granted civil authority: ordinary budgets, wages, granaries, repairs, treatment access, dependent transport, and audited steward appointments.}

{Household advisers: selected by the acting head, subject to recorded audit conflicts.}

Marrick added a required public copy for every order changing food, wages, housing, or employment. Flint clerks could execute those orders, while the Witness Office retained the same complaint route available inside the Sixth.

The Crown examiner wrote his first restriction beside the old debt seal. Uriel could suspend collection activity under the audit, but she could not restore, sell, enforce, or forgive a private claim before its ownership plus legality were reviewed.

"If a claim is false, I want the worker released before a hearing lasts six months," Uriel said, touching Tessa’s altered entry, "the audit already found people confined without contracts."

"Unsupported confinement remains suspended immediately," Lana replied, attaching the protection used at estate fourteen, "money judgments wait, but people do not remain locked behind them."

That legal distinction entered the authority schedule beneath both requested powers immediately. Uriel could order protected release when no valid contract or criminal order existed, while restitution amounts remained for later findings.

{Private collection claims: may not be restored, sold, enforced, destroyed, or forgiven by the acting head.}

{Unsupported confinement: suspended pending audit, with protected release authorized.}

The next set of limits addressed household records plus every form of war. Uriel could not seal an old crime file, remove testimony, command Sixth militia, mobilize Flint fighters, contract an armed formation, or invoke territory-war law.

Hans added that civil watches answered only to registered local posts approved beneath the compact. Their weapons remained inside the joint inventory, preventing a renamed household company from appearing behind a gate.

"My father stays in custody even if I take this office," Uriel said, reading the clause concerning household prisoners, "I cannot release him, change his guards, or dismiss the hearing."

"Correct," the Crown examiner replied, pressing his mark beside the custody line, "your authority begins outside his door and does not open it."

Uriel accepted the restriction without requesting a private visit with her father. The central estate receipt remained attached, confirming her father had surrendered his command keys plus collection seals under guard.

{Former Patriarch: stripped of authority and retained in protected custody pending judgment.}

{Dreth-aligned officers: suspended pending individual hearings.}

{Military authority: none.}

{Private territory war: forbidden.}

{Command over Sixth forces: none.}

Lana placed the Witness Office seal beside the compact’s permanent audit-access clause. Her office retained entry to Flint records, workers retained protected reporting routes, and no order from Uriel could reduce an existing evidence classification.

The Crown examiner received the same access under royal review, including the right to copy records plus challenge a civil order before the final hearing. Neither auditor could replace Uriel’s lawful civil decision merely because they preferred another one.

"That last limit applies both ways," Uriel said, drawing a line beneath the examiner’s review power, "you may stop an unlawful order, but you do not govern by delaying every lawful one."

The examiner added a two-day written objection limit for ordinary civil orders, while immediate challenges required evidence of danger, concealment, or compact breach. Emergency food, treatment, plus shelter orders took effect at once and remained reviewable afterward.

{Audit rights retained: Lana’s Witness Office / assigned Crown examiner.}

{Acting-head concealment or destruction of evidence: grounds for immediate suspension.}

{Auditor delay of lawful civil orders beyond two days: prohibited without a recorded challenge.}

Uriel stood from her chosen chair before reading every grant plus limit aloud. She named her civil powers first, then the debt restrictions, custody boundary, military prohibition, audit access, suspension grounds, and expiration at final judgment.

No inherited title or family rank appeared beneath the final signature line. She wrote Uriel Flint in the same hand used when Lana first recorded her as a household witness with no command authority.

{Appointment accepted: Acting Head of Flint’s Civil Household.}

{Appointee signature: Uriel Flint.}

{Effective term: immediate / pending final Crown and Sixth judgment.}

She signed the three waiting granary orders before closing the Crown appointment case. Her first civil seal released existing food stores under copied household rolls without restoring a single collection claim.

The Flint runner left with those pages plus the names of two advisers permitted to enter the central estate. Uriel then moved the empty chair away from the table’s head, placed it beside the audit ledgers, and sat under the office she had chosen herself.