Prologue

Stephen had recently started to wish he hadn't joined the Silencian Civil Service. For the past 3 years it had been a very nice stable job, doing paperwork from a comfortable office, managing financial matters. While occasionally conducting audits on businesses and individuals was also part of the job, it was undoubtedly of the part of his duties he enjoyed the least. But since he had been reassigned south to help transition the newly annexed province of Crevicil, that had become how he spent the majority of his time. Most often it was simply auditing assets to assess the worth of different individuals or entities so his superiors could properly redistribute wealth. Today though, Stephen had the job of conducting a thorough audit of a single young girl. 

The girl in question was sitting down in front of Stephen's temporary work station. She was young, with long red hair, green eyes and slender features; wearing a fine elegant sleeveless white dress. Her skin was so pristine it was obvious she had never worked a day in her life. She seemed completely uninterested in the goings on around her. Leaning back in her chair and picking at her nails out of boredom. She was by far the youngest person Stephen had audited since being assigned here. Her detached interest in the situation at hand was unusual to Stephen, as most people he had experience auditing treated it with some level of respect, even if that respect was motivated by fear. He turned his attention the number of scrolls and records piled around his desk and began reading to get a better understand of who this girl was.

Christina Theodora Revallia. Native Crevician. Aged twenty-two years old. Born to the former kingdoms noble House Revallia. Youngest daughter to Alexandre and Evelyn Revallia, sister to Ariane Revallia. No spouse, no next of kin. The reason given for the audit of Christina was loan delinquency and suspected fraud, an interesting case to be sure. The Revallia family was recorded as previously being a house of great wealth, and it was recorded that her sister Ariane had been a celebrations advisor to the Crown. Stephen looked up past his glasses at the girl sitting before him. The idea that she and her sister could have spent most of her time partying in the lap of luxury didn't surprise him one bit. 

 Reading further, Stephen found something that did surprise him. Christina was the sole member of the Revallia family that remained in Crevicil. It was noted that Alexandre, Evelyn and Ariane had all fled the kingdom as the Silencian army marched south. The fact that they had fled was not surprising, the vast majority of nobles, including the Royal family abandoned their people and armies rather than resist Silencian rule. What surprised Stephen was the idea that this family had not only abandoned their kingdom, but their youngest daughter as well. 

Looking back to Christina, she was now crossing her arms, tapping her foot restlessly. Even with her obvious air of irreverent impatience she kept her head leaned back, scanning the celling and walls of the room around her, occasionally rolling her eyes, but never meeting Stephens gaze. He had done enough audits in his life to tell, even if she was hiding it, this girl was scared.

Stephen shuffled papers about his desk to unearth the continued records on this girl. A few scrolls toppled off the far edge of his desk, rolling near Christina's feet. She shriveled her nose and drew back, audibly scooting her chair away from the scroll in distaste. Stephen raised his eyebrow at the disrespectful behaviour, but said nothing as he continued to read the scroll.

It seemed that during the time of the invasion, Christina had been visiting the costal city of Port-town. Stephen had to suppress a chuckle at the description of events. Wording the annexation as an 'invasion' self-aggrandized the act. Not the same day the Silencian armies had crossed the southern boarder, the leaders of the failed nation had fled. Without their leaders, the army simply abandoned their posts, and melded back into the population. It couldn't even be considered a surrender, as any military force shed their uniforms and effectively disbanded. The conquest of their entire kingdom was a mere matter of marching. 

Looking further into her records, he could see that a few days after the occupation of the capital city, Christina had been interviewed by resettlement officers. The report showed that she attempted to convince the officers to return her family manor to her. This was obviously denied, and she was assigned the same public shared housing that all unhoused citizen were offered during this interim period. 

Stephen once more shuffled papers around his desk, looking for specific housing records submitted by the emergency hospitality team. He sighed under his breath betraying a sense of frustration. Some of the higher ranking civil servants were issued magical scrolls that would display any record available to them with ease, but yet here he was with a desk overflowing with papers as he attempted to wade through it all to find the single report he needed. 

Finally he found what he was looking for. Interestingly, there was no record of the girl ever taking up residence in her assigned housing unit. Somehow this didn't surprise Stephen, he doubted this girl would ever willingly step foot in public housing. Looking once more a list of loaned assets that Christina had defaulted on, it seemed she had instead been paying rent for a local villa near the edge of the city. Though calling it rent seemed to be a misnomer, as the lengthy complaint formed against Christina suggested she had paid only once for the property, and had failed to provide any other compensation since. 

Digging back through more pages of the full complaint against the girl, it seemed that she had a lengthy shopping list of items; dresses, fine food, a few pieces of extravagant jewelry, and strangely a hand crafted antique music box. These items, as well as the villa, seemed to have been paid for by a few loans taken from local independent lenders. Looking at the names of the loaners, each one of them cosigned the complaint against Christina. They had also went and provided copies of the breached loan agreements, though all of them were at this time still using old Crevician contracts. Interestingly each of the loans all had the same collateral listed; 'The Revallia family treasury'. 

Stephen looked back again to the girl sitting before him, taking all his control to not drop his jaw from bewilderment. The Revallia family had no treasury to speak of. All of the possessions that they once may have laid claim to had been seized by the new rule. Had this girl actually believed that she could back up a loan with non existent wealth, or did she simply use her previous titles to fool these lenders. As bewildering as it was that this girl attempted to put a fictional treasure as collateral for multiple loans at once, it was also equally baffling that these lenders had actually accepted it. At the very least he would have expected these lenders to have a system in place to alert them that they all had potential claim to the same collateral, even if it didn't exist in the first place.

Either way, despite the absurdity of all parties involved, after two months the lenders attempted to collect on missed payments, and when payment was unable to be made, they quickly realized among each other what exactly had happened. They alerted the New Silencian peacekeepers of the suspected financial crime, and within a few short days Christina was detained. That detainment was mere hours ago, and seemed to be how Christina found herself before him now. Though one fact puzzled Stephen, it seemed completely without question that Christina's actions fell squarely into loan fraud, but when she was detained by the peacekeepers, Christina went willingly. It was even noted by the arresting officer that she was quite vocal about being able to have this issued fixed for her. He also wrote that he was worried she wasn't completely aware she was being arrested at all.

There was one last untouched stack of documents cornered away on Stephens desk, one that he failed to properly inspect. Though it wouldn't have made a difference as to his final decision, they all contained opened letters from Christina, addressed to the 'new rulers of Crevicil'. Packaged in fine envelopes, now creased and tattered from discarded use, sealed with stamped wax in the shape of a raven, but torn and opened in random fashion. They each detailed different requests from Christina for various matters, attempting to reason for the return of her family's home, attempts to have her noble status affirmed by the new rule, one requesting a detailed explanation for the whereabouts of various items that had belonged to her family. Lastly, there was one letter resting near the top of the stack, dated more recently than the rest requesting escorted passage further south, as well as information regarding the location of her mother and father.

Even without those letters, Stephen felt like he had all the information needed to render a verdict. Though this process often left him feeling uneasy. Back in Silencia, he was simply a civil servant. He reported information so others could make verdicts. But now under this transitionary bureaucracy, he was given the power to make limited verdicts himself. Still, even if the temporary powers sometimes gave him pause, in this instance the verdict couldn't have been more clear. 

He wondered just how well this young Christina Revallia would fare in debtors prison.