Torvald Ledger-Mane

Torvald Ledger-Mane books freight out of a cold-berth office under the Spire transit rings, and he fills the doorway doing it — nine and a half feet of white-silver Karthunai with a mane braided in dull brass rings, one ear notched, and an old plate-tech's forearms gone to scar under the fur. He keeps his office at fourteen degrees because he can't think when he's warm, and he keeps his word because his father's father would climb out of the ice to shame him if he didn't.

He's a broker, not a smith anymore — bad knee, worse temper, thirty years of matching honest hulls to honest cargo. When he hands you the Pass-Forge run he hands it straight: raw armor-alloy stock and a case of etching dies, writ to Brunna Frost-Braid's forge five hops out past Karth, cold tolerances, standard forge resupply. He's proud of the job. Karthun plate keeps people alive, and moving the material that makes it is honest work, and Torvald likes honest work the way some people like a warm bed.

What he doesn't know — what'll gut him if the crew brings it back — is that the writ's a lie. Somebody walked a forged order past his desk with Brunna's name on it, and Torvald, who audits everything, signed it because it looked clean and his knee hurt and he trusted the paper. His oath is on that booking. If the crew turns up proof the buyer isn't who the writ says, he won't argue and he won't make excuses; he'll go very quiet, the way big men do right before they decide someone owes a reckoning. Then he'll owe the crew one back.