Amara reaches the registry, persuades Cael to stamp an obsolete divine petition, and names the first miracle claim.
Rain leaked through the Mortal Registry roof and landed inside a brass tray labeled DIVINE PETITIONS, unused since Amara's grandmother had been young.
Cael Orris had both sleeves rolled to the elbow and a broom in one hand when Amara pushed open the basement door. The room smelled of wet paper, lamp oil, and mice that had better legal standing than most worshippers. Shelves leaned under marriage bonds, dock permits, and tax appeals. At the back, three iron cabinets wore chains stamped with sunbursts.
Cael looked at Amara's torn temple robe, the dried blood at her throat, and the dark space where her halo should have been.
"No," he said.
She shut the door behind her. "I have not asked anything yet."
"You are the reason every temple runner in the district is upstairs yelling about sacrilege. If I guess wrong, I lose my post. If I guess right, I lose more than my post."
Amara crossed the room before her knees could start shaking again. "I need Form Thirteen."
The broom slipped in his hand.
"So I guessed right." Cael set the broom against a shelf and lowered his voice. "No one files Thirteen. Not against a god."
"Someone wrote it."
"Someone also wrote plague burial rules and trial by river fire. Age is not wisdom."
Amara placed the altar ribbon on his desk. The linen had dried stiff around her blood. The appeal clause glowed faintly, each letter pulsing with the night bell's approach.
Cael did not touch it. His eyes moved over the wording once, then again. "Where did you get this?"
"From the altar that tried to make me die politely."
Thunder rolled above the street grates. Cael opened one of the chained cabinets with a key from inside his boot. "The Dawn Temple says you refused renewal."
"The renewal was a ritual death."
"The temple calls it return."
"Bodies do not care what priests call them."
He flinched, not from anger. From agreement he did not want. The cabinet drawer groaned open. Inside lay packets wrapped in black cloth, each tied with faded blue thread. Cael selected one and carried it to the desk with both hands.
"Form Thirteen is not an appeal by itself," he said. "It is a petition for divine docket recognition. You need a defendant, an injury, a covenant term, and a remedy. If any line is wrong, the form burns and the filer pays the ash cost."
"What is the ash cost?"
"Depends who you name."
"Oriel of the Dawn."
Cael laughed once, without humor. "Of course. Why trip on a candle when you can put your face in the sun?"
Amara's fingers curled around the desk edge. She saw Tomas coughing gold into his mother's sleeve. She saw Marek's knife measuring her throat. "Write the defendant."
Cael untied the packet. The form inside was vellum so thin the lamp flame showed through it. Lines appeared only when he uncorked a small stone bottle. The ink inside was not black. It was old red, dark as dried heartwood.
"Petitioner's name," he said.
"Amara Vale."
"Title?"
She swallowed. The empty place above her brow seemed to ache. "None."
Cael glanced up.
"Write none," she said. "They took the title. Let the filing show what they left."
The pen scratched. "Injury claimed?"
"Revocation after refusal of ritual death. Coerced miracle debt imposed on recipients. Emergency consent clause suppressed."
"That is three injuries."
"Then make the box larger."
His mouth twitched despite himself. "You were easier in temple processions. You only waved."
"I was not easier. I was uninformed."
The first night bell rang somewhere above them, muffled by rain and stone. The appeal letters on the ribbon flashed bright, then began to dim from the edges.
Cael's posture changed. He stopped teasing. "We have minutes."
He wrote faster. The pen smoked when he entered Oriel's name. Amara pressed the altar ribbon flat as it tried to curl away from the form.
"Remedy demanded?" Cael asked.
Amara had imagined asking for restoration when she stumbled through the rain. Her halo back. Her rooms back. Her place beside Jun, safe under gold windows. But Tomas's breath had rattled like a door latch. The form waited.
"Docket hearing," she said. "Suspension of sacrifice rites. Production of consent slips. Review of miracle debt terms."
Cael's pen paused. "That is not a private appeal."
"No."
"It will make enemies."
"The knife already did."
The second bell rang. The ribbon went cold under Amara's palm.
Cael shoved the finished form toward the stamping block, then hesitated with his hand above the seal. "A god's docket seal needs mortal payment. Heat, usually. Blood heat if the defendant is high."
"Mine."
"You spent enough today."
"Your hand holds the stamp. My name makes the claim."
He stared at her, then took a clean needle from the drawer. "Thumb."
The prick was small. The cold that followed was not. When Amara's blood touched the seal, warmth fled from her wrist to elbow as if winter had found a vein. Cael brought the stamp down.
The desk ignited.
Not flame. Light. Every paperweight, permit, and unpaid fish-market license threw a hard gold shadow. Cael cursed and dragged the wet brass tray over the edge of the fire. Rainwater hissed into steam.
The form did not burn. It lifted.
Letters stood above the vellum in red light: AMARA VALE V. ORIEL OF THE DAWN.
Cael wrapped his burned fingers around the desk edge. "Three bells," he said.
"For what?"
The form folded itself into a square and struck the service bell hard enough to split the air.
"For the defendant to receive service," Cael said. "If Oriel is not served by the third bell, your case dies before heaven has to answer."