Verum-Gaea

The ring was under a sheet of foam in a cracked crate, and when it went back on his finger he made a sound he has not made since the Citadel. Pearl of the Dawn Feather. His house is gone and the pearl is not, and he finds that to be a kind of argument.

He was three steps from the man on the table with his hands already full of bandage when the firebolt went past his shoulder. That is two men now this month whose dying he has attended and neither of whom he has saved. He is beginning to wonder whether the observing is all that is left of the Chief-Observer.

Has not seen his family since the political upheaval on his planet. He often wonders what happened to his Sol-Born, Cartouche-Bearer, and Sol-Bound. The first thing he said to each of you upon meeting was:

He was in charge of the rituals performed on his home world, and of making sure they followed the path they needed to follow. Beyond that he does not elaborate, and he does not care to be asked twice.

The block says otherwise, of course. That the real Chief-Observer is still on the home world and this one is playing dress-up. That he brought down a planetary government by praying to the moon. That he pointed his scope at the dark side of the sky and catalogued something that was never meant to be seen. That House Verum's master vault keys are locked in his skull, and someone is eventually coming with a needle to dig them out.