The letter arrived on a Monday.
I knew something was wrong because Father was quiet at dinner. Not his usual gentle quiet — a hard, tight quiet, like a string wound too taut. Mother noticed too. She kept glancing at him with an expression I recognized from my old life: the look of a spouse who knew bad news was coming and was waiting for the children to be out of earshot.
They waited until they thought we were asleep.
I was not asleep.
"An Imperial Inspector," Father said, his voice low. I was in the hallway, ear pressed to their bedroom door, exercising skills that would've made a spy proud if the spy was three and a half feet tall and wearing pajamas. "From the Solanthis Diocese. They're conducting a 'routine assessment' of provincial parishes."
"Routine." Mother's voice was flat with skepticism. "The Empire hasn't sent an inspector to Mireth in twelve years. Why now?"
"I don't know. The letter cites standard administrative review, but..."
"But?"
"There have been rumors. The new Archbishop — Varen — he's been pushing for tighter integration of provincial churches. Some of the border kingdoms have already had their parish leadership... restructured."
Silence. The kind of silence that fills with everything unsaid.
"When?" Mother asked.
"Three weeks."
"Three weeks to prepare for an Imperial Inspector. How thorough."
"Seraphina—"
"I'm not angry at you. I'm angry at them. This is our home. Our parish. You've served faithfully for twenty years."
"I know."
"What do they want, Aldric? Really?"
Another silence. Longer.
"Control," Father said quietly. "What they always want."
The next three weeks were tense.
Father threw himself into parish preparations with an intensity I'd never seen. Every record reviewed. Every ward checked. Every piece of correspondence filed. The temple was cleaned until it shone. The parish accounts were audited twice.
Mother managed the household with military precision. The house was immaculate. The garden was pristine. She replaced the wards on everything, using fresh mana crystals we probably couldn't afford.
Celestine, sensing the mood, was on her best behavior — a feat roughly equivalent to taming a hurricane. She still broke a practice dummy at seminary, but she apologized afterward, which was unprecedented.
Edric quietly shelved his merchant books and filled his desk with genuine scripture texts. He caught my eye when he did it, and the look we shared said everything.
We hide. We survive. We protect what's ours.
And me? I watched. I prepared. And I worried.
Because an Imperial Inspector from Solanthis wasn't just a bureaucratic inconvenience. They were the Empire's eyes, ears, and occasionally its hands. If they didn't like what they found, they could recommend anything from administrative changes to full parish reassignment. Father could lose his position. We could lose our home.
This was the first time since my rebirth that the outside world had reached into our daily life and threatened it.
I didn't like it.
Inspector Greaves arrived on a grey morning, accompanied by two Imperial Church Knights in silver-and-white armor.
He was tall, thin, with a narrow face and pale eyes that cataloged everything they saw. His robes were crisp white with gold trim — the formal vestments of the Solanthis Diocese, deliberately more ornate than anything worn in Verath's provincial church. A power statement in fabric.
Father met him at the temple gates with the composed dignity of a man who'd been awake since four AM making sure everything was perfect.
"Inspector Greaves. Welcome to Mireth. The parish is honored by your visit."
"Saint Aldric." The inspector's voice was precise, measured. "Thank you for accommodating us on short notice."
Short notice. Three weeks. The politeness was its own kind of weapon.
I watched from the window of Father's study, where I'd positioned myself with a book as cover. The two church knights stood behind Greaves like decorative suits of armor, but their eyes were active, scanning.
Greaves spent the first day reviewing parish records. Father attended him, answering questions with patient thoroughness. Mother served tea and refreshments with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
That evening, at dinner — from which the inspector was mercifully absent, taking his meals at the inn — Father looked exhausted.
"How bad?" Celestine asked. She'd never been one for subtlety.
"He's thorough," Father said carefully.
"That's not an answer."
"He's found nothing wrong because there IS nothing wrong. Our records are clean. Our wards are maintained. Our parish duties are fulfilled."
"Then what are you worried about?" Edric asked.
Father set down his fork. "I'm worried because an inspector who finds nothing wrong has two options: confirm compliance and leave, or look harder until he finds something. And Imperial Inspectors don't travel three days to confirm compliance."
The table went quiet.
"I won't let anything happen to this family," Father said. Softly, but with a weight that made the air feel heavier. "I want you all to know that."
Mother reached across the table and took his hand.
I looked at my father — this gentle, bookish, slightly scatterbrained man who misplaced his glasses and blessed breakfast and stayed up late filing paperwork — and I saw, for the first time, the Fourth Circle Saint underneath. The man who'd held a barrier for six hours. The man who'd chosen this small town, this quiet life, this family, and would fight for it.
I would too.
I just needed to figure out how.