Engineer-Regent Octavia Dunwarden

Octavia took the regency of House Dunwarden at twenty-eight, for an infant niece, under a witnessed charter that said she would step down on the niece's twenty-first nameday. The niece is twenty-six. Octavia is still in the chair. The official line is that the niece is not yet ready, a phrase she has used in every quarterly report for five years.

The niece has invoked the charter twice. Octavia's engineers, whom she trained, promoted, and pays, have testified that the niece's pressure credentials are insufficient. They are, in fact, sufficient. The Refusal was renamed when the first invocation failed. She keeps the ship visible at every council, and she has told her niece in writing that the regency ends on Octavia's schedule. Both of them are gathering allies. The succession will be contested. The contest will be ugly.