A tree ring does not record the year it grew. It records the carbohydrate reserves accumulated the year before. What you see in the wood is one year behind its cause.
A heraldic charge becomes invisible not by fading but by luminance convergence—when figure and field share similar brightness, the form is present but illegible at distance.
These panels are linked by the same law. Each charge's contrast is set by the reserve from the panel you just passed. You carry the reserve forward. You cannot return to verify the cause.
The final charges were present. Their geometry unchanged from the first.
The reserve that determined their visibility was spent in panels you can no longer see.
The wood holds the record. The record is always one year behind the weather that made it.