The first thing Maria noticed when stepping out of the carriage wasn’t the cheering crowd, or the guards in polished uniforms, or even Justinian waiting with that annoyingly calm smile of his.
It was the air.
It slled like sothing new.
Freshly carved stone. Roasted cinnamon bread. lted snow on sunlit tiles. Not quite capital-styled elegance, yet far from anything resembling a frontier town. Snowkeep slled like a city that had just woken up... and was excited about it.
"Oh my," she breathed, not bothering to hide her surprise as she leaned over the carriage step just a little too eagerly. "You have shops now. Real ones. And—are those... pastry stalls?"
Justinian looked like a man both proud and deeply amused.
"Welco to Snowkeep," he said. "As you can see, we’ve mastered the art of feeding tourists sugar until they start worshipping the local economy."
Maria grinned, and that was when he rembered, Maria didn’t smile like nobles did. She smiled like soone whose thoughts always ran faster than her manners.
"It’s working," she said. "I already feel dangerously faithful."
The palace was less of a throne hall and more of... a gathering place.
Courtiers weren’t stiff, ministers weren’t overly ceremonial, and the hallways had far too many maps, blueprints, and scribbled notes pinned to walls to qualify as aristocratic decor. Justinian’s palace felt slightly chaotic, lived-in, and alive, like it occasionally hosted state etings, but also the occasional argunt about irrigation systems.
Maria loved it.
"This is very..." she said, turning in a slow circle as they passed through the main gallery.
"Unnoble?" Justinian offered with a smirk.
"Pragmatic," she corrected, brushing her fingers along a huge mural of the siege, not the stylised heroic version she was used to, but one showing damage, desperation, exhaustion, resilience.
"You didn’t paint yourself as a saint in it," she said, sowhat surprised.
"Saints don’t build drainage systems," he replied.
She laughed, genuinely, brightly, and startled two passing scribes.
"You are not what I expected," she said after a while.
"You expected arrogance?"
She paused.
"No. I expected you to be tired." She looked around, at walls repaired, hos rebuilt, nobles conversing with craftsn like equals, and children in the courtyard chasing Cassia’s conjured floating frost wisps. "But I don’t see exhaustion here. I see montum."
"That reminds ... how in the world did you get a mural painted so fast?"
"It wasn’t , my citizens handed it to as a gift."
"That’s new... and he didn’t ask for anything?"
"No."
Maria raised a brow, but easily shrugged it off and continued to smile, scurrying to every part of the palace as Justinian helped guide her on their daily routine.
"You’re catching the eyes of most of my servants."
"Even if I act normal, I’ll still get attention, it’s better if I just be myself."
"Right... why are you here anyway?"
Maria stopped slightly at Justinian’s question, but in an instant, switched to a near devilish look that betrayed her innocent face.
It was clear she was starting to learn so stuff from Justinian on how to beco an effective ruler.
"For most, a simple winter vacation, but to a select few? A vacation and a way to build up my own faction."
Eventually, they ended up in the duke’s study, with Darius imdiately jumping out of his chair the mont he saw the princess herself enter.
"W-What!?"
Maria had a wave of familiarity the mont he saw Darius, rembering seeing him as one of the highest scorers in the past, back in the imperial examination for new nobles, a potential recruit to the king’s council if he hadn’t refused the offer.
"Lord Reinhardt?"
"E-Excuse , my lady... but I have other business to attend to."
Darius left the room, his face as red as the freshest tomato, causing Justinian to chuckle audibly.
"The effect you have on n is terrifying."
Maria sighed at Justinian’s tease. "It’s not like I’m being flirty..."
"Also... why did you bring here?"
"I thought it would be the perfect place for you." Justinian grabbed a copy of the compendium, one of the first original copies that was made.
The sa book that Maria saw was being taught on the streets when she had ridden our carriage.
"That book, what is it?"
"It’s on the na itself... a compendium of knowledge, it’s mandatory for all my citizens to learn it."
He tossed the wide book to Maria; it was only part one of the entire actual thing, yet its size already suggested the full contents would be big enough to be as huge as an entire palace if cramd into one.
"Take one, and if you can, I suggest not sharing it with anyone."
Justinian then headed to the desk itself, showing papers of the census. "And if you like more details, you can check here how I managed to reform my capital."
The entire ti Maria had her eyes swirling, she was smart, sure, but she wasn’t an actual ruling monarch, just a smart princess who helped his father from ti to ti.
Everything here was an influx of knowledge she quite literally didn’t need nor will probably use.
She was quite literally in the last line of succession, and she wasn’t keen on inheriting the throne.
And while Justinian was still showing her around, the mont Justinian turned to face her again, he felt a sting on his forehead as Maria casually flicked it with her fingers.
"Don’t get too ahead of yourself."
She pouted.
’Right... I keep forgetting she isn’t an ambitious warlord like almost everyone I’ve ever t.’
"Are you even listening to ?"
"Loud and clear, your majesty."
Maria didn’t bother to read the census sheet he had left in front of her.
She simply turned it upside down.
Then she sat on his desk. Not beside it. Not near it. Right on top of his paperwork with a controlled, regal sort of defiance that only a princess could legally commit.
"I’m not here to steal your reforms," she said.
Justinian stared at her, half amused, half appalled. "You’re on my agricultural tax records."
"I’m here," she continued calmly, "to understand what kind of ruler you are becoming."
That shut him up.
For a mont, at least.
She leaned back slightly, hands braced on the edge of the desk, looking more like a scholar than a royal. Her voice was gentler now, less teasing, more curious.
"You’re doing sothing no one else in the empire is doing," she said. "Not conquering. Not bargaining. Not flattering noble courts or buying their loyalty..."
She gestured vaguely toward the window, where laughter from Snowkeep’s courtyard echoed in.
"You’re... constructing."
She said it like she was still figuring the word out.
Not building. Not governing.
Constructing.
"Cities. Systems. People," she murmured.
Justinian exhaled slowly.
"That sounds poetic... I think," he muttered.
"Take the complint," she chuckled.
He fell silent, leaning against the edge of the desk as well. The room was quiet, but not awkward. The silence carried... sothing.
Respect, maybe.
Or sothing very close.
Finally, she turned, legs crossed, expression back to playful.
"Besides," she added, "I don’t need your census records. I already figured it out."
Justinian raised a brow.
"Oh?"
Maria placed one finger on the desk, tapping lightly with a soft rhythmic pattern.
"The birds."
He blinked. "The birds?"
"The birds," she repeated, as if it was obvious. "Snowkeep has more birds than any other capital I’ve been to."
Justinian stared. Hesitant. Possibly concerned for her sanity.
Maria continued, confident as ever. "Cities thriving on trade and migration always have more bird activity. Carts drop feed. Markets leave crumbs. New roofs, new perches. And your birds?" She pointed outside. "They’re not scavengers. They’re nesters."
He looked.
There were nests on renovated rooftops, on aqueduct ledges, on lamp posts, on the new library’s columns.
Nest-building birds.
Birds that stayed.
Reviews
All reviews (0)