CHAPTER 445: 445: A CART FOR A PRINCESS, A SHADOW FOR A SISTER

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The court broke the way schools of river fish do when a big shadow passes: not frantic, not sloppy, just cleverly, each piece knowing where it wants to be next so the whole never looks like it has a seam.

Runners went to fetch ink. The archivist sent a boy to wake the lens-runner with a tap code that meant bring the clean glass, not the one you like. The quartermaster wrote down twenty lines of names he intended to argue about and then threw the list away because he remembered he did not get to tell royals which shoes to wear.

The marshal muttered to a captain. The captain tried not to look proud about it and failed a little.

Mia walked the short way back to her rooms, two guards at her left, two at her right, one behind, and one already where she wanted to go because good guards do that. Servants were already running with packs she had had waiting for a week and a half — because Mia’s sort of caution looks like foresight when it works.

She will chose her twenty fast people.

Captain Serit, because Serit had once pulled her broken ankle out of a rivulet and told no one, not even the judge who had wanted to list the incident as a risk event in the palace ledger. Serit keeps his mouth shut until it’s time to open it and then says the right number of words, Mia had written about him in her private book.

Kiva, because Kiva could listen to a stream and tell you if there was a snake asleep under the root on the left bank or a fish that wanted to bite a net on the right.

Bren, because Bren could smell iron dust in a net five paces before it touched the ground and because he refused to get tired of checking the same knot a fifth time.

Isha, because Isha did not blink when raiders ran a spear through her arm and asked politely if anyone had a bandage.

Two runners who had the charges for the mirror posts, nails of men who loved rules in the right way.

A text-bearer named Om, quiet as old leather, with a neat hand that even angry people could read.

The rest: not cousins, not favorites, not the loud ones who wanted to stand near royalty because it made them feel tall. She picked steady hands, clean boots, and sharp senses. She picked people who looked like they had no story unless you listened to them talk about how to cross a river in spring.

They ate a quick bowl of cold grain with salted duck and did the buckling and strapping and checking thing that good teams do without telling each other to do it. Om tested his clean glass and put it back in the padded sleeve. Serit ran fingers along axles and rope-wrapped wheels. Bren cracked two nets and threw them, caught them, and dusted the knots with saltless powder so they would bite clean and not rust if the air ran wet from marsh.

Mia went to the square window that looked out over the South Gate road. The sun pulled a slow line across the stone. She closed her eyes for a breath. Kai’s voice had been in her ear not long ago, warm even through the cold of the road. She let that memory be what it was —danger and comfort in one— and folded it small. The world needed the part of her that could look Hoorius in the eye and cut a knot, not the part that wanted to skip like a child because a voice she liked had said her name like it was a safe place.

A whisper at her elbow. Thea told her. "You think you’re clever."

"Sometimes," Mia said, not turning her head. "Most days I prefer useful."

Thea didn’t come closer. You could smell the resin on her armor and the faint rose of whatever girl in the perfume hall had dipped a cloth for her that morning. "If you were useful, you would be here when the court needs to look at a hand and say ’this is right’ or ’this is lazy.’ You would not go count dead men like a lantern carrier. You are not a torch. You are a mirror."

"Mirrors crack," Mia said softly. "Torches burn. I pick burn."

Thea exhaled a short, amused breath through her nose. "You picked a good word," she said. "You always did like to make things sound simple."

"Ok," Mia said, and that was the best answer and Thea knew it.

They stood there a breath more. If you had been watching without ears, you would have thought it was a sister moment. If you listened, you would have heard two swords that knew where the other liked to be held.

Thea left first.

She did not go to her rooms. She did not go to the Regent’s desk. She went to a back hall where the stone floor held the memory of boots that moved with purpose and a storage room where banded barrels sat stacked like waiting drums. She opened the third one. It held coiled rope, not wine, and the rope was dyed the color of salt flats. She shut it again and counted eight heartbeats while her hands did nothing at all. Then she walked to the armory where the clerks who loved their stamps and their tallies thought they knew everything that came and went.

Fifty loyal soldiers. That was the number. Fifty would not look like a parade. Fifty could move like a snake if you put the right head on it. She had five heads in mind. She wrote the requisitions for each head and the five tails that went behind them. She wrote "patrol" and "outer nets" and "north rim" in three tidy boxes.

The clerks stamped and nodded and smiled because a princess smiling is like getting your wages early.