My bootheels echoed in the marble hallway, sharper and lonelier than I’d expected. The silver tray with my district’s budget teetered on a velvet cushion at my elbow, carried by a steward whose silence was more pointed than any palace snub. I tried not to grip my gloves too tightly as we turned the last corner toward the council chamber.
Through the tall windows, the city’s workshop chimneys smudged the dusk with honest smoke. My district. Not the jewel at the city’s heart, but the tangled streets beyond the river bends—a place where laundry lines stretched like bunting and the crowd smelled faintly of lye and wool. The ledger I’d been handed was swollen at the banquet column, where the cost of tonight’s welcome feast far outstripped the line marked "winter fuel."
The door swung open to a glitter of tapers and the low burr of noble conversation. The official banquet table was set with enough venison and candied oranges to feed a district, and yet, to my left, an elderly guild matron gripped her walking stick, waiting for my attention, while the city’s treasurer watched from the shadows, his rings glinting gold.
A palace official—smiling, sharp—pressed the parchment forward. "Your signature, Highness. The budget must be sealed for the welcome to proceed."
I scanned the page again, my heart thudding. To sign was to accept: a grand feast for a handful of officials, and not enough coal for the families who would scrape frost from their shutters come January. My hand hovered over the inkpot. The murmurs in the hall thickened, expectant. If I refused, it would be a public scene. If I complied, it would be at the district’s expense.
The matron caught my eye, her look unwavering. She belonged to this district, not to the palace. I realized then that every penny I signed away tonight set the stakes for all the winters to come. The next move, mine to choose, already hung heavy in the chamber’s scented air.
Even the steward’s breath was held as I considered my first act as their princess.