Chapter 11 · free to read
The palace has exactly one door that opens outward every morning without anybody's leave. It is the laundry.
The southern prince's gift came stitched into the lining of its own box: four thousand troops, offered plainly, and one question — under whose banner they would be marching.
Information can be given away twice. Soldiers can only be given away once, and never taken back.
By the first snow the hall reached four streets past the wall: two merchant widows, a pawnbroker's mother, and a washing stone that never once looked up.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.