Chapter 24: Chapter-24

One of the kneeling knights spoke up—a younger man with small horns and nervous energy. “Your Highness, they were made by your research team. Before… before they were dismissed.”

Elara stopped. “They were dismissed?”

“Two years ago, Your Highness,” the knight said quickly. “After your mother passed. The steward said the household couldn’t afford to keep funding experiments.”

Of course he did.

Elara looked at the construct again. “And these still work.”

“Yes, Your Highness. The enchantments were made to last. We maintain them ourselves when they need repairs.”

“Where is the team now?”

The knight hesitated. “Some left the capital, Your Highness. A few are still in the lower city. One or two might still be in the palace as general laborers.”

Elara turned to face the group. Thirty knights, all watching her, all clearly confused about why a princess was asking questions about constructs and research teams instead of fleeing from their “dirty” training ground.

“New standing order,” Elara said. “If anyone from that research team is still in this palace, you find them and bring them to my wing. I don’t care what job they’re doing now. I want them back.”

The knights exchanged glances. The young one spoke again. “Your Highness… they’re commoners. The court wouldn’t—”

“The court isn’t running my household anymore,” Elara said. “I am. Find them. Bring them to me. If they’re in the lower city, send word and I’ll arrange retrieval.” She looked at the captain, who’d gone very pale. “Any questions?”

He shook his head quickly. “No, Your Highness.”

“Good.” Elara turned to leave, then paused at the doorway. “And Captain? This training ground isn’t dirty. But the fact that you thought calling it that would make me leave tells me you don’t understand who you’re talking to anymore.”

She walked out, leaving thirty stunned knights and one sweating captain in her wake.

By the time she reached her own wing again, her legs were shaking and her vision had started to blur at the edges. She made it to her chambers, closed the door, and sat down hard on the nearest chair.

Lisa appeared immediately. “Your Highness—are you—”

“I’m fine,” Elara said. “Just… tired.”

Lisa looked at her with open concern. “You walked to the Emperor’s palace and back. That’s forty minutes. Your body—”

“Will get stronger,” Elara said. “It has to.” She looked up. “Did you know about the research team?”

Lisa blinked at the subject change. “The… the scholars who used to work with you? Yes, Your Highness. They were dismissed after your mother died.”

“Find them,” Elara said. “However many are left. I want them back here and working again within the week.”

“But Your Highness, the budget—”

“Was being stolen for two years,” Elara said flatly. “Now that it’s not, we can afford to pay people who actually do useful work.” She stood, ignoring the way her legs protested. “Start with anyone still in the palace. Then send letters to the lower city. I want names, locations, and current employment status.”

Lisa hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, Your Highness.”

As Lisa left, Elara turned back to the desk. A mountain of paperwork had accumulated there—budget reconciliations, staff rosters that needed rewriting, supply orders that had gone unfilled for months, contracts that needed review. With the steward gone and half the household dismissed, the administrative work had fallen directly on her shoulders.

The Emperor had promised new staff, but they hadn’t arrived yet. And even when they did, Elara wanted to see the numbers herself first. Trust required verification, and she wasn’t about to hand financial control to anyone until she understood exactly what she was controlling.

She sat down, picked up a pen, and started working through the first stack.

Hours passed. The afternoon light through the window shifted, lengthened, turned golden, then faded into blue twilight. Elara kept writing. Cross-referencing expense reports against inventory lists. Flagging discrepancies. Making notes in margins. Her hand cramped twice; she flexed it and kept going.

A knock came at the door sometime later—she didn’t check the time.

Lisa entered with a tray. “Your Highness. Lunch.”

Elara didn’t look up from the ledger she was reviewing. “I’ll eat later.”

“Your Highness, you haven’t—”

“Later,” Elara repeated, tone flat but firm.

Lisa hesitated, then bowed and left, taking the tray with her.

The candles burned lower. Elara lit new ones without thinking about it, the small spell coming easier now. The paperwork didn’t shrink—if anything, it grew as she uncovered more irregularities buried in old records. Every corrected line revealed two more problems underneath.

Night fell completely. The palace went quiet around her. Servants finished their shifts. Distant doors closed. Footsteps faded.

Elara kept working.

Somewhere around two hours before dawn, her stomach cramped hard enough to break her concentration. She set down the pen and blinked, realizing for the first time that the room was dark except for her candles, that her back ached from sitting too long, that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten anything.

She stood slowly, joints protesting, and walked to the door.

Outside, two beast knights stood at attention—different faces than earlier. Night shift, she registered distantly. They bowed the moment they saw her.

Elara nodded acknowledgment. “Is Lisa awake?”

One of them—a woman with fox ears similar to the day-shift captain—shook her head. “Miss Lisa was unwell earlier, Your Highness. She retired to her quarters. We can wake her if you require—”

“No,” Elara said. “Let her rest.”

She walked past them toward the kitchens. The halls were empty, silent except for her footsteps and the faint hum of enchantments keeping the lights burning low through the night.

The kitchen door was unlocked. She pushed it open and stepped inside.

Food covered the prep tables—platters of bread, cold cuts, cheese, fruit. Someone had prepared dinner hours ago and left it out, probably expecting her to call for it. But the meat had gone cold and congealed, grease solidifying in white pools. The bread was stale at the edges. Nothing looked appealing enough to eat without reheating.

Elara walked further in, examining the setup. No modern stove, no gas lines, but the system was clever in its own way: stone hearths built into the walls with enchanted heating cores that could be activated with a touch. Water pumps connected to underground reservoirs. Preservation boxes lined with ice-magic to keep things fresh. Overhead, soft mage-lights glowed continuously, powered by some central spell-work she couldn’t see but could feel humming in the walls.

Functional. Efficient. Better than she’d expected for a world without electricity.

She found a clean pan hanging on a hook, set it on one of the cold hearths, and pressed her hand to the activation rune carved into the stone. Heat bloomed immediately, the core glowing red beneath the cooking surface.

Good. At least she wouldn’t starve because she didn’t know how to work the equipment.

She grabbed eggs from the preservation box, butter from a covered dish, salt from a rack of labeled containers. Basic scrambled eggs—something simple she could make without thinking, without wasting time on anything elaborate.

As the butter melted in the pan, she cracked four eggs into a bowl and whisked them with a fork, movements automatic, mind still half-occupied with budget numbers and staffing calculations.

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