Chapter 83: Chapter 84: The work

Elara’s POV

The morning came faster than I expected.

I had barely slept. The maps and the plans and the thoughts of Kaelen and Lena and the child growing inside me had chased each other in circles through my mind until the first gray light began to creep through the windows. But when the knock came at my door, I was already dressed. Plain clothes. A hood that I could pull forward. No crown, no jewels, nothing that would mark me as anything other than what I was pretending to be.

The guard outside looked at me strangely when I stepped out. I didn’t give him time to ask questions. I just walked, and he followed, and somewhere between my chambers and the eastern gate, I lost him in the crowd of servants moving through the lower corridors. It was easier than it should have been. No one looked twice at a woman in plain clothes with her hood pulled forward. No one expected the queen to be walking through the servant passages at dawn.

The city was already awake when I reached the lower districts. The streets were crowded with people moving toward the distribution points, women with children in their arms, old men leaning on sticks, young people with tired faces and empty stomachs. They walked quickly, quietly, like they were afraid the grain would run out before they got there.

I pulled my hood lower and followed.

The distribution point was a wide square at the center of the southern district. Tables had been set up in rows, piled with sacks of grain and baskets of dried goods. Volunteers moved between them, lifting, carrying, handing out parcels, directing people to the right queues. The work was physical in a way my body wasn’t accustomed to. My arms ached. My back hurt. My hands were already rough from the burlap sacks.

I didn’t show it. I just kept working.

“Here,” I said to a woman with a small child clinging to her skirt. “Take this. The bread is on the next table.”

She looked at me for a moment, her eyes scanning my face. I felt my breath catch. Then she nodded, took the parcel, and moved on. She didn’t recognize me. No one recognized me.

I let myself breathe.

The hours passed. The sun climbed higher. The lines of people grew longer, then shorter, then longer again. I lifted and carried and handed out parcels until my arms felt like they might fall off. I directed people to queues and answered questions about the medicine distribution and smiled at children who were too young to understand why their mothers looked so tired.

And I listened.

A woman came through with a boy of maybe seven. She took her grain parcel and then paused, looking at the table where the medicine was being distributed. “Is it true there’s medicine?” she asked. “For fevers? For the cough that won’t go away?”

I nodded. “At the third table. They’ll ask what you need.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. There’s never anything for the cough. My son has been sick for three months. Three months, and the apothecary in our district ran dry and no one has come to refill it. I’ve sent letters. I’ve gone to the palace gates. No one answers. No one comes.”

Her voice was flat, not angry, just tired in a way that made my chest hurt.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That shouldn’t happen.”

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she shrugged, a small movement that seemed to take all her strength. “It happens,” she said. “It’s what happens. You get used to it.” She took her son’s hand and moved toward the medicine table.

I stood there for a moment, watching her go. Then I picked up another sack of grain and kept working.

An old man came through near midday. He was thin, his clothes worn thin too, his hands knotted with age. He took his grain parcel and stood to the side, watching the volunteers work.

“You’re new,” he said to me after a while.

I looked up from the sack I was lifting. “Yes.”

“You work hard. That’s good.” He leaned against the wall, his eyes sharp despite his age. “The grain is welcome. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not. But what we really need is someone to fix the water channels. The southern district’s supply has been compromised for over a year. The water comes brown and smells wrong. The children get sick. The old people get sick. Everyone gets sick.”

He paused, waiting for me to respond.

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“No one knows. Or no one cares. The letters go to the palace and no one answers. The petitions disappear.” He looked at me with eyes that had seen too much to be surprised by anything. “You tell them that. The people who sent you. Tell them the grain is good but the water is killing us. Tell them we’ve been asking for a year and no one has come.”

I swallowed. “I’ll tell them.”

He nodded slowly. “Good. That’s good.” He picked up his parcel and moved away, disappearing into the crowd.

I stood there for a moment, the weight of his words settling in my chest. A year. They had been asking for a year, and no one had told me. The reports Corvus reviewed, the petitions that crossed my desk, somewhere, somehow, the southern district’s water had been forgotten.

I picked up another sack and kept working.

A girl came through in the afternoon. She was maybe sixteen, her face thin, her hands calloused from work. She took her grain parcel without looking at it, her eyes fixed on something in the distance.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

She blinked, looked at me. “I’m fine.”

“You look like you’re waiting for something.”

She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “My brother. He went to hear The Voice last week. He hasn’t come home since.”

The words landed in my chest like stones.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She shrugged, the same small movement I had seen from the woman with the sick son. “He said The Voice was going to change things. That we didn’t have to wait for the crown to remember we exist. That we could do something ourselves.” Her voice cracked slightly. “I don’t know what happened to him. No one knows. He just didn’t come back.”

I wanted to say something. Something that would help. Something that would make it better. But there was nothing to say. Her brother was gone. She was waiting for him to come home. And somewhere in this city, The Voice was telling people that the crown had abandoned them.

“Maybe he’ll come back,” I said.

She looked at me for a long moment. “Maybe,” she said. Then she picked up her parcel and walked away.

The sun began to set. The lines grew shorter. The volunteers packed up the remaining supplies, stacking the empty tables, counting what was left. I stood at the edge of the square, watching the last people drift away with their parcels, their children, their small bundles of hope.

My arms ached. My hands were raw. My back hurt in ways I hadn’t expected. But I stood there, letting the weight of the day settle over me.

I had heard things. Things that weren’t in the reports. Things that had been missing from the maps and the tallies and Corvus’s neat handwriting. The water channels. The apothecary that ran dry. The letters that no one answered. The girl waiting for her brother to come home.

The old man’s voice came back to me. The grain is welcome. But what we really need…

I thought about the woman with the sick son. I’ve sent letters. I’ve gone to the palace gates. No one answers. No one comes.

I thought about the girl. He said The Voice was going to change things. That we didn’t have to wait for the crown to remember we exist.

They had been waiting. For a year. For months. For weeks. And no one had come. No one had answered. No one had told me.

The palace loomed in the distance, its walls catching the last light of the sun. Soon I would be back inside them. Soon I would be the queen again, with the crown on my head and the weight of everything pressing down. I would sit in council meetings and review reports and make decisions that would affect thousands of lives. I would sign orders for water channels to be fixed and apothecaries to be restocked. I would make sure the letters were answered.

But for now, I was just a woman standing at the edge of a square, watching the people of the southern district carry their grain home. I was just someone who had lifted sacks until her arms gave out and listened to stories that should have been heard months ago.

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