I returned to the trade office the morning after the gathering half expecting everything to feel different, and found instead that very little had actually changed at all. Petra greeted me with the same easy warmth we'd settled into the day before, Corin handed me the same stack of correspondence he would have handed anyone capable of the work, and the ordinary rhythm of sorting ledgers and reconciling figures carried on exactly as it had for two weeks, title or no title.
"You could have a guard escort now, you know," Petra said around midmorning, glancing up from her own desk with something teasing in her expression. "Princesses don't usually sort correspondence alongside the rest of us."
"I like the work," I said simply. "And I'm not interested in becoming someone who needs an escort t
