After that, things moved the way royal emergencies always do—fast, loud, and pretending to be dignified.
We pimped Loma out properly. Not that way. Don't start.
Best dress we could scavenge without murdering anyone important. Silk that still remembered being silk. A clasp that didn't rust when you breathed on it. Bathed her. Scrubbed the road and the inns and the bad years off her skin. Brushed her hair until it shone like she'd never slept in a cage or a loft or on a ferry deck with rats judging her.
Pampered. Polished. Reassembled.
Then we put her on a boat.
Off to Kishkh. To distant relatives who had, miraculously, just remembered they had one more princess on the family roster. Gnh. Funny how memory works when alliances are at stake.
She stood on the deck, spine straight, chin lifted, waving like she'd rehearsed it all her life.
Which, I suppose, she had.
And then she was gone. Sail shrinking. Princess-shaped hole left behind.
Time passed. Inns blurred together. Dice. Bad wine. The Dwarf. Always the Dwarf.
The Dwarf slid something across the table without lifting his head.
It made a soft scraping sound through peanut shells and spilled salt.
"She gave it to me," he mumbled into the wood. "Said you'd cross my path sooner or later. You always do."
I looked down.
A letter.
Folded neat. Sealed proper. Wax stamp still intact — some royal crest pressed into it like it mattered to anyone outside marble walls.
I didn't touch it right away.
You learn that trick. Letters rarely bring anything you actually want.
"Well?" he croaked.
I nudged it with one finger. Turned it. Looked at the seal again.
"I don't read," I said flatly. "Not like that."
He groaned so hard his beard shifted.
"For fuck's sake…"
He peeled one eye open, stared at the parchment like it had personally offended him, then dragged it closer.
"Fine."
He broke the seal with a cracked thumbnail and a peanut shell. Very ceremonial.
Unfolded it.
Squinted.
"Gods… this is written like someone swallowed a hymn book."
"Just read," I said, already reaching for my drink.
He cleared his throat.
Slow. Careful. Like each word needed wrestling.
"Princess Loma of Tangara… blah blah… blessings of Kishkh… witnessed by matrons, midwives, priestesses—"
I waved a hand. "Skip the curtains."
He grunted and scanned lower.
Then he paused.
Blinking harder now.
"…Purity confirmed," he read.
I went still.
Didn't look up.
Didn't drink.
He kept going, voice flattening into something more neutral, less ceremonial.
"Wedding announced. Divine favor invoked. Auspicious omens. Alliance secured."
His eyes moved further down the parchment.
Then stopped again.
Longer this time.
"…Oh."
That got my attention.
I glanced up.
"What oh."
He scratched his beard, frowning.
"…Citadel under siege."
I snorted before I could stop myself.
"Of course it is."
He kept reading.
"Banners on the horizon. Priests arguing about omens. Walls holding. For now."
He swallowed.
Then quieter:
"She says she's considering… making a run for it."
I leaned back slowly in my chair.
There it was.
The real letter. Everything else was just silk wrapping.
"Good girl," I muttered.
He blinked at me. "You're not worried?"
I reached over, took the parchment from his hands.
Didn't read it.
Just folded it once. Twice. Careful, respectful — the way you handle things that bite if you crease them wrong.
Tucked it into my belt.
Didn't need the words.
I could hear her voice anyway. The pauses. The careful phrasing. The way she'd try to sound composed even while the world cracked under her feet.
Somewhere out there, a princess had passed every test they threw at her.
And the reward was siege engines.
Figures.
I stared at the table a long while.
The Dwarf went back to being horizontal. Philosophy exhausted.
"Royal stuff," I muttered.
He groaned agreement into the wood.
And I ordered another drink, already knowing this wasn't the end of Loma's story.
It never is.
I sat with that letter for a long while.
Didn't read it again. Didn't need to. It had already lodged itself somewhere unpleasant, right between my ribs and my sense of irony.
A princess passes every test they throw at her and the reward is… siege.
Figures.
I crumpled the parchment, smoothed it again, then folded it properly because habits die hard. The Dwarf finally lifted his head just enough to squint at me.
"Well?" he croaked.
"She did everything right," I said. "So naturally the world's on fire."
He grunted. Sympathetic. That was as much philosophy as he ever managed before noon.
I stared into my cup. Thought about silk dresses. About scrubbed skin. About how carefully they'd arranged her like an offering and called it love.
"She's thinking of running," I mumbled.
The Dwarf snorted. "Good girl."
I smiled despite myself.
Because here's the thing they never teach you in courts or temples or rose gardens over your mother's bones: running is a skill. Knowing when to run is an art.
And Loma?
She'd learned it.
I drained my drink and stood.
Somewhere, banners were burning. Somewhere, a citadel was learning the difference between divine favor and bad logistics. Somewhere, a princess was deciding whether to be rescued, reborn, or inconvenient.
And me?
I drank until the Dwarf snored poetry, then walked out into the sweat-warm night and kept walking until my feet hurt and my head hurt worse.
By dawn I'd decided two things:
One, princesses are a bad investment.
Two, if I'm going to keep getting tangled in other people's crowns and cages, I might as well own the damn cage myself.