The morning sun bathed Ashmille's central market in warm, golden light, casting a cheerful glow over the colorful chaos below. Stalls lined the cobbled streets like rows of vibrant patchwork, each bursting with local wares—baskets of ripe fruit glistening with dew, bolts of dyed fabric fluttering in the breeze, and trays of candied nuts catching the eye of every passing child. The air was thick with the scents of fresh bread, roasted meat, and salt from the nearby sea, all mingling with the sounds of bartering merchants, clattering carts, and bursts of laughter. Amid this chorus of daily life, Seraphyne and Crown Prince Elliot strolled side by side, their presence drawing excited whispers and eager waves from the townspeople. Today, their tour of Ashmille had begun—and it started, as all good things should, in the heart of the people.
Claire could feel the heroine persona of Seraphyne bubbling under her skin like a sugar high. She forced another soft smile at a child waving a tulip and swore she was getting cavities from the effort.
"You're very popular," Prince Elliot remarked beside her. "They cheer louder for you than for me."
"Well, they know I won't raise taxes on strawberries," Claire replied with a sunny tone that belied the sarcasm beneath it.
He laughed. Of course he did. Everything Seraphyne said was apparently charming, innocent, or adorably witty. Claire wondered how long she could keep the act up without combusting.
They turned the corner into Ashmille's central market, a bustling array of stalls, fabrics, and shouts. The scent of fresh bread mingled with spices and livestock, and the cobbled roads thrummed with footsteps.
The people beamed as the royal couple strolled past. Claire smiled and waved, though her jaw was starting to cramp.
"Has it changed much since you last visited?" she asked him.
"I've only seen the market from reports. This is my first time seeing it in full operation," Elliot said, peering around thoughtfully. "It's more organized than I imagined."
"The market's divided into four main sections," she explained. "Fishmongers and butchers stay near the east for quick access to the port. Produce sellers are along the north—closer to the farms. Imported goods and high-end crafts are centralized for visibility, and baked goods rotate depending on traffic flow and scent direction."
"Scent direction?"
Claire nodded. "People follow their noses. The wind pulls customers more effectively than signage."
He chuckled. "Efficient and creative."
"And below all this," she said, gesturing to the cobblestones beneath them, "are three cold-storage cellars. Each vendor rents space based on product type and volume. Porters work in coordinated shifts to minimize rot and waste. There's even a system of bells for emergency overstock."
Elliot's eyes widened slightly. "You seem very familiar with logistics."
Claire blinked. Crap. Too smart for Seraphyne.
"I, um… read the city reports," she said quickly. "I like… community planning."
He gave her a sidelong look, amused but not suspicious. "I'm glad you do. Most nobles wouldn't know a cold cellar from a wine vault."
He wasn't wrong. But Seraphyne did. Because Claire did.
After a few more diplomatic stops—including blessing a baker's newborn and sampling a truly criminal amount of candied figs—they arrived at the port.
The Ashmille Port was a sprawling, humming network of cranes, ropes, and crates. Sailors shouted orders in at least four languages, gulls squawked overhead, and the sea breeze carried the tang of salt, fish, and copper.
"The port handles nearly seventy percent of Ashmille's incoming trade," Claire said, pointing toward a cluster of bustling piers. "We track inventory at the dock master's hall. Incoming goods are recorded and taxed before they even touch the market."
"And outgoing?"
"Registered by weight and destination. If you're lucky, someone doesn't try to smuggle emeralds inside barrels of pickles."
His brow lifted. "That… actually happened?"
"Oh yes," Claire said sweetly. "Pickles and precious gems. A tragic waste of brine."
He grinned. "You make logistics sound entertaining."
Claire couldn't help herself—she smirked.
She pointed to a line of carts being loaded from a ship. "Each merchant registers goods with a port warden. That ensures no one claims fish are 'medicinal herbs' to dodge taxes. We had a guy try to sneak rubies inside barrels of sea cucumbers once."
Elliot looked appalled. "Did it work?"
Claire smirked. "Only until the cook sliced one open and chipped a tooth."
They toured the length of the pier as Claire rattled off statistics she technically wasn't supposed to know as Seraphyne. Elliot listened intently, occasionally scribbling in a small journal he kept tucked in his coat.
By dusk, the golden sun had melted into a lavender sky. Claire's feet were aching in her embroidered shoes, and her stomach growled audibly.
"Dinner?" Elliot offered.
"If we don't stop somewhere soon, I'll eat my hair ribbon," she said cheerfully.
He laughed again. That made three times in one day. A personal record.
They chose The Kraken's Tentacles, a cozy restaurant lit with lanterns and smelling like garlic butter and seared tuna. Seraphyne had just started browsing the menu when a commotion erupted near the bar.
A waitress had dropped a tray, and a group of burly dockhands were laughing.
Not the good-natured kind. The cruel, humiliating kind.
Claire felt her spine snap straight.
"You're going to apologize," a low, confident voice said, followed by a distinct thump.
Seraphyne's head whipped around.
There she was. Ellise.
She bravely confronted the guys who humiliated the servant. "What's a dismissed daughter of a marquis gonna do, huh?" the leader mocked.
Ellise crossed her arms and smirk, "If you beat me at arm wrestling, I'm going to buy you and your pals how many drinks you want. But if I beat you, you're going to apologize to this lady and you and your friends clean dishes for the rest of the week."
The guy, confident that he will easily win, grinned and agreed immediately.
The arm wrestling began and people shouts for the ones they're rooting for. The guy was confused as to why he hasn't won yet and immediately add force, but it proved futile. Ellise smirks as she give more force and ended the wrestling with a win.
Everyone cheered for her, including Seraphyne and Prince Elliot who enjoyed the show.
The guys apologized to the servant and to Ellise, promising they will not do it again to anyone. Crowds gave praises to Ellise for doing such deed. Seraphyne caught a glimpse of a small fascination in Prince Elliot's eyes as he stared to Ellise yet again.
"Well, I know for a fact that this could happen."
The waitress—barely more than a girl—stood behind Ellise, eyes wide with gratitude and disbelief.
Seraphyne and Prince Elliot decided to approach and praise Ellise. A few seats away when Ellise notice them. A slight and very unnoticeable frown crossed her face when she saw Elliot with Seraphyne, but she smiled nonetheless.
"Well, well," she said, approaching their table. "Didn't think the prince and his sugarplum would be dining out tonight."
Seraphyne stood. "You were amazing. Those guys were so full of themselves."
"Just needed a reminder that no means no," Ellise said, brushing invisible dust from her shoulder. "And that I work out."
Claire laughed—genuinely this time. "Come sit with us."
Elliot blinked. "Yes. Please. Join us."
Ellise arched an eyebrow. "Sure. I'm starving after saving the proletariat."
---
Dinner was warm, loud, and unexpectedly delightful.
Ellise, now free of the earlier tension, sat across from Seraphyne and Elliot, digging into a bowl of stew like she hadn't eaten in a week. "This place always smelled good from the docks," she said between bites. "Didn't expect it to live up to it."
"You handled those dock thugs like you've done it before," Seraphyne said, propping her chin on her hand.
Ellise shrugged. "Too many men in this kingdom mistake size for authority."
"I mistake size for needing more soup," Seraphyne quipped, passing her a second bowl.
Elliot watched the exchange with a slight frown. "Should I be concerned that neither of you finds that altercation alarming?"
"Oh, Prince Elliot," Seraphyne said with a sugar-sweet smile. "This is Lady Ellise we're talking about. She could arm-wrestle a stone wall and win."
Ellise raised her spoon in salute. "That's canon now."
Conversation soon turned to lighter topics. Seraphyne, caught in the comfort of good food and good company, found herself asking, "So what were you like as a child?"
Ellise blinked. "You want the truth or the public relations version?"
"I want the version where you were weird and chaotic," Seraphyne said with a grin.
"Oh, good," Ellise said, smirking. "Because when I was nine, I tried to trick my brother, Arthur, that one of the flowers planted in our garden is a healing flower, but yeah, it's not. It's just a regular flower. Then the day after that, he fell sick and insisted he should take the flower as a medicine and it would heal him. He threw a huge tantrum over that because father refused to give it to him and said it was all made up. Father was fuming mad at me, and still the best part is, Arthur still ate a petal of that flower."
"What happened to Arthur after?" Elliot asks in curiousity.
"He choked. Made a fool out of himself, saying "Should I made this as a tea first?"
Seraphyne laughed, nearly snorting into her drink. "That's amazing. I once climbed a haystack to spy on my tutor, whom I suspiciously thought was having an affair to one of our maidservant, and got stuck. They thought I'd been kidnapped. A goose found me before the guards did."
"I'm sensing a theme," Ellise said. "You and wrong gossips. Me and poor decision-making."
They exchanged more oddball childhood tales—half exaggerated, half plausible—with an ease that surprised even Claire. They hadn't grown up together, but there was an odd comfort in knowing each had survived their own strange corner of the world.
Meanwhile, Elliot sat between them, looking increasingly like a man who had wandered into a conversation that required a secret password.
At one point, Ellise turned to him and asked, "And you, Your Highness? Any haystack incidents?"
Elliot cleared his throat, straightening stiffly. "I once… fell into a decorative fountain during a garden ball."
There was a pause.
"Did you at least land gracefully?" Seraphyne asked.
"I was seven."
"Ah," Ellise said, nodding gravely. "No grace, then."
Seraphyne gave an exaggerated look of sympathy. "Tragic. The fountain must still speak of you."
"It does," Elliot muttered. "My brother had it renamed 'The Royal Plunge.'"
Ellise burst out laughing, and even Seraphyne couldn't help but join in.
For the first time in a while, Claire felt entirely herself beneath the glittering persona of Seraphyne—not the heroine on a leash, not the careful manipulator of fate, just someone enjoying an unlikely evening with someone she'd once idolized.
And though Elliot looked mildly betrayed by the laughter, even he softened by the end of dessert.
As Ellise stood to leave, she gave Seraphyne a parting glance and a smirk. "Let me know next time you're up for bad food and good gossip."
"Only if you bring another arm-wrestling victory," Seraphyne said.
"I never lose."
With that, she was gone into the night.
Elliot offered his arm again, and Seraphyne took it, feeling oddly lighter.
"She's... intense," he said.
"She's everything," Claire muttered under her breath, and when he gave her a questioning look, she just smiled. "Let's go home. You leave for the Capital first thing in the morning."
And as the day ended and another one came, Prince Elliot departed to return to the Empire's Capital to report to father.