Chapter 93 – Are You Happy, Princess? (3)
Day One: Wake the Naive Princess
The morning came too early.
Olivia had finally fallen asleep sometime before dawn, her mind a tangle of half-moons and distant sounds and questions she didn't have answers to.
When the knock came at her door, she jolted awake, disoriented.
"Your Highness?" A servant's voice, polite and distant. "Lord Milton requests your presence. Breakfast has been prepared."
She sat up, rubbing her eyes.
Five days, she reminded herself.
She'd agreed to five days.
She dressed quickly—simple clothes, not the elaborate gowns she wore in court. Something practical. Something that wouldn't mark her as princess the moment anyone looked at her.
When she descended to the dining hall, she found Erynd alone.
No Tamara. No Lyra. No Noelle.
Just him, sitting at a long table with two plates of food and a pot of tea steaming between them.
He looked up when she entered.
"Good morning," he said.
His voice was neutral. Polite. As if last night hadn't happened.
As if she hadn't stood outside his door listening to—
She pushed the thought away and took the seat across from him.
"Good morning," she replied.
They ate in silence for a few minutes.
The food was good—fresh bread, eggs, fruit that tasted like it had been picked that morning. Better than palace food, somehow. Less elaborate, but more *real*.
Finally, he set down his fork.
"I'm going to show you something today," he said. "Something I don't think you've seen before."
She raised an eyebrow.
"And what's that?"
"My people," he said simply. "The commoners under my protection. The ones who live here, in the reclaimed marches."
She frowned.
"I've seen commoners before," she said. "The palace is full of them. Servants, guards, craftsmen—"
"No," he interrupted gently. "You've seen people who serve you. That's not the same thing."
Her jaw tightened.
"I'm not ignorant, Erynd," she said. "I know what commoner life is like."
"Do you?" he asked.
The question wasn't mocking.
It was genuine.
She opened her mouth to say *yes, of course I do*—and stopped.
Because the truth was… she didn't know.
Not really.
She knew what the reports said. She knew the statistics—grain production, tax revenue, population numbers. She knew when there were shortages, when there were surpluses, when things were "stable" or "concerning."
But she'd never actually *seen* it.
Not with her own eyes.
Erynd watched her internal struggle with something that might have been sympathy.
"Come on," he said, standing. "Let me show you."
***
They walked.
Out of the main estate, through the inner courtyard, past the training yards where Awakened and non-Awakened sparred side by side.
Past the workshops where she could hear hammering, the hiss of steam, voices calling out measurements and corrections.
Past the mills, the granaries, the strange buildings with pipes running along their sides and that odd, steady hum she still couldn't place.
And then, past the inner walls.
Into the outer settlements.
The first thing she noticed was the houses.
Small. Simple. Wood and stone, practical rather than beautiful. But they were *solid*. Roofs that didn't sag. Walls without gaps. Windows with glass—actual glass, not just shutters.
Children played in the streets.
Not the carefully supervised play of noble children, always watched, always corrected.
*Real* play. Dirty, loud, chaotic. A group of boys kicked a ball made of wrapped cloth. Two girls chased each other, shrieking with laughter. A toddler sat in the dirt, stacking rocks with intense concentration.
Adults moved through the streets with purpose.
A woman carried a basket of vegetables. A man repaired a wagon wheel. An older couple sat outside their door, talking quietly, hands linked.
Everyone she saw looked… *fed*.
Not plump. Not pampered.
But their cheeks had color. Their eyes were clear. Their clothes were worn but clean.
She slowed, taking it in.
Erynd stopped beside her.
"So," he said quietly. "Olivia. Do you see all of these people? Those are my people. Under my protection. Commoners."
She nodded slowly.
"They look…" She searched for the word. "Well. They look well."
"They are," he agreed. "They have food. Shelter. Work. Safety. The basics."
He turned to face her.
"So tell me, Princess," he said. "Is this how it should be?"
She blinked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean exactly what I said," he replied. "Look at them. Look at how they live. Is this the standard? Is this what commoners deserve? Or is this exceptional?"
She frowned, confused.
"I… I suppose this is good," she said slowly. "This is how things should be, isn't it? People should have food and shelter and—"
"Should," he echoed. "But do they?"
"Of course they—" She stopped.
Because the answer wasn't *of course*.
The answer was… she didn't know.
"The reports say—" she started.
"The reports are written by people who've never set foot in a slum," he interrupted. "By people who measure success in tax revenue and 'acceptable mortality rates.' By people who think 'stable' means 'not actively rioting.'"
His voice was calm. Too calm.
"Come with me," he said. "I want to show you something else."
"What?" she asked.
"The capital," he said. "The real capital. Not the palace district. Not the merchant quarters. The parts you've never seen."
Her heart skipped.
"That's three days by carriage," she said. "We can't just—"
"Who said anything about a carriage?" he asked.
Before she could respond, he stepped closer.
Slipped one arm behind her back, the other under her knees.
"Wait—what are you—"
He lifted her.
Princess carry.
Her face burned.
"Erynd, what are you—"
"Hold on," he said.
And then the world *lurched*.
***
She felt it before she understood it.
A pull. Upward. Like invisible hands grabbing them both and *yanking*.
They shot into the air.
She shrieked, arms locking around his neck, eyes squeezed shut.
Wind roared past them—except it didn't.
She should have been buffeted, should have felt the air tearing at her clothes and hair.
Instead, there was just… pressure. Steady. Controlled.
She cracked one eye open.
And immediately regretted it.
They were *high*.
Impossibly high.
The estate below looked like a child's toy. The trees were dots. The roads were lines.
And they were *moving*.
Fast.
Faster than any horse. Faster than any carriage. Faster than anything should be able to move.
The landscape blurred beneath them—fields, forests, villages, rivers—all smearing together into a streak of green and brown and blue.
"What—how—" she gasped.
"Vector magic," he said. His voice was steady, conversational, as if they weren't hurtling through the sky at speeds that should be impossible. "Creates a directional force. I'm pulling us forward. Wind magic handles propulsion. And I'm using vector manipulation to null out air resistance and drag. From the ground, we'd look like a flying human. Crude, but effective."
"This is insane!" she shouted over the wind that somehow wasn't touching them.
"This is efficient," he corrected. "Three days by carriage. One hour this way."
She buried her face in his shoulder and held on.
***
An hour later—though it felt like both seconds and eternity—they descended.
Not gently.
He dropped them fast, decelerating at the last possible moment, landing in a crouch that jarred her teeth but didn't break anything.
He set her down.
Her legs wobbled.
She grabbed his arm to steady herself, head spinning.
"I hate you," she gasped.
"You'll get used to it," he said.
She looked around, trying to orient herself.
They were in the capital.
She recognized the skyline—the palace in the distance, the great cathedral, the noble quarter with its white stone and manicured gardens.
But they weren't *in* those places.
They were… somewhere else.
The buildings around them were cramped. Narrow. Leaning against each other like exhausted travelers. The streets were packed dirt, not cobblestone. The air smelled wrong—smoke and rot and something sour she couldn't name.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"The slums," Erynd said quietly. "The eastern edge. One of the worst districts in the capital."
She stared.
She'd heard of the slums, of course.
She'd read reports.
*"Poverty levels elevated but manageable."*
*"Crime rates within acceptable parameters."*
*"Mortality slightly above average but not cause for alarm."*
Numbers. Statistics. Ink on paper.
This was… not that.
"Come on," Erynd said. "Walk with me. And look. Really look."
***
They walked.
And she looked.
She wished she hadn't.
The first thing she saw was a child.
Couldn't have been more than six or seven. Sitting in the doorway of a building that might have been a home or might have been a ruin—she couldn't tell.
The child's arms were too thin. Ribs visible through a torn shirt. Feet bare and filthy. Eyes huge in a face that was all sharp angles and hunger.
Olivia's steps faltered.
"Don't stop," Erynd said quietly. "Keep walking. There's more."
There was.
An old woman slumped against a wall, coughing wetly into a rag that was already stained dark. No one stopped to help her. People just… stepped around her. Like she was part of the scenery.
A man with one leg, begging. His cup had three copper coins in it. Three. For a whole day, maybe.
A group of children—too many to count—picking through a pile of refuse. Fighting over scraps. One of them found something that might have been food once and shoved it in his mouth before anyone could take it from him.
Olivia's stomach turned.
"This is…" She couldn't finish.
"This is the capital," Erynd said. His voice was flat. Hard. "This is the Empire you think you know. This is what 'manageable poverty' looks like when you actually stand in it."
They kept walking.
Past more children. More beggars. More people who looked like they were one bad day away from death.
Past a woman sitting in the dirt, holding a baby that wasn't moving. Wasn't crying. Just… still.
Olivia stopped.
"Is that baby—"
"Dead," Erynd said. "Probably. Or close enough that it doesn't matter."
Her hand flew to her mouth.
"We have to—someone has to—"
"Who?" he asked. "The guards? They don't patrol here unless there's a riot. The priests? They come once a month to offer prayers and leave before sunset. The nobles? They wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this."
He turned to face her.
"You eat three meals a day," he said. "Four, if you count afternoon tea. The palace kitchens throw away more food in a week than most of these people see in a year. You sleep in a bed with silk sheets. You have servants to dress you, bathe you, do your hair. You've never gone hungry. Never gone cold. Never wondered if you'd survive the winter."
His eyes were merciless.
"And you asked me if the people in my estate—fed, clothed, sheltered, *alive*—if that was 'how it should be,'" he said. "As if it was normal. As if it was the baseline. As if *this*—" He gestured at the street around them, at the suffering, at the death. "—wasn't the reality for most of the Empire."
Olivia's vision blurred.
She wasn't crying.
She refused to cry.
But her eyes burned and her throat was tight and her chest felt like someone had reached in and squeezed.
"I didn't know," she whispered.
"You didn't *look*," he corrected. "You sat in your palace reading reports that made this sound manageable. Acceptable. Just… numbers. Statistics. 'Elevated but not alarming.' Do these people look like a statistic to you?"
She shook her head mutely.
He kept going, relentless.
"You want to know why I don't come back to the palace?" he asked. "Why I don't play the part you remember? Why I can't just sit in council meetings and nod along while old men argue about tax policy? This. This is why. Because while you were eating pastries and attending temple services and learning etiquette, *this* was happening. Every single day. And no one cared. Because it's easier not to see."
She flinched like he'd struck her.
"That's not fair," she said, voice cracking. "I didn't—I couldn't—"
"You could have," he said. "You're a princess. You have access. You have power. You could have walked out of that palace any time you wanted and *looked*. But you didn't. Because it was uncomfortable. Because it was easier to believe the reports. Because deep down, you didn't want to know."
Tears spilled over.
She couldn't stop them.
"I'm sorry," she choked out. "I'm sorry, I didn't—"
"Don't apologize to me," he said. "Apologize to them. To every person who died while you sat in comfort thinking the world was fine."
She turned away, shoulders shaking.
Around them, the slums continued.
People starving. People dying. People suffering in ways she'd never imagined because she'd never had to.
And she—
She'd eaten well.
Slept well.
Lived well.
While they died.
The realization hit her like a physical blow.
She doubled over, hand pressed to her stomach, and retched.
Nothing came up. She hadn't eaten enough that morning.
But her body tried anyway, rejecting the weight of what she'd just seen, what she'd just learned.
Erynd's hand settled on her back.
Not comforting. Just… there.
"This is the truth," he said quietly. "This is what I'm trying to fix. This is why I built what I built. Why I can't come back and pretend. Why I need people who see this and can't unsee it. Who'll do something about it instead of writing another report and calling it 'manageable.'"
She straightened slowly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
Her face was blotchy. Her eyes red.
She looked at him.
"Why did you show me this?" she asked hoarsely.
"Because you asked if my people had it 'how it should be,'" he said. "I needed you to understand that 'how it should be' isn't normal. It's exceptional. It's what I've fought for. And it's still not enough."
He gestured at the slums around them.
"There are hundreds of places like this," he said. "Thousands. All across the Empire. I can't save them all. But I can save some. And I can make sure the people who have the power to save more—people like you—actually see what they're choosing to ignore."
She swallowed hard.
"You wanted to break me," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"I wanted to wake you up," he corrected. "If that breaks you, then you weren't strong enough to help anyway."
The cruelty of it took her breath away.
Not because it was mean.
Because it was *true*.
She thought of the palace. The reports. The meetings where they discussed "acceptable losses" and "manageable poverty" and "reasonable timelines for improvement."
She thought of her own comfort. Her own ignorance.
Her own *complicity*.
"I didn't know," she said again, quieter this time.
"Now you do," he said.
He held out his hand.
"Come on," he said. "Let's go back. You've seen enough for today."
She stared at his hand.
Then at the street around them.
At the child in the doorway. The woman with the dead baby. The man with one leg.
At all the suffering she'd never had to see before.
"No," she said.
He raised an eyebrow.
"No?"
"I want to see more," she said. Her voice was steadier now. Harder. "Show me all of it. Don't let me look away."
Something flickered in his eyes.
Respect, maybe.
Or satisfaction.
"Alright," he said. "But you're going to hate me by the end of this."
"I already hate you," she said.
"Good," he said. "That means you're paying attention."
They walked deeper into the slums.
And Olivia looked.
Really looked.
At every starving child. Every dying elder. Every broken body and shattered life.
She forced herself to see it all.
To remember it.
So that when she went back to the palace—if she went back—she'd never be able to forget.
***
Hours later, when the sun was starting to set and her feet ached and her soul felt scraped raw, he finally brought them back.
The flight was silent.
She didn't complain about the speed or the height or the way her stomach lurched.
She just held on and stared at nothing.
When they landed back at the estate, he set her down gently.
She swayed.
He caught her elbow.
"Steady," he said.
She looked up at him.
"Was it like that for you?" she asked quietly. "When you first saw?"
He was quiet for a long moment.
"Yes," he said finally. "And worse. Because I was younger. And alone. And no one had prepared me."
"How did you survive it?" she whispered.
"I got angry," he said simply. "And I decided I'd rather burn out trying to fix it than live comfortably while it continued."
She nodded slowly.
"I'm going to my room," she said. "I need… I need to think."
"Take your time," he said. "Four more days."
She walked away.
Her steps were mechanical. Numb.
Behind her, Erynd watched her go.
Melody appeared at his shoulder.
"That," she said quietly, "was the cruelest thing you've done yet."
"I know," he said.
"She'll never be the same," Melody said.
"I know," he said again.
"Was it worth it?"
He thought of the slums. The suffering. The Empire rotting from the inside while nobles argued about etiquette and tax rates.
He thought of Olivia's face when she'd seen the dead baby.
The way something in her had *cracked*.
"Ask me in four days," he said.
Melody faded.
He stood alone in the courtyard, watching the sun set over his reclaimed land.
Day one: complete.
The princess was awake now.
Awake and bleeding and starting to understand.
Four more days to finish the job.
Four more days to corrupt her completely.
He turned and walked back inside.
There was work to do.
There was always work to do.