I turned fully toward Yuki.

  She wasn’t even breathing, just tracking every flicker of light off the Paw’s surface like a fox who’d finally found the celestial chicken it had been hunting its whole life.

  “So,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Are you ready for this?”

  Her head snapped toward me so fast her hair fluttered. “Yes! Absolutely! I—”

  “You’ll need a team,” I cut in before she could sprint into the Labyrinth alone and lose the quest. “A real team. At minimum: a healer and someone who hits like a truck. Dungeons, or… well, labyrinths don’t care about enthusiasm.”

  I crossed my arms mentally, sorting through my Rimebreak roster. “We could ask Fty. Or—”

  “I’ll ask Phèdre and Tramar!” Yuki declared, bouncing like a solar-powered rubber ball.

  I blinked.

  Opened my mouth. Closed it. Reopened it. Closed it again. “Are... you sure?” I glanced at Lola for backup, but she only smiled with that serene, terrifying confidence that said she had faith in me.

  “Yes!” Yuki chirped. “Phèdre was really nice today! She helped deliver the confiscated goods from the Grandmasters—oh, and I’ll invite Tramar. He’s a friend! He promised to help me!”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Yuki...” She looked up, grinning. “Just... be careful how you phrase things, okay?” I said. “When kingdoms do it, we call it confiscation. When thieves do it, it’s stolen loot.”

  Her face dropped slightly. “But isn’t it kind of both?”

  I turned to the custodian as if I desperately needed parental validation. “Help me out here?”

  The custodian’s expression shifted through several emotions: surprise, consideration, then something that looked almost like reluctant amusement. He adjusted his grip on the preservation cloth, weighing his words carefully.

  “Technically, Your Majesty,” he began, his tone measured, “the terminology depends entirely on perspective and the legitimacy of authority.” He glanced at the relics surrounding us. “Under established rule, seizure of assets by crown authority is ‘confiscation’ or ‘requisition.’ Legal. Documented. Part of the historical record.”

  He paused, and I caught the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth; not quite a smile, but close.

  “However,” he continued, “if the previous regime is considered illegitimate, which, given recent events, the Grandmaster system arguably was, then you are simply recovering assets wrongfully held by a deposed government.” His fingers drummed once against the cloth. “The archives contain precedent for both interpretations, depending on which historian you ask and which regime commissioned the work.”

  He cleared his throat delicately. “In my professional opinion, as Keeper of Records? Call it ‘repatriation of state property’ in official documentation. Far more dignified than either ‘confiscation’ or...” he glanced at Yuki with mild exasperation, “...’stolen loot.’”

  The custodian began carefully re-wrapping the Twilight Paw. “Though I must note, Your Majesty, historically speaking, what matters isn’t what you call it. It’s whether future custodians defend your actions or condemn them.” He met my eyes. “Proper documentation helps considerably with that.”

  I glanced at the paw. “You realize Yuki needs the paw, right? For opening The Fox’s Labyrinth.”

  The custodian’s hands froze mid-wrap, the preservation cloth hanging loose between his fingers. His face went through a series of expressions, shock, then alarm, then something that looked like a scholar watching someone propose burning the library for warmth.

  “Your Majesty,” he drawled, his voice strained, “this relic has been in Altandai’s possession for a long time. It has survived wars, fires, floods, and—” he shot a meaningful look at the priests hauling crates in the background, “—enthusiastic clergy. It is catalogued. Protected. Part of our institutional memory.”

  His grip on the cloth tightened, knuckles pale. “To remove it from the collection would be...” He trailed off, clearly searching for words diplomatic enough not to sound like he was refusing his new Queen.

  “Devastating,” he finally settled on and looked down at the softly glowing Paw like it was a child he was being asked to hand over to strangers. “Are you... are you sure, Your Majesty?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “This is a piece of history, yes, but the fox doesn’t have closure. It’s an invitation, after all.” I gestured at the relic. “And you need a ticket to show up. What’s the point of keeping an invitation in a drawer for Saevrin knows how many years when someone’s finally ready to RSVP?”

  The custodian opened his mouth, closed it, then looked helplessly at the Paw as if it might defend itself.

  “Yuki will be careful,” I added, turning to her. “Right?”

  “Of course!” Yuki nodded with the solemn energy of a fox swearing an oath before the woodland council. “I will be very careful. I promise on my light magic and my—” She noticed the custodian’s stricken expression and immediately lowered her voice, pressing her hands together like a supplicant. “I’ll treat it as if it’s the most precious thing in the world.”

  The custodian still hesitated, the Paw cradled against his chest now, wrapped only halfway. His eyes searched Yuki’s face, looking for… what? Proof she understood? A sign of her worthiness?

  Then, with the reluctance usually reserved for parents sending their child off to war, he slowly extended the relic toward her.

  Yuki’s hands came up, but instead of grabbing it eagerly, she paused. Waited. Her fingers hovered just above the cloth, trembling slightly. “May I?” she whispered.

  The custodian’s expression softened, just a fraction. He placed the wrapped Paw into her waiting hands with the care of someone transferring a newborn.

  Yuki immediately cradled it against her chest, both hands supporting it from beneath. She bowed deeply to the custodian; the paw held steady throughout the motion.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’ll bring it back. I promise. And I’ll tell you everything I learn.”

  The custodian watched her, tension slowly bleeding from his shoulders. He exhaled long and shakily, and nodded once. “See that you do,” he said, voice rough. Then, quieter: “And... perhaps the Sun Fox has been waiting all this time for someone exactly like you.”

  Yuki’s eyes went starry again, but this time she didn’t bounce. She just held the paw closer and smiled.

  “I think it’s time to check on Dhriti,” Lola interrupted us. “Maybe the temple survived?”

  I nodded, already turning toward the door. The custodian blinked, glancing at the paw, but I was already walking. He’d follow. They always did.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  That’s how queens worked, right? You just... walked, and people followed.

  The stairs descended in a wide spiral, each step carved from the same rose-tinted marble as everything else in this city. The walls were lined with alcoves holding busts of past Grandmasters, each one managing to look both heroic and insufferable at the same time. Their stone eyes tracked us as we passed, judging our footwear and class picks.

  The custodian hurried ahead, his earlier nervousness replaced by something almost like pride. “This passage,” he said, voice echoing softly, “leads to the Grand Reception Hall. It was built during the Second Dynasty, when Altandai first declared itself a power worth recognizing.”

  He gestured as we walked, pointing out details I’d have missed otherwise. “The ceiling alone took seventeen years to complete. Forty artisans worked in shifts. Every panel tells a story, the founding, the first trade agreement, the—”

  “Is it fancy?” I cut in.

  He stopped mid-sentence, blinking. “It is... the finest example of—”

  “So yes,” I said, grinning. “Got it. Fancy.”

  Lola stifled a laugh behind her clipboard. The custodian looked like he wanted to file a formal complaint but wasn’t sure to whom to submit it.

  The stairs finally opened onto a grand hallway, wider than some streets I’d walked through. Columns lined both sides, each one carved with spiraling patterns that seemed to shift in the candlelight. Frescoes stretched across the walls; battles, coronations, banquets where everyone looked slightly too happy to be eating.

  A massive door stood at the end of the hall. “And that...” His voice softened with reverence. “That is the Grand Reception Hall.”

  The door itself was a work of art, gilded oak reinforced with bronze bands, each panel carved with scenes of celebration. Dancing figures, musicians, endless tables laden with food. Even the doorknobs were shaped like clasped hands.

  I reached for it.

  “Wait,” the custodian said quickly, stepping forward. “You must understand, Your Majesty. This room has hosted kings, emperors, ambassadors from across the world. The ceiling is painted with constellations that align perfectly with the summer solstice. The floor is inlaid with—”

  I pushed the door open.

  The Grand Reception Hall stretched out before us, vast enough to swallow sound. The ceiling soared three stories high, every inch covered in intricate paintings: Saevrin, stars, mythical beasts frozen mid-flight. Chandeliers hung like crystalline galaxies, their unlit candles waiting for some grand occasion that might never come again.

  The walls were lined with tapestries so old they probably remembered when Altandai was just a village with only one bar. Marble columns held up archways that framed alcoves filled with sculptures… dancers or philosophers caught in eternal poses.

  And the floor...

  The floor was a mosaic masterpiece. Thousands of tiny tiles formed patterns that flowed like water, geometric designs spiraling outward from the center where a golden sun blazed in permanent noon.

  The custodian stood in the doorway, hands clasped, practically vibrating with pride. “This room has witnessed seven coronations, twelve royal weddings, and the signing of the First Continental Accord and the grandmasters agreed to keep the history—”

  He stopped.

  We all stopped.

  Because in the middle of this temple to grandeur, this monument to Altandai’s golden age...

  ...was a cart.

  A wooden, rickety, completely ordinary supply cart, loaded with tools, paint cans, and what looked like several rolls of blue cloth. It sat there like a peasant who’d wandered into a diamond mine, utterly out of place and somehow not caring.

  And from beyond the door at the far end of the hall, the one that probably led to the temple, came a sound.

  Whirrrrrrrrr.

  A drill.

  Definitely a drill.

  “What is this?!” The custodian’s voice cracked as he staggered forward, face going from pink to pale to a shade of white I didn’t know elves could achieve. “How—how did they know about the service access?!” He gestured wildly at the cart. “How did they get an entire cart down here?!”

  I opened my mouth.

  Closed it.

  Opened it again.

  “Lola,” I asked. “Did we... give them a map?”

  She checked her clipboard, flipping through pages with the calm of someone who’d accepted chaos as a lifestyle. “No map. Just general directions. You even asked her not to touch anything.”

  The custodian whirled toward us, eyes wide. “The service access has been sealed for decades! Only the custodians know—” He froze. “Unless...”

  “Unless?” I prompted.

  “Unless someone told them,” he whispered, as if speaking it aloud would summon more carts.

  From beyond the door, the drill sound intensified, joined by the unmistakable clang of hammers and Dhriti’s voice shouting instructions in what I could only assume was Enthusiastic Contractor.

  I sighed, patted the custodian on the shoulder as I walked past him toward the far door. “Well,” I said, “let’s see what my priests are building now.”

  Behind me, I heard him whisper: “The floor... they wheeled a cart... across the sun...”

  “It’s fine!” I called back. “Probably.”

  Lola fell into step beside me, and I caught the hint of a smile tugging at her lips.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing, Lady,” she said innocently. “Just... very queenly.”

  I flicked a tiny snowball at her clipboard.

  She didn’t even flinch.

  The door swung open, and I stopped so abruptly that Lola almost walked into my back.

  Chaos.

  Pure, unadulterated, architectural chaos.

  The space beyond wasn’t a temple, it was a construction site having an identity crisis. Four separate temple chambers, once divided by ornate walls, were now bleeding into each other like someone had taken a sledgehammer to history and called it “renovations.”

  Priests in blue robes scurried everywhere, hauling chunks of debris, rolling carts loaded with broken statuary, shouting measurements that made no sense. Dust hung in the air like a guilty conscience, illuminated by shafts of light from windows I was pretty sure weren’t supposed to exist yet.

  And the sound—

  Not drills. Not exactly.

  These were staves. Long, crystal-tipped rods that hummed with a low, thrumming energy that made my teeth itch. A priest pointed one at a section of wall, and the hum deepened into something almost predatory. The stone in front of it... dissolved. Not crumbled, not shattered, just ceased, pulled into the staff’s tip like the world’s angriest vacuum.

  Then, with a mechanical chunk, the staff spat the material out behind the wielder as a perfect cube of compressed stone. Neat. Efficient. Utterly horrifying if you cared about preservation.

  The custodian made a sound like a teakettle about to explode.

  I stepped inside slowly, heels crunching on stone dust. My eyes tracked the destruction—no, the transformation—happening in real time. Walls that had probably stood for centuries were being erased like bad handwriting.

  “Dhriti?” I said, my voice dangerously slow.

  She turned, and her face lit up.

  Not with guilt. Not with “oh no, I messed up.”

  No.

  She smiled at me like she’d just seen the dawn break over a mountain, like I was the answer to every prayer she’d ever whispered.

  Ugh. Hard to get used to.

  “We’re joining the temples together, just like he said!” She pointed triumphantly at the custodian, who stood frozen in the doorway, looking like his soul had filed for divorce. “It’s really easy!”

  The custodian finally found his voice. “I meant, there could be doors added to connect them structurally, to maintain the—” His hands fluttered helplessly. “To be like... a unified complex, not—”

  He gestured at the carnage, utterly lost.

  I cut him off, turning my full attention to Dhriti. “What are you doing?” My tone was flat, cold. “I told you not to touch anything before I inspect it.”

  She nodded enthusiastically, as if I’d just complimented her logistics. “I know! I’m not touching anything!” She gestured around the room at the dozen priests currently touching everything. “I’m just telling them what to do!”

  I stared at her.

  She beamed back.

  “Dhriti,” I said slowly, “that’s still touching things. With extra steps.”

  Her smile faltered. “But... we’re being efficient! Look—” She pointed at a priest using his staff to neatly cube a door. “We’re not wasting anything! Every piece gets stored, and we can rebuild it however you want later!”

  “That’s not—” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “That’s not the point.”

  Behind me, the custodian whimpered.

  Lola stepped forward, clipboard at the ready. “Lady,” she said gently, “perhaps we should assess the situation before—”

  Another chunk echoed through the chamber as a support beam became three cubes.

  I exhaled slowly, counted to five, and looked at Dhriti again. “Stop. All of it. Right now.”

  Her ears drooped. “But—”

  “Right. Now.“

  She turned, raised her hand, and shouted: “EVERYONE STOP!”

  The humming ceased. The priests froze mid-cube. Dust settled.

  Silence.

  I stepped further into the room, surveying the damage. Four temples, partially deconstructed. Walls half-gone. Sacred spaces turned into storage problems.

  “Okay,” I said. “Everybody out. Leave the staves. We’ll figure this out after I’ve actually seen what we’re working with.”

  The priests bowed, filed out in sheepish silence.

  Dhriti stood in the center of the wreckage, looking like a dog who’d eaten the couch and couldn’t understand why everyone was upset.

  I walked over, put a hand on her shoulder. “Dhriti,” I said, softer now, “I know you’re excited. But slow down. Please.”

  She nodded, eyes shimmering. “I just wanted to make it perfect for you.”

  “I know,” I said. “But perfect takes time.”

  She sniffled, then brightened. “So... we can join the temples?”

  I glanced at the custodian, who looked ready to faint.

  “With planning,” I said firmly. “And doors. Lots of doors.”