She found she didn’t mind it.

This surprised her.

In the palace she had endured court functions as operational necessities. Lian Mei, apparently, found them mildly interesting.

She accepted a glass of something from a passing attendant and stood near the eastern wall and watched.

The emperor was across the room.

She had known he would be. She had positioned herself with the eastern wall specifically so she could see him at distance before proximity was required.

He was talking to three people — two men and a woman, all of them in the clothing of established noble houses, all of them in the specific posture of people who considered themselves essential to the person they were talking to. He was laughing. The laugh was easy, warm, the laugh of someone enjoying themselves.

She watched it.

The laugh was real. That was the first thing. She had spent three years watching performed laughter and this wasn’t that — there was something genuine in it, the kind of ease that came from actual amusement rather than the demonstration of amusement.

Which meant one of two things.

Either he was simply enjoying himself at a court reception.

Or he was very good.

She watched for another ten minutes.

He moved through the room with the quality of someone who was comfortable in it — stopping at different clusters, a word here, a laugh there, a hand on someone’s arm in the specific gesture of easy familiarity. People responded to him with the warmth that people had for someone they liked rather than someone they feared. She watched three different women’s faces when he spoke to them and all three of them had the expression of someone being genuinely charmed.

This was not what she had expected.

She had expected the puppet. The careful appropriate of a man being managed. The specific performance of authority without the substance of it.

This was — something else.

She was still looking when someone arrived at her elbow.

"Lian Mei," said a voice. "Of Liang Meridian."

She turned.

A man in his forties. Neat. The specific neatness of someone for whom presentation was professional rather than personal. He had the quality of a person who stood slightly too close for strangers and slightly too far for acquaintances, which placed him precisely in the category of someone who had learned to appear familiar without actually being familiar.

She recognized the type immediately.

Did not recognize the face.

"Yes," she said.

"Herol," he said. "Trade facilitation, court advisory office." He smiled. "You’re the Liang Meridian representative who filed the new textile contract."

"Among others," she said.

"Among others," he agreed pleasantly. "The trade commission spoke well of your documentation. Unusually thorough."

"I prefer things to be clear," she said.

"As does the court," he said. "Clear and — comprehensive." He paused. "Your company has been operating in the eastern provinces primarily. This is your first formal court introduction."

"Yes," she said.

He looked at her with the quality of someone who was assessing something under the surface of asking about something.

"The eastern trade routes have been difficult this year," he said. "The post-war disruption."

"They’ve stabilized," she said. "Slowly. The merchant infrastructure in Varen is recovering."

"And you found it worthwhile to extend to the capital," he said.

"The capital is where the significant contracts are," she said. "Liang Meridian has been building toward a capital presence for two years. It seemed like the appropriate time."

"Appropriate time," he said, tasting the phrase. "You chose the transition period. New administration, new trading relationships being established."

"New administrations create space," she said. "Established ones have established relationships. New ones are still forming theirs."

He smiled again.

"Practical," he said.

"Merchant," she said.

He laughed — a genuine laugh, which she noted because it was the first genuine thing he had done since he arrived at her elbow.

"The emperor is interested in the eastern trade routes specifically," Herol said. "The post-war reconstruction of the eastern infrastructure. Your company’s documentation on the provincial logistics — it’s been read with interest."

She looked at him.

’The provincial logistics documentation.’

She had filed that as part of the trade commission contract. It was Caius’s work, primarily — the eastern coastal logistics network, item sixteen, the mapping she had been building toward for months. She had filed it under Liang Meridian’s commission documentation because it was legitimately Liang Meridian’s commission documentation.

Someone had read it carefully enough to be interested in it.

"I’d be happy to discuss it," she said.

"I thought you might be," Herol said. And there was something in the way he said it — something under the pleasantness, something that she filed and did not react to — that she was going to think about later.

He moved on.

She watched him go.

’He was placed by someone,’ the system said quietly in her ear. ’The way he approached you was arranged.’

"Yes," she said, very quietly. "I know."

’’’

She met the emperor forty minutes later.

He came to her, which was not standard — at court receptions the guests were introduced to the emperor through formal channels, through the specific choreography of a reception that moved people toward the throne position in organized sequence.

He crossed the room.

Just — walked toward her. No attendants. No announcement. Just a man in his twenties in good clothes with the easy walk of someone who had been told his whole life that rooms were his to move through.

She watched him come and had the very specific experience of her prior assessment reorganizing itself in real time.

He was not the narrow quiet fourth prince of her memory.

He was — she reached for the right word — present. The kind of presence that existed in people who had been watching and absorbing for years and had arrived somewhere that gave the watching somewhere to go.

"Lian Mei," he said.

Not ’the merchant from Liang Meridian.’ Her name.

He had done his reading.

"Your Majesty," she said. The bow was correct — merchant deference, not court deference, the specific angle that her cover required.

He waved it off.

Not dismissively. Just — it didn’t seem to interest him, the performance of hierarchy. Which was either genuine or the best performance of genuine she had ever seen.

"The eastern logistics documentation," he said. Without preamble. "The coastal network mapping. Your company commissioned it."

"Yes," she said.

"It’s the most comprehensive external assessment of the eastern infrastructure I’ve seen," he said. "The official imperial surveys are—" He paused. "Not comprehensive."

"The official surveys haven’t been updated in twelve years," she said. "The infrastructure has changed significantly."

"I know," he said. "I’ve been trying to update them and finding that the people I’ve asked to update them have been giving me the surveys from twelve years ago with new dates on them."

She looked at him.

This was either remarkable honesty or a very sophisticated opening gambit.

"That’s a specific problem," she said carefully. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"It’s a specific problem," he agreed. "One of several." He looked at her with the quality of someone deciding how much to say and deciding on more than was standard. "I have advisors who are excellent at telling me what I want to hear. I have very few people who are useful."