"I’ll give you the full list. For now — what’s the current capacity for integrating people who have physical capability but no administrative experience?"

He considered this genuinely, which was one of the reasons she had kept him. "We can absorb perhaps twenty without disruption to current operations, if we structure it correctly. More than that and we’d need to expand the supervisory layer first."

"Expand the supervisory layer," she said. "Give me a proposal by tomorrow morning."

He bowed and left.

She picked up her pen.

The beast knights who had been under Mahir and Ken’s direct influence numbered, by her count, thirty-one. Of those, perhaps six had achieved something close to full independent control — she had observed them over the past days, watched the quality of their decision-making, noted the ones whose actions seemed to originate from themselves versus the ones who were still operating with the particular quality of people whose choices are being shaped by something outside themselves. It was not a clean line. It was never a clean line with the collar situation.

But Mahir and Ken themselves had full control. That much was clear. That was, in some ways, the more complicated problem — because full control meant full accountability, which meant full consequence, which meant she needed to be precise about what she did with them and when and in what order.

She was not a forgiving person by nature. She was also not a wasteful one. Mahir and Ken in a dungeon were a resource sitting unused. Mahir and Ken in logistics were a message, a management solution, and a resource in active use simultaneously.

The ones who had partial control were a different category. They were not fully responsible for themselves yet, which meant treating them as fully responsible was both unjust and strategically imprecise. You did not punish a tool for how it had been used. You secured it, redirected it, and monitored it until you understood it clearly enough to make a better decision.

She drafted the orders.

Every beast knight associated with Mahir and Ken’s network — partial control or full — was to be reassigned, effective immediately, to the imperial logistics division, the infrastructure maintenance corps, and the administrative supply offices. Not discharged. Not imprisoned. Not degraded in title. Simply moved — from positions with military authority and physical power over people, to positions where their specific capabilities made them useful and where the scope of any individual decision they could make was limited to things like inventory reconciliation and supply route planning.

They would have ranks. They would have duties. They would be paid.

They would have no command over soldiers, no authority in any security context, no role in anything that placed them between her and any of the decisions she needed to make freely.

She wrote it cleanly, signed it, and sealed it.

Then she set it aside for the afternoon messenger and returned to the grain contract review that she had been in the middle of when the logistics administrator had arrived.

The beast knights would receive their new assignments by evening. Some of them would be angry. That was fine — anger was information, and information was useful, and she would read who was angry and how and about what with the same attention she gave to everything else.

Mahir and Ken she would deal with separately, in her own time, when she had finished deciding what that looked like.

They had time.

The dungeon was dry. The ventilation was adequate.

They could wait.

The history books always paint the life of an Empress in shades of gold and glory, but nobody mentions the paperwork. For Elara, the last fifteen days hadn’t just passed; they had vanished into a vortex of tax reforms, border disputes, and endless petitions. Time didn’t flow in the palace; it flew at a breakneck speed that left everyone gasping for air.

The palace was currently a ghost town of the living dead. **Demerti**, her chief administrator, had collapsed twice in the hallway—guards simply carried him to a sofa and left him there to twitch. **Nadia**, usually the picture of perfection, was vibrating on pure caffeine, her eyes surrounded by dark circles so heavy she looked more like a panda than a high official. The nobility, usually a brave and haughty bunch, now scurried away whenever they saw an administrator coming. It was the first time in imperial history that a pen-wielding clerk was more terrifying than a sword-wielding general.

Finally, Elara hit her breaking point. She declared a vacation. But Elara’s brain wasn’t wired for "relaxing" in a garden. Her version of a getaway? Checking on the high-profile prisoners in the deepest, darkest hole of the empire.

The descent was promising. The air grew musty, the torches flickered against damp stone walls, and the heavy iron doors groaned with the weight of centuries. But the moment Elara pushed open the heavy oak door to the main cell, her jaw dropped.

"Is this... a joke?" she whispered.

Beside her, the Shadow Guards shrugged in unison, their movements awkward. One muttered, "Ancestral design, Your Majesty. We just work here."

From the outside, it was a tomb. Inside, it was a **luxury presidential suite**. Plush velvet rugs covered the stone floor, a kitchenette was stocked with high-end spices, and the "cell" featured a lounge area that would make a Duke jealous.

**Mahir** and **Ken** were making themselves right at home. In fact, Ken was currently wearing an apron, mid-sautee, while Mahir lounged with a book. When they saw her, Mahir’s face lit up. His tail began to wag with a rhythmic *thump-thump* against the expensive upholstery.

"Ah, Your Majesty!" Mahir beamed, looking entirely too refreshed. "Have you finally found a moment in your busy schedule for us lowly prisoners?"

Elara sighed, the weight of her 15-day marathon settling in her bones. She noticed the chains on their ankles—the only thing reminding her this was a prison—though they were long enough to let them reach the stove and the bookshelf.

As she stepped inside, the Shadow Guards pulled their usual vanishing act, melting into the corners so fast it was like they’d never existed. Elara ignored the theatrics and sank into a nearby sofa, leaning her head on her hand. She looked at the two men, who looked disgustingly well-rested.

"So," she drawled, her voice dry. "How’s life? You two look... annoyingly fit."

Ken turned the heat down on his pan, offering a cheeky grin. "Well, once we realized the revolution was on hold, we had to find ways to pass the time. It’s been quite productive, actually. We thought you’d check on us sooner, but we counted fifteen days since your last visit."

Elara raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You’ve been counting? In a room with no windows and no clocks? I’m impressed."

"Our minds have to stay sharp for *something*, Your Majesty," Mahir replied, his smile widening. "One develops a rhythm."

Elara’s expression went from weary to ice-cold in a split second. The "tired boss" persona vanished, replaced by the Empress who had just survived a fortnight of political warfare.

"Uh-huh," she said, her voice dropping an octave. **"So, tell me. After two weeks in this... ’hell hole’... how do you guys actually feel?"** 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The air in the luxury suite suddenly felt a lot more like a dungeon.