The declaration did not end debate; it transformed it. In the days that followed, the capital became a living forum, every street and salon alive with discussion. Merchants argued tariffs over spiced wine. Artisans debated charters in crowded workshops. Scholars filled lecture halls with speculation about reforms that had once seemed impossible. Even the palace corridors echoed with quieter, sharper conversations, where ambition recalibrated itself in response to a new reality.
Celestia watched all of it from a deliberate distance.
She spent her mornings in council, not issuing commands but listening—truly listening—as ministers struggled to adapt their language from entitlement to justification. Some failed. Others surprised her. Names were quietly marked in her memory, not as allies or enemies, but as variables whose future usefulness would depend on their willingness to evolve.
In the afternoons, she walked the city in disguise.
