The tenth anniversary address marked an end rather than a climax. In the days that followed, the palace did not fill with celebrations or commemorations. Instead, it settled into a quieter vigilance, as though the empire itself understood that endurance required attention even when no crisis announced itself.
Celestia returned to routine with deliberate steadiness. Petitions were reviewed each morning. Councils convened twice weekly. Provincial reports arrived in stacks that bore no ceremony, only consequence. She read them all. The habit had long since ceased to feel burdensome; it was simply the shape her days had taken.
Yet succession, once written into her private ledger, began to surface in subtler ways.
