He was not, as I’d first thought he might be, waiting at the docks. I might have thought this normal protocol, except for the clear anxiety of the representative the governor had sent from the palace. She was a tall, thin woman, dressed smartly, her long black hair braided down her back. She bowed, then nearly bowed again as I descended the gangplank, Thrana at my side.

“Eminence,” she said, and then licked her lips. “The governor has sent me to greet you and to guide you to his palace.”

I flicked my gaze down the docks and saw no other members of her party. She’d come alone then. “Riya’s governor did not think to greet me himself?”

And then she did bow again. “Forgive me – him – Eminence. There is a hill and he has weak knees.”

I exchanged glances with Jovis. He pressed his lips together, his eyebrows raised and gave me the tiniest of shrugs. So I wasn’t the only one who found this all odd. I could demand the governor come himself to greet me, and wait aboard my ship, but he also had little incentive to make the trek. I had my retinue of guards, but the constructs were no longer under my control. I knew what he meant to say by this reception: we are doing perfectly fine without you, thank you.

My temper flared; a thrum started in my bones, but I tamped it down. I had to keep control of myself. I hadn’t brought a palanquin, and clearly the governor hadn’t sent one. He couldn’t have known I’d leapt from rooftop to rooftop at the Imperial palace. I might have been dressed fit to weigh down a strongman, but I could walk.

“Very well. Lead the way, and we will follow.”

The boards of the dock creaked beneath me as we walked, the dark, sinuous shapes of fish darting away at our shadows. Our guide said nothing as she led us into the streets of Riya’s largest city.

The streets here were wider than they were in Imperial, the stones rougher and less worn away by time. People gave way before us, bowing as they saw my headdress. There was something perfunctory and wary in the way they did it, but how could I fault them? They didn’t know me. I hadn’t done anything for them yet except put a halt to the Tithing Festival, and I’d done that only a short time ago.

Thrana pressed a shoulder to my knee, and I reached to put a steadying hand on her head. Behind me, I heard the maidservants halt to switch carrying duties with two of my guards, the bottom of the chest scraping the cobblestones as they set it down.

I gritted my teeth.