They arrived the following morning, all seven of them, carried by separate messengers who had clearly not coordinated their arrival times and yet managed, with uncanny precision, to appear at the palace gate within twenty minutes of each other. Rania was informed of this by Oswin, who relayed it with the expression of a man who has seen strange things in his thirty-one years of service and has decided this is simply another one.
She had them brought to the study.
The study was the one room in the palace that did not have the faded-square problem on the walls. Someone had filled it with books instead, floor to ceiling on three sides, and there was a desk in the center large enough to serve as a dining table for six. The previous Lord Ashveil had apparently been a reader, or had at least wanted to look like one. Either way, Rania found it deeply suitable.
She arranged the seven letters in a row across the desk, not by creditor name or debt amount, but by envelope.
The envelope told you things before you ever broke the seal. Thickness of paper. Quality of the wax. Whether the insignia had been pressed cleanly or at a slight tilt, which suggested it had been sealed in a hurry, which suggested urgency, which suggested anxiety. The color of the ribbon, if there was one. The care of the handwriting on the front.
Rania's thesis advisor, a perpetually exhausted woman named Professor Suh who had written four books on fiscal policy and dressed exclusively in grey, had once told her during a seminar that the most important information in any financial document is almost never the numbers. The numbers are what someone wants you to see. Everything else is what they forgot to hide.
She had thought about that sentence many times over the years. She thought about it now.
The letter from Kaldreth Empire came in an envelope of deep burgundy, thick as two ordinary envelopes stacked together, the imperial seal pressed with absolute precision into black wax. The handwriting on the front was not the ambassador's. It was someone else's, someone who wrote with the kind of deliberate elegance that came from years of practice, which meant someone who had time for years of practice, which meant someone who considered this communication important enough to involve people of station. Inside, three pages of dense formal language, every clause nested inside other clauses like a set of very hostile matryoshka dolls, concluding with a demand for full repayment of three hundred million coins within ninety days or "the Empire would be obliged to pursue all available remedies under the existing terms of contract."
Rania read the Kaldreth letter twice. The second time, she was not reading the words. She was reading the rhythm. The sentences were long, complex, and impeccably structured. No contractions. No shortcuts. This was the writing of an institution that was absolutely certain of its rightness and had never seriously entertained the possibility that it might be refused.
She set it to the far left. Arrogant, she wrote in the margin of her notebook. No contingency thinking. Believes threat is sufficient.
The letter from the Iron Syndicate was half the length and came in a plain grey envelope with no wax at all, just a pressed metal clasp, which was either a statement of minimalism or an indication that someone had been in a hurry. The language was blunt to the point of being almost rude: thirty-five million coins, ninety days, and a postscript that said simply, "We trust this matter can be concluded efficiently." No threats. No elaborate legal framing. Just the confidence of people who are accustomed to being taken seriously without having to explain why.
Iron Syndicate, she wrote. Pragmatic. Wants resolution, not drama. Might be workable.
The letter from Solvenne Republic ran to five pages and spent the first two and a half of them expressing condolences for the late Lord Ashveil, praising his character and his contribution to regional trade and his uncommonly excellent taste in wine, before arriving at the matter of one hundred and eighty million coins with what felt almost like reluctance. The language was warm, the expressions of goodwill were effusive, and somewhere in the middle of the third page was a sentence structured so carefully that Rania read it three times before she was sure she had correctly parsed which subordinate clause was doing the actual threatening.
Solvenne, she wrote. Relationship-oriented. Afraid of being seen as the aggressor. This is a lever.
She read all seven. Took an hour. Oswin hovered near the door and did not speak, which she appreciated.
By the time she finished, her notebook had two full pages of observations, and the letters were rearranged in a new order across the desk, which was not alphabetical, chronological, or by debt amount.
It was by fear.
On the left: the ones who were angry. Kaldreth, House Miravel, Thorngate Consortium. These were creditors who expected to be paid and expected, on some level, to enjoy the power that came with not being paid. They had lent money partly because they wanted the debt as an instrument. They would be hardest to move, but also most susceptible to anything that threatened that instrument's value.
On the right: the ones who were worried. Iron Syndicate, Solvenne Republic, the small Duchy of Velrun. These had lent money because they thought it was safe, and now it was not safe, and they did not yet know what to do about that except write formal letters and hope.
In the middle, alone: the Kingdom of Ashen. Their letter had been the shortest. Thirteen lines. The handwriting was slightly uneven, as if written by someone whose hands were not entirely steady. Seventy million coins, ninety days, and then a final line that didn't quite fit the others: "We extend our sincerest wishes that the young heir finds her footing quickly. Valdris has always been a neighbor worth having."
Rania looked at that letter for a long time.
A neighbor worth having. That was not the language of a creditor who wanted leverage. That was the language of a small kingdom that was frightened and was hoping, perhaps irrationally, that the new heir might remember the word "neighbor" when it came time to decide who got paid first.
She added a note beside Ashen's entry: Approach first. Low risk, potentially high goodwill.
Then she looked at the window for a moment, doing the kind of thinking that didn't produce words yet, only a general shape of a plan, still rough at the edges.
"Oswin," she said.
"Your Grace."
"How many of these creditors have standing relationships with each other? Trade agreements, treaties, anything that means they talk regularly?"
He thought about it. "Kaldreth and House Miravel have a longstanding arms arrangement. Solvenne and Velrun share several trade routes. Thorngate does business with most of them, in varying capacities."
"Good." She began writing again. "And which one would the others least like to see get paid before them?"
Oswin was quiet for a beat. "That," he said, "would be Kaldreth."
"That's what I thought." She capped the pen. "Clear my afternoon. I want all financial records going back fifteen years, any existing contracts between Valdris and these seven parties, and whatever we have on file about the personal histories of each creditor's current representatives."
"The personal histories."
"Who they were before they were whoever they are now. Where they came from. What they owe and to whom." She looked up. "People negotiate from their biography as much as from their balance sheet. I want to read both."
Oswin wrote something in his own folder. He did not look skeptical. He looked, Rania thought, like someone who had been waiting a long time for someone to ask the right questions, and was quietly relieved to have finally met them.