Chapter 57: You Need Someone Who Knows the Court

Naya stared at the sheet of paper Mira had laid across her desk, covered edge to edge in appointments, letters, and obligations that seemed to multiply overnight.

“Nobody warned me being Queen involved this much sitting still,” Naya said.

“That’s exactly why you need help,” Mira said, already heading for the door. “I’ve found someone.”

She returned a few minutes later with a woman Naya didn’t recognize, composed and sharp-eyed, who dropped a quick, efficient curtsy before immediately turning her attention to the overloaded schedule on the desk.

“Serena Ashford,” Mira said by way of introduction. “She’s served in the royal household for years.”

Serena didn’t bother with flattery. She scanned the schedule once, her expression flattening into something close to disbelief.

“Who gave you this?” she asked.

Naya pointed toward the desk. “It was already here when I woke up.”

Serena studied it a moment longer. “Then whoever made this schedule dislikes you.”

Naya laughed despite herself, already warming to the woman’s bluntness.

Serena set to work immediately, sorting the day’s obligations into three distinct piles. Things Naya actually needed to attend personally. Things that could be delegated to someone else entirely. And a third, considerably larger pile that Serena labeled, without hesitation, as nobles simply wanting access to the Queen.

“The palace is full of people who’ll happily waste your entire day if you let them,” Serena said.

“And you know which ones are wasting my time?” Naya asked.

“I’ve been here long enough to know who talks for five minutes before asking for something they could’ve written in a letter,” Serena said.

Naya found herself genuinely impressed, something in Serena’s competence settling the frazzled edges of her morning considerably.

Ronan arrived partway through, pausing in the doorway at the sight of a stranger rearranging his wife’s entire schedule without apparent hesitation.

“What’s happening here?” he asked.

“Your wife has too many obligations,” Serena said, not looking up from her work.

“She’s saving me,” Naya said.

Ronan studied Serena for a moment. “Can you save her from Kael?”

“No one can,” Serena said instantly.

Naya laughed, and Ronan’s mouth twitched toward something almost like a smile, clearly pleased that Serena had already grasped the family dynamic without needing it explained to her.

“You have my approval to manage her court schedule,” Ronan said.

Naya raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have to approve who works for me.”

He paused, catching himself. “You’re right.”

It was small, but Naya noticed it, the way he corrected course without defensiveness, stepping back from authority he hadn’t been asked to claim.

Serena accompanied Naya to a formal luncheon that afternoon, quietly pointing out various nobles as they walked.

“That one’s genuinely friendly,” she murmured. “That one compliments everyone before asking for a favor. That one hates public disagreement more than anything, so save your corrections for private conversation. That one loves gossip, so be careful what you say near her. And that one’s politically ambitious, but perfectly respectable about it.”

“Not everyone who wants something from you wants to hurt you,” Serena added, catching Naya’s wary expression.

The words landed somewhere unexpected. Naya realized, turning it over, how thoroughly she’d trained herself to scan every room for threats since arriving at this palace.

“A Queen who sees enemies everywhere,” Serena said, “eventually creates them.”

Naya filed that away carefully as they entered the luncheon.

A minor Alpha approached her not long after, his tone pleasant enough to mask the edge beneath it. “It must be difficult learning royal customs so quickly.”

Naya didn’t rise to it. “How is your territory managing the seasonal trade shift?”

He blinked, clearly caught off guard by the redirection, then launched into a genuine complaint about a particular trade route causing delays. Naya listened, remembering a detail from one of her lessons with Ronan, and asked a pointed question about alternate routes through a neighboring territory.

The Alpha’s expression shifted from wariness into something closer to genuine surprise. “I hadn’t considered that.”

Naya offered a brief observation, and the conversation settled into something productive, no longer about whether she belonged at this table but about an actual problem worth solving.

Across the room, Ronan watched without moving to intervene. When Naya caught his eye, he gave her a small nod, and the gesture carried more weight now than it once might have, a quiet acknowledgment that he trusted her entirely to handle this without him.

Afterward, walking together, Serena said, almost offhandedly, “The King looks at you differently.”

Naya felt herself bristle slightly. “Does everyone notice that?”

“Only people who pay attention,” Serena said, smiling faintly.

“What do you mean?”

Serena didn’t elaborate extensively. “Before, he watched you like a problem he needed to solve.” She paused. “Now he watches you like someone he doesn’t want to lose.”

Naya didn’t have an answer ready for that, the observation settling somewhere quiet and warm in her chest as they continued down the corridor.

That evening, she found Ronan in their private sitting room and told him about Serena, admitting the woman was terrifyingly competent at her job.

“Good,” Ronan said.

“You like her?”

“She made your schedule shorter.”

“That’s your standard for approval?”

“At the moment.”

Naya laughed, settling into the chair across from him. “She also told me something interesting today.”

“What was that?”

“She said you look at me differently now.”

Ronan went quiet.

“Do you?” Naya asked.

He looked at her for a long moment, something steady and certain behind his expression.

“Yes,” he said.

No elaborate explanation followed, no grand confession built up around it. Just the simple truth, offered without hesitation.

He reached for her hand, and Naya let him take it, the warmth of the gesture settling into something she no longer questioned or doubted.

She thought back to Serena’s words from earlier, the warning about seeing enemies everywhere. For the first time since arriving at this palace, Naya let herself simply sit in the quiet of the moment, unguarded, without bracing for whatever came next. It felt, for once, like enough.