The city woke to an uneasy stillness. Cold morning light slanted through the arches of the imperial palace, striping the flagstones with gold. From the high balconies, Constantine watched as the city stretched and shuffled to life, streets filling with traders, porters, and the smoke of cookfires. A thin mist clung to the river, blurring the distant outlines of ships at anchor and cranes at the new wharves. Behind him, the imperial banners moved in the chill wind, their reds and purples as rich as spilled wine.
Constantine had slept only a few hours, his mind circling through the endless tasks of rule. On the desk before him, letters lay in stacks: one from Antioch, reporting a food riot; another from Alexandria, warning of plague; a third from a merchant prince in the south, sealed with green wax and carrying a faint scent of cloves. He touched each letter in turn, the messages like weights across his chest.
