She angled her viewing glass to peer over the next cliff edge, where stone dropped away in another breathtaking fall toward the terrace below. Vertical gardens caught her attention first—vegetables and herbs growing from carved recesses in the cliff face, tended by workers on ropes and platforms who made the precarious labor look effortless. How did they manage such abundance from pockets of trapped soil? The ingenuity never ceased to amaze her.
Below, the market and common quarter sprawled across its ledge above the harbor's final descent, and she could feel the city's true pulse beating strongest here. Sound rose like heat shimmer—voices haggling in at least three languages, wheels clattering over worn stones, hammers ringing from workshops where smiths kept their forges burning day and night. Children's laughter pierced through it all as they darted between legs and carts.
Her gaze found the sailors first, drawn by their familiar swagger. Fresh from the docks, they moved between stallkeepers with the easy familiarity of old friendships, their weathered faces breaking into grins at banter she couldn't hear but could read in their gestures. Salt still clung to their clothes, and their purses would be heavy with shares from successful voyages. They'd spend freely tonight—on drink, companionship, small luxuries for their next voyage. Many would sail with tomorrow's BoneTide, so tonight's coins mattered less than tonight's pleasures.
She watched apprentices dart through gaps in the crowd, arms full of parcels and messages, learning their trades by memorizing the market's human geography. Which merchants extended credit, which demanded coin upfront, which would slip sweets into children's pockets with their change. These young ones would inherit more than skills—they'd carry forward the relationships that kept Masan's commerce thriving.
Children wove between carts and stalls like schools of bright fish, bare feet slapping stones worn smooth by centuries of such games. The same chasing games she'd played, though her guards had tried to remain invisible while keeping her safe. Their shouts carried pure joy—the sound of those who hadn't learned to fear tomorrow, who lived entirely in each moment's pleasure.
The memory struck without warning: herself at nine, breathless with laughter and dizzy from spinning, her hand warm and slightly damp in Kira's as they wove through festival dancers. The Feast of Rising Waters, and someone had given them honey-cakes that left their fingers sticky, their heads light with sweet wine they'd been allowed to taste. The ground had spun like a ship's deck in heavy weather, and Kira had laughed at her unsteady steps, not knowing the princess had never been drunk before.
Below, she spotted a small girl with braids like black rope making a game of touching every red-painted stall post, creating a complex path through the market that adults unconsciously accommodated. The same adaptability, the same joy in simple patterns.
These were hands that would haul lines when storms threatened to tear sails from rigging, voices that would sing shanties into howling wind to keep spirits up when hope seemed lost. These were backs that would bend over oars when wind failed, pulling until hands bled through leather guards. Here, captains would come to bargain for crews, promising fair shares and safe return—and they'd be held to those promises.
This was the one terrace where Masan's careful social divisions dissolved. Nobles seeking fresh fish waded through the same crowds as dock workers. Royal agents brushed shoulders with foreign sailors spending shore leave. She'd done it herself countless times, watching her perfumed wake disappear into the honest sweat of labor, the salt-sharp promise of adventure, the complex mixture of spices and tar and rotting vegetables that marked a market in full swing.
Even the most gilded noblewoman, if she wished to reach the open sea, had to walk these streets. Here, gold might buy better quality, but it couldn't buy separation from the common flow of humanity. And that, she thought with quiet satisfaction, was exactly as it should be.