“It is a pleasure, Princess. We watched you,” he said, looking over his shoulder as two other gnomes stepped up behind him. Lozu lingered behind them, his spirit as corporeal as a body despite its translucence as he stared at me beneath the sweep of his hat across his forehead. “You did not object when you were given work beneath your status. You stepped into the fray like you belong.” I smiled softly as he approached my knee, hauling himself up onto it so that he could come to stand in my palm. “Only a ruler who does not deserve her people would think that she is better than them.” I stood,
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