The marble was cold under Elara's bare feet.
Wrong detail. She should be wearing shoes. Princesses wore shoes. But the servants had only dressed her in layers of silk that felt too heavy, too constricting on this smaller frame, and somehow the shoes had been forgotten in her abrupt dismissal of them.
She walked anyway, each step sending a chill up her legs. New data: this body felt temperature more acutely than her previous one.
The corridor stretched ahead—tall windows letting in sharp morning light, portraits of stern-faced people lining the walls. She catalogued each detail mechanically. Twenty-seven portraits. Fourteen windows. Three servants who'd frozen mid-task when they saw her, then dropped into deep curtseys.
Expected behavior. She was royalty here.
The thought should have meant something. It didn't.
Elara pushed through a set of heavy oak doors and stepped onto a colonnade.
She stopped.
The palace complex spread before her like a architectural blueprint come to life. Neoclassical design—symmetrical wings, tall columns with Corinthian capitals, elaborate cornices. Georgian or Victorian influence, her mind supplied automatically. Imposing stone blocks arranged in perfect geometric harmony.
But something was wrong with it.
Everything was white.
Not cream. Not ivory. Pure, stark, relentless white. The stone facades, the balustrades, the decorative moldings—all rendered in the same bleached limestone that hurt to look at in direct sunlight. Like someone had built a palace and drained it of color deliberately.
"Inefficient," Elara said aloud.
A servant passing behind her jumped. Elara didn't turn around.
Monochromatic design reduced visual interest by approximately seventy percent based on standard aesthetic response studies. Poor choice. She filed the information away: whoever ruled this place made decisions based on something other than optimal outcomes.
She descended the stone steps. Her bare feet made no sound. The silk robes dragged slightly, catching on rough patches in the marble—imperfect craftsmanship, she noted. Status symbol without substance.
Guards lined the courtyard at precise intervals. Red military coats with gold braiding. Tall black boots. Ceremonial rifles held at identical angles.
Standard palace security. She'd seen similar formations in historical—
The nearest guard's ear twitched.
Elara's feet stopped moving.
Not his ear. The ear. Triangular, covered in rust-colored fur, positioned at the top of his head where human ears shouldn't exist. It rotated independently, tracking a sound she hadn't noticed—birdsong, maybe, or footsteps in the distance.
Her gaze traveled down systematically. Human face. Human neck. Human torso in the red coat. Human legs.
Then a tail.
It emerged from beneath his coat, bushy and fox-like, swaying slightly in the morning breeze.
Elara tilted her head.
Prosthetics would require visible attachment points. Genetic modification would show scarring at the integration sites. Costume pieces wouldn't move with that degree of autonomous precision—the tail's movement pattern matched involuntary muscle response, not mechanical articulation.
She took three steps closer.
The guard's eyes flicked toward her briefly, then returned to forward attention. Professional. Disciplined. His ear twitched again.
Real. Biologically integrated. Functional.
"Interesting," Elara said.
The guard's stoic expression didn't change, but his tail went still.
She circled slowly to his left side, studying the way the ear connected to his skull. Seamless integration. No visible grafting. The fur transitioned smoothly into his hairline.
"Your Highness." His voice was steady, but his other ear—she could see it now, identical to the first—swiveled backward, tracking her movement. "May I assist you with something?"
"No."
She completed the circle, stopping directly in front of him again. His face was objectively symmetrical. High cheekbones, strong jaw, dark eyes that stared straight ahead. The kind of features that typically triggered social responses in humans—attraction, nervousness, admiration.
Elara felt nothing. She never did.
But she recognized the data: this would be classified as "beautiful" by standard metrics.
"How long have I been standing here?" she asked.
"Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds, Your Highness."
Precise. Military training.
"And you find this concerning."
It wasn't a question. She'd learned to identify the subtle indicators—the micro-tension in his jaw, the way his fingers tightened fractionally on his sword hilt, the tail that hadn't moved since she'd spoken.
Fear. Despite the uniform. Despite the weapon.
"This one is concerned for Your Highness's wellbeing," he said carefully. "Perhaps the sun is too strong. Should this one summon—"
"This one," Elara repeated. "Not 'I.'"
His ears pressed flatter.
She turned away, scanning the courtyard with new parameters. There were more guards. Twenty-three visible positions. All in identical red uniforms. All armed with swords. But now that she was looking, she could see the pattern.
Fifteen had fox characteristics—ears, tails, some with both. Five had wolf features. Three had feline traits. Two appeared to have reptilian scaling visible at their collars and wrists.
All beastmen.
She walked toward the nearest entrance to the palace building. Two guards flanked the doorway. Human. Also in red uniforms. Also armed.
But their posture was different. Confident. Their hands rested casually on their sword hilts. When she approached, they bowed respectfully but didn't lower their eyes.
"Your Highness," they said in unison.
She passed between them and looked back at the courtyard.
Same uniforms. Same weapons. Different species. Different body language entirely.
The beastmen stood like they were waiting to be punished. The humans stood like they owned the space.
"Your Highness!" The servant from her chambers appeared at her elbow, breathless. "Your Highness, please, you shouldn't be out here without proper attire. And your feet—"
"Why do the beastmen guards refer to themselves as 'this one'?" Elara asked.
The servant blinked, confused. "I... because they're beasts, Your Highness. It's proper. They're allowed to serve in uniform, to bear arms, but they're still... well, they're not human. Surely you remember this?"