The smell of smoke still clung to my hair, but my mind was already miles away from the ashes of the West Ward. We had three days left in the Trial of the Gilded Scale, and while the "Phoenix Prince" brand was trending among the poor, the "Audit" was won by numbers, not just feelings.
"Bastian, look at this chart," I said, spreading a messy map of the city's trade routes across a makeshift table in our temporary tent.
Bastian leaned over, his eyes narrowing. "Those are the Crown Prince's grain silos. He's hoarding the wheat, Elara. He's waiting for the end of the week to release it all at once, show a 'massive profit,' and claim he saved the city from a shortage he created himself."
"Exactly," I smirked, tapping a spot on the map near the city's Eastern Gate. "It's a classic 'Pump and Dump' scheme. He's artificially inflating the price by choking the supply. But he made one fatal mistake in his 'Due Diligence.'"
"What mistake?"
