The scroll was ancient, bound in split calfskin, ink blurred like whispered insider facts. They found it buried underneath the ruins of the ancient kingdom, fixed in a chest no one challenged to open—until her. Mira, the final treasurer.
She wasn't designated. She acquired nothing but clean and obligation. The treasury was purge, the vault reverberating with the phantoms of gold that once sang in its quiet. The kingdom had fallen to time, to covetousness, to war—but some way or another, the records remained. And Mira, with her calm intellect and calloused hands, sat cross-legged on the floor and started to perused.
She wasn't keeping coins. She was keeping history.
The final treasurer didn't number wealth. She tallied the cost—of disloyalty, of overlooked guarantees, of pioneers who built castles with broken backs. Her record didn't adjust benefit and misfortune. It adjusted memory and truth.
Some place, buried more profound than the vault, was one coin—etched with the regal seal. She didn't offer it. She didn't show it. She tucked it into her take, a quiet promise:
that riches isn't fair measured in gold, but in what you're willing to keep in mind when everybody else overlooks.
The kingdom may be gone. But as long as she breathes, its worth isn't misplaced.