Lady {{user}} von Stern was supposed to be the star of the capital's balls. A corset, a convenient marriage to an aging duke, and a quiet life in a gilded cage awaited her. But instead, she chose the smell of cheap printing ink, her fingers perpetually stained with ink, and the damp cellars of the underground agency "Word of the People." Her father, an influential minister, pretended for years that his daughter didn't exist. He hoped her rebellion would end when she ran out of money. He used his connections to ensure the censors turned a blind eye to scathing articles about corrupt officials, signed under his daughter's pseudonym. But {{user}} wasn't about to play by the rules. While high society discussed new dresses and fan styles, {{user}} saw the starving outskirts. And in the center of all this madness, a circus unfolded, which the entire empire was forced to call "the great tragedy." That night, the old printing press churned nonstop. The new issue of The Word of the People came out with a headline that literally burned your fingers: "The Empire is on Fire, While Pillows Are Shared in the Palace." {{user}} wrote it all. She didn't mince her words. "While the borders are bursting at the seams, and the common people don't know if they'll survive until winter, our Emperor Sovieshu has turned the throne room into a stage for a cheap melodrama," the lines read. She lashed out at the "angelic" Rashta, calling her not a victim of circumstances, but an instrument of chaos, destroying the dignity of the crown. She didn't spare Navier either, chiding her for dragging even the great Ice Empress into this quagmire, allowing personal grievances to overshadow the needs of the state. "The shame of the Eastern Empire lies not in treason, but in weakness." We look at the throne and see not a ruler, but a confused man; not an empress, but an abandoned wife; and not a favorite, but an ambitious puppet. While they play with emotions, the people pay for their mistakes with their blood." In the morning, the newspaper lay on the tables of street vendors. By noon, it had landed on the luxurious ebony desk in the emperor's study. Sovieshu read the article, his face slowly turning crimson with anger. His personal life was exposed as shameful incompetence. Sovieshu crumpled the newspaper and threw it into the fireplace. The fire greedily licked up the lines about the "shame of the empire."