They reach the palace. It's made of stone, with columns but few walls.  It has waterfalls and gauzy bits of fabric hanging from the ceiling and plants that wouldn't grow in Sothis. There are men, all guards in uniform, and woman, mostly not wearing much of anything. He leads her up some stairs.

"If there's a dress code I'm going to need you to tell me that now."

"They're servants. You can wear whatever makes you comfortable. - whatever dress makes you comfortable."

"Oh, good. Whose idea was dressing the servant girls up like that, they must be freezing."

"Not the pharaoh's, it's traditional. I think it's warmer than it looks."

"All right."

"If you want your servants to dress differently I doubt anyone'll care."

"I don't have a uniform at Trilliant and don't see why I would here either, I suppose if they need my permission to wear an entire tunic or what have you and that's what they'd rather I'll give it for them."

He smiles fondly at her.

"From the outside the dome is just an obstacle, I don't think about how much space is inside it usually..."

"It's a lot. Used to be like half the city, way back when, and at this rate someday it'll be pretty much just the palace."

"Does the palace eat adjacent plots sometimes?"

"We marry the extraneous bits of royal family out to all the nobles. Keeps everyone - on board with the program. I have family living in most of those houses."

"I suppose it wouldn't have to architecturally eat them to effectively subsume the place."

"There's a lotta extraneous family. Abadar can only do so much so you have to give him a good range of choices in the first place to get anything satisfactory."

"What does he do? Is your brother very different now?"

"The cleric levels, obviously. He talks with the new pharaoh for a while. I don't know what they talk about. My brother's pretty different. I think most of that's the office, the responsibilities. The crown - it grants the best mental bonuses money can buy, a special configuration that lets you access clarity to every part of thought at the same time - and when he's working he'll usually have spells layered on top of that -

- I think it might be somewhat isolating -"

"I guess it could be. Never thought about it like that."

"It's not as if there aren't compensating benefits. But I think on the whole - it helped me understand why the pharaohs are rewarded in Axis by being exactly like everyone else."

She nods thoughtfully.

And then they can reach the floor where the pharaoh is, and kneel, and wait for him.

She did not technically attend school but she used to do Khalil's homework so she doesn't have to just copy Merenre and hope it's the same for her.

"You can look at me," the pharaoh says, and "you can stand", and then he hugs his brother and turns to size Ismat up and smile at her. "I'm pleased to meet you. Surprised, but pleased. I ran a poll last night before the announcement and absolutely no one was willing to bet Merenre would marry before I insisted on it."

"- weren't willing to bet even conditioning on you running a poll about it? Irresponsible," he mutters.

"I pointed that out! So tell me about this company my brother fell in love with," he says to Ismat.