Mereavus made her way towards one last attempt at privacy. She turned and walked through the quiet, carpeted halls towards her office. The two guards who stood imposing themselves outside the polished door stepped to one side, the one on the left opening it for her entry.<br/><br/>She closed it behind herself, and leaned her back against it with some relief. Her hands gripped to the carved insignia of the horse on her door, and her eyes closed very slowly. Today had been one very long, tedious day.<br/><br/>Her office consisted of extensive amounts of filing space. A colossal case of slender drawers covered the majority of one wall, each handle marked with a letter that ensured her documents were kept in alphabetical order. Her desk was similarly imposing, and between either side of the room ran a glass door that led to her balcony. It was closed, and the flickering lights of the city sprawled out to the coast, where they stopped so suddenly that one might have suspected they were at the end of the world.<br/><br/>She all but collapsed into her immense leather chair with a long exhalation. She didn’t notice the missive on her silver letter tray until she’d taken a very long moment to simply do nothing. She picked it up once it caught her attention, and cracked the burgundy seal.<br/><br/>It took only a brief scan. She’d long since recognised that any letters from the other half of her marital disaster would be short and, at best, polite.<br/><br/>She tossed it back into the tray and leaned her head back to close her eyes. Sleep wasn’t going to come. She could feel it resisting her, drifting somewhere at the edge of fresh memories.<br/><br/>Six men. A long road. The exhaustion of the public mask. Repeatedly twisting the knife in deeper with the ever-repeated question of, ‘Any news of the Empress?’. It was a knife she’d slotted between her own ribs, a knife she might as well have forged herself, wrapped the handle with leather and brought it to sheath in her flesh.<br/><br/>The Royal contingent passing down the road. Blue tunics over grey chain mail. The rhythmic repetition of hooves over dirt tracks turns to one single thrumming sound that never seems to end. The ripple of fabric draped from horses’ quarters, the clank of armour’s struggle with gravity. In the middle of it all, the Imperial carriage. The Empress’ bower. Her protected comfort that ensured her security from Evendale to Endarion.<br/><br/>Security broken.<br/><br/><em>The safe wrapping of a leather glove around the haft of a bow, the punctuated creak of bent yew limbs and complaining cow hide. Seven archers on a hill. The strained pinch of a hand at the feathered tip of an arrow shaft. <br/>Weak at the throat. Aim for the throat. </em><br/><br/>She started out of her half-dream with a tiny gasp and the sudden straightening of her spine. Her hands shifted along the arms of her chair and gripped at the tips, nails digging into the plumped upholstery.<br/><br/>Sleep apparently wasn't going to come to her, even in a doze.