Slam.
The door closed behind the last guard.
Lady Vera stood in the center of her chambers, the hysterical woman who had clawed at her own face, who had screamed accusations at the crown prince, who had been slapped into silence and carried away like luggage… stopped.
She stood, and something in her spine straightened that had been bent for years, something in her shoulders settled that had been held in the posture of supplication, of concubinage.
Her eyes were cold. The warmth that had attracted the Emperor, that had produced three children and secured her position against the dead Empress's ghost, had been extinguished like a candle in a draft, leaving only the wick.
She reached into the bodice of her dress.
The blade emerged, the weight of it familiar in her palm, the balance adjusted for her grip through long practice in private.
