The Ghosts of Wruclas

Aisha spent the entire next day pouring over other material Ursa had pulled from the library and pacing outside of Ursa’s wing. Earlier that morning, she had stopped in to update the Empress on what she and Ivan had found, but the handmaiden Emery firmly stood her ground, chasing away any and all visitors, no matter how important they were.

She was like a guard dog, really, the way she looked like she’d bite someone’s head off if they got even remotely close to the doors of Ursa’s apartment. Aisha had wanted to fight Emery on this, but she also knew how much Ivan had been stressing Ursa’s physical recovery from the chaos that occurred at the New Year’s Celebration, so Aisha slinked away back into the library quietly until lunch time, where she and Emery rehashed their earlier arguments.

Inside the most heavily guarded doors, an empress laid in her bed with the covers half off, only covering her freezing toes. The rest of her sweated out a non-existent fever, while Cecily dabbed a col