Sitara waited until the quiet hour before dawn to begin her new assault. She probed beyond her room, extending tentacles of thought through the keisara's apartments, then up the narrow stair to the woman's bedroom. The keisara's mind beckoned like a dim light, drawing Sitara's thoughts unerringly toward her.

Sitara caressed the keisara's mind, gently touching her thoughts. Even while sleeping, Keisara Fideima's will proved formidable, like a thick bubble protecting her thoughts.

Proceeding with extreme caution, Sitara first wrapped the keisara's mind with her own thoughts, maintaining a gentle connection. Over a period of several minutes, she increased the pressure until she felt resistance. Then she projected only thoughts of the emperor, of quiet moments Sitara had witnessed them share during her past year of service.

Those thoughts flowed around the outer shell of the keisara's will, a gentle caress that eased the resistance with familiar images. The sleeping woman's thoughts took up the pattern, and Sitara wormed through the barrier, probing deeper, still masked with thoughts of Zuberi.

It took nearly half an hour of careful manipulation that left Sitara trembling with fatigue and drenched with sweat. Finally the keisara's defenses weakened sufficiently. All the while, Sitara monitored the keisara's breathing, watching for signs she might begin waking.

Ever so slowly, Sitara altered the focus from quiet moments spent with Zuberi to more formal events. From there she adjusted again to memories of audiences the emperor had held with his wife in attendance. From there, Sitara guided the sleeping woman's thoughts to all the times the emperor had been absent, called away to fulfill his duties to the realm instead of his duty to her.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

She encountered increasing resistance as the keisara, even in sleep, tried to avoid such disturbing thoughts. Sitara could delay no longer. The drain was proving too great to maintain, and even a momentary lapse in concentration would break the tenuous connection, wasting all the evening's hard work.

She risked planting a thought of Junian into the mix.

That was the dangerous part. Something so foreign to the keisara's normal mental process might trigger a defensive rejection and snap her awake.

The image she pushed into the woman's mind was not an exact likeness. She could not use truth to destroy the keisara. Instead, she painted Junian as a slightly younger man, a more handsome one. She eliminated the lines from his face and slightly altered his features to convey a sense of solid dependability.

With the image, she pushed whispers of feelings. Junian would appeal to the secret loneliness that tormented the keisara. Sitara crafted Junian into the answer to the keisara's longings. There stood a man whom a woman could count on, who would make his love the center of his life rather than his duty or position. That man would never allow a woman to feel lonely.

The keisara's resistance flared, and Sitara's tenuous connection snapped. She withdrew and returned to her own exhausted body. For several minutes she lay panting, massaging a pounding headache, wondering if the message had been received.

Despite her exhaustion, she didn't drop instantly asleep. She'd barely slept all night, and the effort to infiltrate the keisara's mind had taken a terrible mental toll. When she did eventually slip into a fitful slumber, her dreams were dark and troubling.

Over breakfast later that morning, the only indication that her efforts had proven successful was a passing comment by the keisara that she had not slept well.

It was a start, if a humble one.

Pride warmed Sitara and helped stave off her own exhaustion, quelling the queasiness that had lurked in the pit of her stomach all morning. She embraced it, for she could not afford any weakness. This battle would be fought in the dead of night, in the recesses of the keisara's deepest secrets.