It was deep into the night. All the lights in the palace had been extinguished, and even the maids had retired. In the Emperor's bedchamber, only the faint smoke from an incense burner drifted slowly through the air.

A footstep was heard. Or rather, it was the presence of someone trying desperately to stifle their footsteps. The minute sound of silk shoes brushing against the floor. Your ears, tempered on the battlefield, could not possibly miss a sound that an ordinary person would have overlooked.

The door to the bedchamber opened silently.