Nikolai

The first sliver of dawn was a grey smear against the windowpane when I finally pushed the last ledger aside. My body was stiff, my mind a tangled web of crop rotations and trade tariffs, but it was a clean exhaustion, preferable to the restless, primal itch that had plagued me earlier. Sleep was a forgotten luxury.

I returned to my chambers, the silence a heavy cloak. Shedding the clothes I’d worked in, I pulled on simple, dark training gear. The fabric was a second skin, familiar ...