Ann stiffened at the thought that it might be a warning for something hostile, but as soon as the doors swung open she knew it wasn't announcing an imminent attack.
"Looks like you lost that bet on both fronts." Ann replied flatly as she stood, her heart sinking.
It was an announcement for the arrival of more survivors.
They came in slow, steady waves with the acrid stench of smoke clinging to them.
A mother with a toddler asleep against her shoulder and a baby tied to her front, all three reeking of burned wood and fear accompanied by a boy with blistered palms that snaked its way up his arms that simply refused to let go of a charred toy horse.
Ann didn't stay on the dais as if she stood above them, she didn't want them to feel intimidated or uncomfortable in what was probably their most vulnerable moment. So she quickly made her way down the few steps and met them where they stood with a look of compassion and empathy.
"Water for the refugees please," she told the nearest guard, "Someone bring Coral back and ask her to arrange for more food and blankets, and get someone started on ensuring that more beds are ready to receive our…people. Make sure they know that families must be kept together."
Coral's head appeared in the doorway as if she had been summoned by magick itself.
"Already on it!" She called brightly, "I'll have everything sorted in no time."
Ann watched helplessly as the refugees began to gather together in little groups whilst they waited for their temporary homes to be arranged for them. She tried not to listen to their conversations as they swapped stories because it felt like she was intruding, but she wanted to know what her people had been through.
"They carved symbols on our door and set it alight."
"They came after moonrise. We ran. Anyone who fell..."
"They took our daughter. She's barely twelve…"
"They didn't even care about slaughtering the babes..."
Ann wanted to scream her grief alongside the sobbing, shell shocked mothers and her hand landed protectively on her stomach.
Was this what awaited her children?
"I'll tear apart any bastard that threatens to harm our pups," Maeve snarled, her anguish flooding Ann's mind at the mere thought of it, "Ely needs to be stopped, no matter the cost!"
Ann collected her thoughts and calmed Maeve as best she could whilst she thought frantically of how to handle this.
She didn't promise revenge because she couldn't set a timeline for that.
What she did promise was safety, telling each person in her hall that she would do everything in her power to keep them safe. Not in a decree, not in a press release, to their faces.
She promised a memorial for all those lost and a place to remember them so that the people could be united in grief together and that although the guards were already doubling their patrol routes, she would triple them even if she had to sell parts of the royal estate to fund it.
"Are we really safe here?" a young boy with eyes that still seemed wide with terror asked her timidly, his voice barely a hopeful whisper.
"Yes," Ann said, fighting her own tears, "You are."
He nodded like he wanted to believe her but didn't know how, not with everything that he had already seen.
Ann crouched down in front of him so that they were eye-to-eye.
"Do you like honey cakes?" she asked softly, taking his hand in her own and rubbing soothing circles.
He nodded once, his gaze unsure.
"Then I'll tell the kitchens to save you two." Ann smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way.
She was rewarded with the faintest hint of a twitch in the corner of his mouth. It wasn't a smile, but it was a start.
"You can't feed them all with promises," Maeve warned. "And every time you kneel, the vultures in silk smell weakness."
"I don't kneel," Ann hissed, "Not to anyone."
"Then stop looking like you might."
"Compassion is not weakness, Maeve."
"I didn't say it was, I agree with caring for the people, it's the nobles who need their eyesight testing, not me. Perhaps we should gouge a few eyeballs out? We can start with that prissy little …"
Ann was torn from her argument with Maeve by the arrival of an older woman with a gash on her temple so deep that you could clearly see the bone underneath despite the dried blood caked in her hair.
Ann called for a healer to attend the hall, knowing full well that the makeshift infirmaries they had set up were already short on space.
She held the woman's hand while the wound was cleaned, and listened as she recounted the flames pouring through her window like water and unspeakable monstrosities that she couldn't have imagined even in her wildest dreams that wandered with purpose, striking down everything within their reach.
A cluster of nobles hovered at the edge of the hall, whispering about "optics." One, braver...or stupider...than the rest, drifted closer.
"Your Majesty," he began, eyeing the refugees with thinly veiled distaste, "perhaps the great hall isn't the most… appropriate venue for..."
"For keeping people alive while the galleries are being readied?" Ann said, not looking at him. "If you'd like to offer your townhouse as overflow, I'll have Coral send you a form."
He retreated quickly and the whispering of the nobles died down almost instantly.
"Nicely done" Maeve sniffed approvingly as she snarled in the direction of the nobles, "I would have added a little more violence though to really hammer home who's in charge. People remember bruises and scars."
"And that's precisely why I don't let you handle things. Words can be just as effective when dealing with them."
"Well thats a fucking lie for a start," Maeve argued, "You keep pushing them back with your words and still they keep coming back for more."
"They'll learn eventually. Changes always take a little time to take effect. They've had years of my father and Narcissa, it's a bit like teaching a pup to walk I suppose."
"I still think a knife to the throat would be quicker…for the nobles…not the pups..obviously," Maeve grumbled, "You know, I could slice their jugular in seconds if you'd just…"
"Shut up Maeve."