In the very earliest days of the Erethnian Empire, before the Grand Palace was built on Praetorian Hill - before Praetorian Hill had even earned that name - the crown that endured the final Queen ceded the Empire to a Prince of Marisal was worn by a woman recognised as the Silver Princess, the conquering ruler who built the Empire being named Aelina, who had begun her life simply as heir to the Principality of Erethnis before adding more and more land around what had been little more than a city and its surrounding agriculture to her holdings.

Aelina was called the Silver Princess both because the Erethnian crown was silver and because, when she was seen riding in her dominion, her hair loose and flowing behind her, those long locks would sparkle and shimmer as if they had been wrought by the finest dwarven silversmiths.

Not that this comparison was often made in her hearing; the pride of Erethnis for many generations had been that the rulers at their founding had been an elven king and a human queen, and that there was elven blood in the family still. In truth, while the elves of Llon Llyrith had ceded the land to the humans, and while there were legends of forbidden love to explain the reason for this, Aelina was of a different royal house in any case. Yet the rumours lived on and became folktales, and from there they came to be recognised secret truths of the world, and the royal house took to using elven names for their children.

An aptitude for magic did run in the bloodline of the Erethnian royal house, though, and Aelina had harnessed this in her conquests. Her particular flair was with icy enchantments, and with these she had sent cavalry tumbling from suddenly unsteady saddles, walled off advances or retreats, and occasionally wrought more grisly results. Perhaps even more importantly, she made travel and camping conditions easier for her soldiers, allowing them to travel and strike in the winter while their enemies were unprepared.

All these events became part of the legend of the Silver Princess and they had even led to one small city-state simply offering themselves up as new subjects rather than face a conquest.

Aelina began her conquests after ascending to the throne following an accident at her father’s winter retreat in the mountains, and the heart of the Erethnian Empire was forged over the next decade.

At thirty-three, the Silver Princess returned home to the city of Erethnis and turned her attention away from conquest. It was in this era that she became better loved by her subjects, as she instituted a number of new laws that made the city of Erethnis a better place to live, as well as quelling some of the conditions that had given rise to a population of rebels in many of the outer provinces of her fledgling empire.

Accounts of her from this period show a wise, humble leader who sits rather at odds with the ruthless ‘witch maiden’ of her conquering days. It is commonly assumed that the growing danger of revolt drove her back to the capital and impressed upon her the true gravity of her role. However, scurrilous rumours and ribald rhymes existed at the time, no doubt spread by frustrated former aristocrats and disgraced rebels.

*

Construction was booming in the city of Erethnis, which had nine years earlier - even five years earlier - been entirely unprepared to be the capital of a large empire. For many different reasons, people had flocked to the city since and it had spread out from its initial placing around the cliff below the hill, the watchtower that was the hill’s only decoration giving them a view from all around.

Not that the empire’s borders were even near to the limits of those observers’ eyesight anymore. An army might take months to start at the border and reach the city; a rider would take days, even assuming they could change horses. But the tower now also gave the guard a better sense of what was happening in the city than a man - or woman - on the ground could achieve. It was too big for that now.

In one of the better new homes, Duchess Khaja was rearranging her household, having dragged it from the former capital city of her duchy to the new capital that governed it. She would play her part in the court of the Silver Princess now; so would her advisors.

“We’ll be presented in two days,” she told the assembled group. “I expect none of you to let myself down.”

“No, Duchess.” It wasn’t quite a chorus, but it was still satisfying to hear them thinking in the same way.

“Good.” She nodded briskly. “Zar, walk with me.”

“Of course, Duchess.” As the rest of her household drifted away to their own tasks, her primary advisor moved with her.

Tall and oddly passionate, with flashing eyes and a shock of fiery red hair, Zar had been a merchant five years earlier and wasn’t even from her duchy; had been born, in fact, in the neighbouring duchy to parents who had fled Erethnis when the Princess’ father ascended to the throne. Now he was first among advisors to Duchess Khaja,

They walked along the corridors of her new home in companionable silence for some time, before Khaja broke the silence. “What happens now?”

“Duchess?”

“Don’t toy with me, Zar,” she said firmly. “We don’t speak of your reasons for being with me. We don’t speak of your history. But we understand each other, do we not?”

Zar did not answer until they had walked far enough to be out of earshot of the guard who had heard the Duchess’ comments. “Apparently better than I had realised, Duchess.”

Khaja rarely nodded; she had a habit instead of jerking her head up, her chin thrusting out as if she wasn’t so much agreeing as asserting that she was right. “I learn, in time,” she said.

“I… regret that I wasn’t better able to serve, Duchess.”

Khaja laughed bitterly. “Your judgement was wise, for the most part. But that wasn’t the problem. Could wiser counsel have made up for how badly outnumbered my army was?”

“It would have to have been a lot wiser.” Zar half-smiled.

“So. What happens now?”

He fixed his eyes on her firmly, and Duchess Khaja felt that strange, intense heat again. “Get me into the royal court,” he said, and unable to speak, overwhelmed with emotion, Khaja nodded in agreement.

“Good,” Zar said simply, then walked away. Khaja stood where she was, her eyes crossed, her vision swimming, shuddering as waves of pleasure rolled through her body.

“I will obey,” she whimpered softly, once there was enough of a break in the bliss for her to speak.

*

There was only a small window each year where the Silver Princess was in Erethnis with her court and not out at a border, seeking conquest.

It was ultimately not something that interested her; to Aelina the point of conquering was to own more, not to rule it. She saw it as something of a competition, and the results of that competition didn’t interest her.

All the same, she put in an appearance around the winter festival every year, paying two weeks’ attention to her people, as represented by the defeated aristocracy. This was a practice she had been urged to by perhaps her most trusted advisor, a devoted lady in waiting by the name of Camila, who would have described their relationship as friends and would have been horrified to learn that Aelina did not think the same way.

She did not make an appearance until all had been assembled in her throne room. When her majordomo signalled that everyone was waiting, still she held back; and when a second signal came, to indicate that many were getting restless, Aelina swept out in front of them, staring directly at her throne and meeting no eyes until she was seated.

As far as Aelina was concerned, this too was conquest. She was by nature a dispassionate person, coldly assessing her desires and her goals and reaching out for them on that basis, and her mastery of ice magic had only enhanced that part of herself.

It was no mistake that led her to walk out to the throne room in her back-and-breast ceremonial armour, with the tight studded leather leggings. This was not the armour she wore while campaigning, and there were plenty there who had given her their surrender in much more practical armour.

But in a formal setting, this was how the Silver Princess liked to dress. The back-and-breast had cleavage impractical for the battlefield and eschewed chain or plate on her arms, showing off the muscle that pronounced Aelina as a battle witch, and the tightness of the leather pants wouldn’t help soften a blow the way loose studded leathers did. The heels were also impractical.

For the effect she wanted to have here, though, they were very practical. Sitting in the tall throne, she swept her gaze around the assembled company, relatively few of whom she properly recognised.

“Welcome, one and all,” she said. “I will be speaking with many of you, over the next few days, before it will be time for my armies to march forth and campaign once again, at which time my place will be at the head of the column.

“If I do not speak to you in the meantime…” she let the question hang in the air for a while before going on, “try harder next year, as evidently I will not have thought your submission worth paying attention to.”

Aelina fell silent, ostensibly to let that sink in. In actual fact she was looking through the assembled, watching to see who had reacted to that comment and how. That she wasn’t interested in the administration of her empire hardly meant she was willing to allow it to fall apart. Who had concerns? Who had passion? Who was weak? And who was strong enough to shoulder the work?

For the most part, those whose nations had fallen in the past year were surprised, while the others had heard it before. The former heads of state - the fledgling parts of a new imperial aristocracy - exchanged unsettled looks with their most trusted advisors, which also made it pretty clear which advisors Aelina needed to care about.

One pairing in particular stood out, to the point she narrowed her eyes and studied them, trying to work out what it was that seemed so different about them, before she finally put her fingers on it.

The noble seemed more nervous than the advisor.

That was not the way round it should go. If she was unsettled, was this an indicator that rebellion was not far away in that province? Could it simply be that she didn’t have control, and that the advisor represented a potential peasant force who did?

This too didn’t seem quite right, if only because the advisor seemed comfortable in clothes that were relatively fine quality. But Aelina was wary of allowing herself to be led around by her first impressions.

She leaned to one side and muttered to her majordomo, saying, “Have Camila wait for me in my chambers.”

He bowed low. “At once, Highness.” And he retreated.

There were, Aelina knew, countries where etiquette demanded that commoners and even nobles back away from the monarch, as a sign of respect. Erethnis had never done this, and she had not added it to the rules under which her court operated.

She preferred to know that people backed away, not because the rules dictated they must, but because they feared her power.

*

Camila was waiting by the window in her inner chamber; the balcony afforded a beautiful view of the city and the short distance beyond to the shoreline - a shore which had not belonged to Erethnis in Aelina’s father’s time, but was firmly part of the nation now - but anyone standing just inside the balcony could see almost as much, while placed in such deep shadow that nobody would notice them.

Camila had repeatedly told Aelina that she could make great use of the window, if she wanted to hear what her court thought, simply by commissioning stone benches and having them installed around the fountain below. The Princess had, however, largely ignored this.

The other woman dipped quickly to one knee, head bowed. “Highness,” she said. “I was told that you wanted to speak with me?”

“Yes.” Aelina frowned. “What’s the name of the woman who used to rule the Duchy of Muchkan?”

Camila hesitated for a moment, but she had worked hard on memorising information like this. The Silver Princess summoned her usually for strange reasons, and it wasn’t always possible to anticipate them. Instead she put work into memorising odd information; it made Aelina think Camila was much more connected than she was. “Khaja,” she said. “She and ten others have a house in town now. They will no doubt send word awaiting your summons.”

Aelina nodded irritably at these extra additions. That much was obvious, as far as she was concerned. “No doubt,” she answered. “And by the time they do, you will have spoken to them for me.”

“Yes, Highness.” Camila paused. “What message do you want me to convey?”

“Ask rather what information I want,” Aelina said. “There’s something strange about her advisors. They do not fear her, and she fears one of them.”

“Fears?”

Aelina stopped and considered. That had been her assumption, but was it true?

“Perhaps not,” she said slowly. “But she defers to him, in any case.”

Camila nodded.

“I want to know why,” Aelina said. “Is there going to be another province in revolt?”

Camila whistled appreciatively. “Let us hope not, Highness.”

“Mmm. I noticed Lady Karlina didn’t attend court today.”

“She’s… still back in her province,” Camila explained. “Last word I have is that she was trying to parlay with the rebels.”

“Why?”

“I think she fears the effects if you decided to lay them waste, Highness. Her province is already hurting economically from the conquest.”

They had resisted fiercely, Aelina remembered. She had made examples of multiple townships.

She shrugged. “Well, let us hope she can present herself soon, or I will have to ask more questions.”

Camila, tactfully, said nothing.

*

There was suspicion all around her when Camila knocked on the door of the Muchkan representatives’ townhouse; the two guards on the door gave her flat, unreadable, unwelcoming stares.

She sent up her credentials as a message, waiting on the doorstep, not answering the guards’ stares with a look of her own, not wanting to provoke anything confrontational.

At length a pageboy appeared at the door. “Duchess Khaja will see you now,” he said, his voice thick with an accent Camila didn’t recognise, presumably one of the accents of Muchkan. “Follow me.”

The Duchess herself spoke very differently; either she’d been educated outside Muchkan or, more likely Camila thought, the pageboy had been elevated well beyond his expectations by the beauty of his face. “Lady Camila,” said the Duchess. “Your visit is a little bit of a surprise for me.”

“Oh?”

“It is, of course, an essential step for anyone wanting to fit in at court to find out what they may about the familiar faces already established.”

Camila nodded, for this was certainly true.

“Your name is one of those we were recommended to research.”

“And so what would you say you know about me?”

“That your title comes from a small estate, and one with little economic power, and yet you are considered one of the most important ears to have access to in this empire.” Khaja’s smile was as self-deprecating as a noble who had once been, and was no longer, absolute ruler of her realm could produce. “I infer from this that your power and effectiveness comes from your own personal efforts.”

“I see,” Camila answered, without wanting to address the argument itself - though she could not help herself from smiling. “And so you should not be surprised at my wishing to meet with you, surely?”

Khaja blinked, and Camila was reminded again that so many of these nobles were not hiding their intentions as a matter of instinct; of course, she reflected, they had not needed to until their land had been conquered.

Perhaps there wasn’t the subterfuge here she’d expected.

“Let us simply say that I am,” she answered. “Why should I not be surprised?”

“Because the imperial eye is upon you, Duchess.”

Camila went silent, watching her hostess’ expression. She was expecting some fear, especially if Muchkan was truly in the grips of a secret peasant uprising. There was only bewilderment. “May I speak freely, Lady Camila?”

“Please do.”

“I am proud of the Duchy, of course,” began Duchess Khaja. “I imagine you would be concerned if I were not. I was proud to rule it, and I am sill proud of it not that it owes fealty to another. I’m glad that I continue to have some association with it.”

Camila nodded.

“However, I am not a fool, and I can read maps and treaties as well as any other.” For the first time, Khaja lifted her eyes to meet those of Camila, who looked back steadily. “Muchkan was a place to be proud of, but we were not a strong nation. We were not even your grandest conquest of the year, we were simply an obstruction on the way to it.”

“Indeed,” said Camila, for lack of anything else of value to say.

“And yet you come to speak to us, just as we were trying to decide how best we could attract your attention.”

Camila was just about to demand answers on the whys and wherefores of this statement, but Khaja pressed on. “So my question to you, Lady Camila, is why your eye - or the imperial eye - has turned to Muchkan?”

“Why would you expect?”

Khaja didn’t speak so much as make a strange sound, but the frustration in her tone was easy for Camila to recognise - and she didn’t imagine the Duchess was faking it.

“I have no idea.”

“Well.” Camila sat for a few moments quietly contemplating what might be the right next step to take. What did one do, when the people one was investigating were in fact exactly as they seemed? “I’m afraid, as you can probably imagine, I am constrained from fully explaining the Princess’ will.”

“I understand. I don’t like it, though.”

“That’s permissible,” Camila said. “You were planning to speak with me?”

“Yes. Well. Not myself, you understand, Lady Camila.”

“If not you, then who would have the right?”

Duchess Khaja cleared her throat and raised her voice. “Zar?”

“Duchess.” He emerged smoothly and almost silently from behind a hanging curtain. Camila recognised him, though she hadn’t heard his name before; this was, all the same, the advisor she’d been asked to evaluate.

She looked him over coolly, and as his eyes met hers she felt a strange flicker, almost as if she’d been wearing silk and walking on glass; a tantalising jolt right at the top of her spine.

“And who is this?” she asked, pushing any reaction she might have felt from her face. It never paid to reveal how much attention you’d given something.

“I serve the Duchess,” Zar said, his voice smooth and oiled. Briefly Camila pictured the vibrant amber glow of heat reflected on oiled water, the light of fires from a castle betrayed, and then it was gone.

Her head spun, a strange dizziness that came out of nowhere and that had no explanation she could sense. She blinked, very slowly, and turned her head away from the strange intensity.

There was an expectation in the room; the silence that had fallen held an edge of anticipation. What were they expecting? It felt sinister, uncomfortable, although that might simply have been the intensity of Zar’s stare, the stress of his regard.

“I would like,” Zar said slowly, and there was an uncertainty in his tone that felt unnatural there, “to serve the Princess. Can you arrange this for me?”

There was a pressure in her head that made no sense, and it seemed like the expectation from the room around her was weighing on her mind internally, now, too, a pressure and an encouragement to agree to something which was not at all what Princess Aelina had asked her to do.

Camila had sworn an oath. She was not willing to break it, nor even to allow it to soften in the heat of this atmosphere until it could be bent.

“No,” she said, finally and faintly. “Excuse me.” And she rose, hurriedly, and just as hurriedly she swept out of the room, leaving the two from Muchkan looking at one another in confusion.