Meronion adjusted her eyepatch as she strode down the broad corridor towards Fornulus' chambers, her yellow robe billowing out behind her. Her attendants Khristos and Lomberd were following behind her as always, servants scurrying out of her way in a satisfying manner. She didn't dislike servants. They were necessary to the smooth functioning of the palace, but it was also necessary for the Milem to have presence above and beyond that of a mere princess of the empire. As the Milem in charge of the empire's soldiers, she couldn't be some little mouse like her full sister Ophelion, or a lay-about like Theodorian, or a sneak like Cordelian. She had to embody the strength of the empire, which meant being fearsome. After the recent deaths of her husband and father, she felt even more keenly the importance of projecting strength.

"Khristos."

The older woman, her aid-de-camp for six years now, matched her pace to walk alongside her princess. She was shorter than the princess, who was tall, especially for a woman. Khristos' sharp features also contrasted with her own more square face. People often compared Meronion to her father, both in manner and looks. She did her best to invite the comparisons.

"I did remember to tell you to bring the figures from the stables, didn't I?" She asked the shorter woman.

"You did, Your Highness. I have them."

"Good." She nodded. She hated missing anything, which was why Khristos was her aide. The woman was efficient in her work.

Her hip was aching again, thanks to an iron spear from a certain Lorgorin savage almost a decade ago. She still had the spear head, as a reminder of what her enemies were capable of. One of their arrows had taken her right eye a few years later, and she had countless scars from their swords and spears. Badges of honor, one and all. Cordelian didn't have a mark on his pristine hide. He'd never wielded a spear, never been away from the capital, never spent a night with the soldiers, and now he thought he could rule. Pathetic.

She knew perfectly well what he was thinking, that brother of hers. Now their father was dead the man was circling the crowns like a vulture, licking his lips at the thought of them. Everybody knew Fornulus was a fat buffoon, unwilling and incapable of reining in his younger brother. Nothing would change when he officially became the 47th Doukar. He was too stupid to even see the danger, and Cordelian would think this was his chance. Let him have his little schemes, she wasn't going to sink to his level, she had no stomach for it. She'd just put a boot in his face if he extended those claws too far.

She didn’t respect Fornulus – their father never had either. But he would now be the rightful Doukar, and to her, that meant something. It meant traditions dating back four hundred years to Mekos the Magnificent's reforms, which meant stability, loyalty, and most of all, strength. Strength was central to the empire. It was Doukar the Great’s strength that ended the line of the Old Kings, ousted his queen Leandoria, and smashed the Giseans' dominance of the Melancthon to form his own empire from their ashes. It was Mekos’s strength that crushed the Seven Pretenders and formed the empire into what it was today. Strength was life. Weakness was death.

This was as true today as it had been in the past. Powerful as the empire was, strong enemies threatened it from the North and South. Few took seriously the threat of the Northern savages. True, they had to pillage scraps of bronze from the empire for their spears, but there was a purity in their rage that gave them strength. More worryingly, over the last few years she’d heard that some of the tribes had discovered new ways to forge iron to make it stronger than any bronze, and free from rust. A few months ago she had taken the iron spear head that once been in her hip out of the box she kept it in, for the first time in years, and discovered the rumors were true. It was almost completely free of rust, and as sharp as ever. That shouldn't have been possible. Iron rusted quickly and throughout, unlike bronze, which was why nobody sensible tipped their spears with it. It was supernaturally hard too, far harder than any iron she’d seen before. She’d used the spear head to gouge a line in a bronze breast plate, as a test, but no bronze blade could leave a mark on it.

She had taken to carrying it on her since then, out of the same kind of sick compulsion that would cause someone to poke at a sore spot. She retrieved it from pocket in her robe, wrapped in wool, and parted the wool to look it yet again. It still shone, untarnished, as sharp and hard as the day it injured her. There it was, right in her hand, the proof that the Lorgorin savages had discovered something even Dardanos had not.

Many of those at court foolishly thought Dardanos drew power from gold and silver mines, and silk production. The truth was the power of the empire was the tin lying in foothills just outside the city. Doukar the Great had understood this, and his first conquests had been to seize copper rich neighboring cities, because with both copper and tin Dardanos could produce all the bronze it needed to take over the world. While copper was common, of all the nations around the Melancthon sea only Dardanos had any significant amount of tin. All their neighbors depended on the tin from Dardano to make their bronze, so by cutting off the supply of tin they could prevent their enemies from arming themselves at will. This was why the Monar Empire and Bithia became their friends, and why the Lorgorin always lost. Tin was the ultimate source of their great power and wealth. This unnatural iron threatened the foundation of the empire. It went beyond the Lorgorin simply having better weapons. If the secret of their iron spread, Dardano would lose their superiority against Monar and all the others, their leverage, and thus their place in the world.

They'd captured barbarian warriors, even chiefs, to try to discover the secret of the iron, but few of them spoke Dardanian and none of them were smiths. The smiths weren’t on the front lines. There was only one solution, as Meronion had forcefully argued several times to her father: a fullscale invasion. The Lorgorin had been raiding the northern borders of the empire for the last two hundred years. The empire ignored them because they never threatened anybody who mattered, there being only farmers up there, and because the Lorgorin lands had no value for the empire. With the cold weather, dense forests, and steep hills, and no valuable resources, conquering the northern tribal lands had never been worth the effort. But now it was no longer a matter of what the empire might gain. It was a matter of survival, of keeping what they had. They needed to learn the secret of this iron before the Monar or Circiniads did, and keep it to themselves. They needed to find the people who made this iron and make them talk.

It was no time, in other words, for foolishness within the royal family. It was time for unity, and for this reason she was going to see her elder brother, the soon to be Doukar, to impress this fact onto him. While her father had taken her seriously, he had not been able to take the Lorgorin seriously, dismissing them as unlettered savages. Instead he focused his attention on the far west province of Hagor, where some petty slave uprisings had been an annoyance for some years. Fortunately her father had finally decisively crushed them just a few months ago, recalling her and her armies back to the capital in the process, allowing her to refocus on the north.

All these thoughts ran through her head during the long walk to the Mekos’ chambers (this palace was too big, damn Doukar Trigon and his ego). Finally they arrived at the doors to Fornulus’s rooms, and she sent Khristos in to announce her arrival. She glanced at the solid figure of Lomberd standing to her side. The man wasn't especially tall, shorter than her, but everything about him spoke of strength. His pale skin and hair made clear his origins as one of the very Lorgorin enemies of the empire that she wished to crush.

"Tell me Lomberd," she began.

"Highness." He rumbled. It wasn't a question, just an acknowledgement that he'd heard her. He almost never asked questions or offered opinions unasked. His northern accent was still thick.

She fully unwrapped the spear head and held it towards him. "You remember this, yes?"

"Of course, it is the spear I stabbed you with."

She chuckled. She liked that Lomberd was so direct. He never wasted his time mincing words, unlike the sniveling weaklings of the court. Cordelian's rambling, pretentious way of speaking always irritated her. You'd ask the man a question and by the time he’d gotten to the point you'd forgotten what you asked.

"There are more like this, correct?" She asked Lomberd.

He simply shrugged. She'd already asked him this question so many times, he no doubt didn't see the point in answering it again. He'd been an elite berserker in his tribe, given a special weapon in order to kill the hated Imperial Princess who was invading their lands. Special, yes, but not unique. She’d seen others.

"I'm going to conquer the Lorgorin. Does that concern you?"

He shrugged again, but answered this time. "You spared me because you respected my strength. I followed you because I respected your strength, before I could even speak your tongue. The Lorgorin people will not all die in your war, but join the empire, and those who live will respect your strength as I do. That kind of rule we can understand."

She nodded. She had no intention of wiping out the tribes, if that was even possible. All she wanted was the secret of this special iron. If she could bring the tribes into the empire, their special iron and their fierce warriors would push the empire to new heights of power.

Khristos slipped out of the door before she could continue the conversation. The other woman seemed annoyed.

"The Mekos is not there, Your Highness. Only Lady Vicca is present along with her infant daughter." Vicca was Fornulus' wife, a provincial through and through, from some island in the middle of the sea.

"Hmph, why am I not surprised? No doubt he's out drinking, gambling, and whoring. All this way for nothing. Let's go."

Khristos hurried to the princess, who was already stumping off.

"The Lady Vicca invites you to join her and discuss whatever matters you wish."

"When she's the actual Empress then it's permissible for her to speak of state matters with me, the Milem. Until then, it would be inappropriate for me to meet with her." Meronion said.

"She expected you would say that and noted that she will be the Empress soon. That it is only a matter of formalities." Khristos said the last hesitantly, knowing it wouldn't please her princess.

"Soon is not now. It's not a formality, it's the law."

Khristos nodded and trotted back towards the chambers to let the lady know. Meronion stopped to wait for her – no point making Khristos run all over the palace just for some provincial’s sake.

She knew many of her siblings found her inflexible and would have rolled their eyes at her not talking to Fornulus' wife instead of him. Everybody knew Fornulus couldn't put his robes on in the morning without being told how to do it by his wife. But what others saw as a tiresome rigidity, Meronion understood was really respect for the empire. To hold to what was right would save them from the savages and their own corruption.

Khristos came back after a little while, no doubt after having heard complaints from the soon-to-be Empress. Meronion didn't care what the woman thought. Unlike Cordelian, Meronion proved her worth through action, not through fancy words. She wasn't one of the most powerful people in the empire because she won friends, but because she won battles. The next Empress might well dislike her, but she would need her results.

"What's next on my list Khristos?"

"Hekcontis wishes to speak with you."

Meronion snorted in disinterest. That patros windbag was always whining to her about pirates raiding his lands, demanding she send half the army to protect his sheep. She had better uses of this free time than to talk to him.

"He can wait, I'm going back to see my baby." Khristos nodded and gestured to a passing attendant to find the patros and pass the message on to the patros.

With all the ceremonies required by her father's death she'd barely had time to spend with her youngest daughter. The last gift from Talomachus, her late husband, before he had been lost at sea, near a year now. He had been a fine man, one she respected, but she couldn't say that she mourned him. Royalty didn't have the luxury of choosing their spouses based on affection. Once her daughter was older it would be her duty to marry again, as she was still capable of furthering the royal line. That was a thought for another day, however.