Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire

The candlelight in Medellin's command tent guttered in the draft, sending long shadows crawling across the hide walls.

The reports lay scattered before her — fresh ink from her informants, each sheet a thread in a web that stretched across half the known world.

Her forces had march for weeks, leaving the bloodbath that is now the Sarmathia Imperium behind, taking up positions along the northern border with Aegyptus, if reports were to be believed, the Emperor had two additional armies assembling on the Eastern border, which would allow them to invade from the west and east at the same time in a pincer.

At the same time her desk was filled with intelligence reports but not of the east.

These other reports interested her more than the others however.

She picked up the top one again.

Germania's war against Achae — Julius had entered the fray without hesitation, lending both arms and coin to Germania's cause, aiding them to break the deadlock they found themselves in.

Within weeks, Achae's famed hoplite legions had broken in the passes of Phocis.

Romanus banners now flew along the entire Achaeian coastline, while the Germania horde continued to march with their black eagle alongside the Romanus golden eagle.

She set it down, drew another.

The invasion of Francia.

A war not of attrition effectively, but of precise strikes — Julius leading from the front, his heavy cavalry punching through noble levies like a smith's hammer through glass.

The Franks had barely rallied before their capital itself became threatened.

A third report, still smelling faintly of salt from its voyage.

The Principality of Christendom — starved not by siege engines but by coin and grain.

Julius had cut every road and port for a winter, embargoing their markets until their coffers ran dry.

Come spring, their ruler had knelt at his feet without a drop of blood spilled, at least that was the official report coming from Árheimar, but her families agents had discovered that the truth was far easier, the 'war' if it could be called that lasted less than a week, followed by Romanus blockading all the land and sea routes to the Principality, but the embargo ended early not because they had given up, well they had, but not from the embargo.

The true ruler the pontiff retruned from personal matters and ousted the man he'd left in command in his absense, and upon his return looked over the mess that was their relations with Romanus, and made the descision to spare his people greater suffering and submitted himself to the new Emperor for their annexation.

Medellin leaned back in her chair.

The wood creaked under her weight.

Julius's expansion was… unnatural in its pace.

Not only because his armies marched without pause, but because every campaign seemed to end the same way: not just with victory, but with willing subjects celebrating the victory of their invaders as if they were liberators.

That was the difference.

Her Emperor ruled from a dais of skulls, sending his orders through messengers, never risking his own life since taking the throne, when before he had the crown he always fought his own battles.

Julius on the other hand?

He was there.

In the mud.

On the wall.

First in the breach, as if he didnt have a crown on his head and was just another one of the citizens since his time as a noble of Lunan.

She thought of the battle in Lunan — the way his eyes had locked with hers even as their swords met.

Cold calculation, but not detached.

He'd been there.

Not commanding from safety, but shaping the fight with his own hand, saving his men's lives and taking on the strongest to save them from having to.

Her own soldiers… they respected her.

Feared her only when they didnt respect her.

But they followed the Emperor because they feared him... period.

Julius's men, she suspected, followed because they believed.

She let the thought sit, heavy and uncomfortable.

A rattle at the tent flap pulled her from it.

A messenger stepped in, helm under one arm, the other clutching a fresh satchel.

He knelt, offering it without a word.

She broke the seal.

Reading the contents within;

troop movements.

Supply lines.

Grain shortages in two Aeygyptian provinces.

Names of merchant houses funding the creation of the coalition.

And, tucked at the bottom, a hand-drawn map — Romanus positions along the western sea, and the present state of the war as it was then in Francia.

He was closer than she thought to wrapping up his most recent war.

"Dismissed,"

she said, and the soldier slipped away.

Medellin poured herself a cup of bitter wine, drinking it in one swallow.

It did nothing to clear the tightness in her chest.

The truth she didn't want to admit was simple;

Julius was becoming more than just an enemy sovereign.

He was becoming a threat the Visigoth Empire might not be able to contain.

She remembered Sarmatia.

How victory there had cost her half her army and any hope of loyalty from the survivors.

And now she was riding north into a desert war, with the coalition already gathering strength.

If Julius turned his eyes east while they were engaged…

She pushed the thought away.

That was the Emperor's worry, not hers.

And yet—

The tent flap opened again.

Alric stepped in, ducking low against the wind.

"They're settled for the night,"

he reported.

"Scouts out in three directions. Droven's keeping the watch."

She grunted acknowledgment.

He lingered.

"The men are restless."

"They're soldiers, Alric. Restless is their nature."

Medellin turned the cup in her hands, staring into the dregs of wine.

"Droven's part of it,"

Alric added.

"Calling you soft for letting those Aeygyptian scribes go. Says mercy is weakness."

She snorted.

"Droven mistakes cruelty for strength."

"True,"

Alric said,

"but you've never cared to correct that before."

She looked up sharply.

"And now you think I should?"

"I think you already are,"

he said, eyes meeting hers.

"Whether you mean to or not."

Medellin held his gaze for a long moment.

The tent seemed suddenly smaller, the air thicker.

"Let Droven talk,"

she said at last.

"If he wishes to challenge my command, he can try. He'll find that mercy doesn't dull the edge of my sword."

Alric's mouth twitched — not quite a smile.

"Few men could."

Her tone shifted, quieter now.

"Not even the Emperor."

It was out before she could stop it.

And she saw in Alric's eyes that he understood what she meant.

"Not even Julius,"

he said.

She didn't answer.

Didn't have to.

~

Later, after the camp had gone still, she sat again with the reports.

She traced the lines of Julius's campaigns, the arcs of his expansion.

The sweep of red ink across maps that not long ago had been a patchwork of rival banners.

She tried to imagine him in his palace — but she couldn't.

She only ever saw him on the field, wind tugging at his cloak, sword flashing.

Giving orders not from behind a wall but from the saddle.

If their positions were reversed, she wondered, what would he think of her?

A wolf leashed to a master she didn't fully trust, fighting wars that left only smoldering ruins in her wake.

She pushed the reports aside and stood, pacing the length of the tent.

The brazier's glow flickered against her armor, silver and cold.

Her Emperor wanted the Aeygyptus coalition broken.

She would do it — she had sworn her sword to him.

But somewhere deep, where oaths and banners meant less than steel and blood, she knew the truth.

The next time she and Julius crossed paths, the war between them might not be fought for territory at all.

It might be for something neither of their empires yet understood.

And in that quiet, dangerous place in her mind, Medellin Valdesca wondered for the first time in her life whether she feared the thought of losing… or the thought of winning.