Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire

The high banners of the Visigoth Empire snapped in the icy Sarmatian wind.

Snow dusted the ridgelines, clinging to pine boughs and helms alike, as Medellin Valdesca stood at the fore of her column, eyes narrowed against the frozen light.

They called her the Silver Wolf — for the ash-pale braid that hung past her shoulders, for the color of her war-plate, and for the merciless precision with which she tore through her enemies.

At just twenty-two, she had already commanded more victories than most generals twice her age.

She was of noble birth being from the famous Valdesca family, but in the Empire of the Visigoths, glory made its own bloodline, and her own power was seen by many as being the second only to their own ruling Emperor.

Now, her forces — a host of thirty thousand — stretched out behind her like the sinew of some great beast.

Fresh from the conquest of the Herald Kingdom, their blades were still stained with that victory as the native peoples had been subjugated and oppressed into submission.

Now they turned toward the eastern wilds.

The Sarmatia Imperium.

A shattered shell of its former self.

But still proud.

Still dangerous.

Still ruled by ancient houses who clung to their blood rites and river gods, as if tradition could stop steel.

Medellin's breath fogged in the cold.

She welcomed it.

She wanted resistance.

She hungered for it.

But beneath that hunger — beneath the calm ruthlessness with which she had sacked four cities in twelve days — something strange stirred.

Memory.

Of him.

That damned Lunan man.

She hadn't even learned his name.

Not fully.

The warrior with the blue eyes and silver hair — the one she had crossed swords with in the dying embers of the Second Lunan War.

He had fought like he was possessed by a demon.

Not in rage, but in utter control.

Tactical.

Relentless.

His form perfect.

His purpose unshakable.

In the chaos, they had clashed once — blades sliding, breath mingling — and in that single moment, she had tasted something more dangerous than any empire.

Respect.

And something worse.

Desire.

Now, weeks into her Sarmatian campaign, that desire scratched at her like a splinter under the skin.

It came in her sleep, in the quiet before a charge, in the way her fingers lingered too long on the hilt of her sword.

She had given her loyalty — body and soul — to the Visigoth Emperor.

She was his general, his weapon, his wolf.

But that man, that Lunanian…

He had not feared her.

He had looked into her — truly looked — and for a heartbeat, she had wanted nothing more than to strike him down and kiss him in the same breath.

Madness.

She shook the thought loose and turned from the ridgeline, her cloak flaring behind her.

A scout waited below, kneeling in the snow.

"Report,"

Medellin ordered.

The scout rose.

"Two Sarmatian cities abandoned. They flee east into the ice forests. Their lords have raised the river clans. It will be a hard march."

A smile ghosted across her lips.

"Good. Let them run. Wolves hunt best when the prey tires itself first."

She raised her blade, pointing it toward the distant smoke trails that marked Sarmatia's fleeing remnants.

"Drive them to the river."

She turned to her commanders.

"When the frost melts, it will do so red."

The orders rippled through the ranks.

Soon, her cavalry would break into the flatlands.

Her axemen would sweep the woodlands clean.

And the warbands would press the Sarmatians between frozen rivers and the burning cities they'd left behind.

It would be a brutal campaign.

But it would also be hers.

And maybe, when the east was pacified — when the wolf had drunk her fill of blood and fire — she would ride west again.

Towards unconquered lands.

Toward him.

To finish what she had started.

Not to kill him.

Not at first.

She didn't know what she would do.

But Medellin Valdesca had never been afraid to find out.

And if the world must break open to give her that answer…

So be it.

~

The wind screamed through the trees that morning, dry and sharp, dragging coils of snow through the valley like fleeing ghosts.

Medellin Valdesca stood alone at the edge of her command tent, the flaps pulled open, her silver cloak heavy with frost.

Behind her, the warcamp stirred — fires being stoked, weapons sharpened, horses watered.

But none dared interrupt her solitude.

She held in her hand a scroll.

Fine parchment.

Red wax seal.

Not Visigoth.

Not Sarmatian.

Romanus.

It had arrived not with a courier, but through her network — an invisible lattice of spies, informants, and sell-swords woven across the continent, loyal to her alone.

A network that had whispered one name again and again across firelight and storm.

Julius.

She unrolled the scroll slowly, eyes narrowing as she read.

And then read again.

And again.

Each line a strike across her chest.

"Julius of Romanus, formerly Chief of Staff of the Lunanian frontier campaigns, declared himself Grand Duke after the collapse of the Lunan Crown. With only a fraction of the loyalist army, he seized the throne of the dying kingdom in a bloodless march..."

Her breath caught.

The same man.

It has to be.

"...and from there, crushed dissent across the Roserun Kingdom, citing old alliance treaties and securing their fealty by forcing the nobility into debt and dependence. Roserun now answers directly to the Romanus banner."

She stared down at the snow-covered valley beyond the tent.

The cold was gone now.

She didn't feel it.

"Romanus forces swept across the Greecian Peninsula, engaging in five simultaneous campaigns. Every single one ended in victory. As of last month, the Parthian government has been dissolved. Romanus has annexed the region and declared itself a Kingdom in truth. Julius wears a crown now."

She didn't blink.

Didn't breathe.

A crown.

He'd done it.

Not as a proper noble heir, not as the favoured son of a dying line — but through force, through precision, through sheer ruthless brilliance.

The man she had clashed blades with.

The man she had almost killed.

The man who had almost unmade her.

Was now King of a rising kingdom.

A man embroiled in more wars in the last few years than any could ever hope to have, and better yet he'd managed to win them all.

Her hand tightened on the scroll until the parchment cracked.

So much made sense now.

His presence in the war.

His composure.

His gaze.

It hadn't been desperation.

It had been certainty.

As though he had seen this path already.

No wonder he hadn't feared her.

He had already been walking toward the crown.

"Commander?"

A quiet voice from the tent's entrance.

Medellin didn't turn.

"Speak."

The messenger — young, nervous, Sarmatian-blooded — cleared his throat.

"The scouts report another village burned to the west. Sarmatian clans are splitting. Fragmenting. They may start surrendering outright."

Medellin slowly turned her gaze to the young man.

"Let them,"

she said.

Her voice was flat, distant.

"We'll let this fire burn low... and then smother the ashes."

The soldier bowed and left, unaware of the storm just behind her eyes.

~

That night, alone in her war tent, Medellin sat cross-legged before a low brazier, the flames licking against the walls like whispering ghosts.

She hadn't spoken to anyone in hours.

Not since the report.

Her thoughts swirled.

Julius.

King.

A word she had never feared — but had never expected to feel.

What did it mean?

That he now ruled territory nearly as wide as the Visigoth Empire?

That he'd taken back the lands of old Lunan, then absorbed its allies?

That he had done all this without her?

She should have hated him.

She wanted to hate him.

But she couldn't.

Instead, her chest ached.

Her fingers trembled.

Her blade lay untouched beside her, forgotten.

He was out there.

Not just alive — rising.

And now, a new question formed in her heart.

Not whether she would ride west again.

But whether she would ride to destroy him…

Or to stand at his side.

She did not know the answer.

Not yet.

But for the first time in her life — Medellin Valdesca was no longer certain where her war would end.

Only that it would end with him.