The Last Empress is a new novel project of mine. All characters and places are © to me



Dragons, the ancient rulers of the world. In the span of only a few decades, they built an empire that spanned the globe of the planet, Geokyn. Roughly twice the size of the Earth, a planet mentioned in the very few texts that predated the dragon empire, or forged as they were often called, though the ancient texts that survived those times as well were very bleak on the details. One such text referred to an Empress who rose above the rest. She was a tyrant in the old legends, but in her tyranny, the world flourished. Freedoms weren’t a given, but they weren’t exactly trampled upon either. There were conflicting tales of ruthlessness and mercies. There was a story of genocide, and another of salvation. For every good tale, there were two bad ones about this tyrant. Only a title remained, ‘The Last.’ Or at least, that is what the translations came out to. The languages of Geokyn had long since melted into the sole language known from the old times as common. All races now spoke it, and none of them matched the word that had been given as this Empress’s title. The letters spelled ‘Omega’ and according to the humans of Geokyn, that was a throwback to a language of this Earth that was mentioned here and there. The humans were often looked down upon as being foolish for their beliefs that they’d come from this planet Earth, said to be in a different sky than their own.

Regardless of where this Earth fit into all of the old tales. The Last Empress was written off as a fairy tale to scare little children by some, and as a long-lost historical figure that got tied up with other figures of the time. A savior of sorts who’d been vilified by her political rivals. Regardless, the Forged Empire, the planet spanning empire of the now dead and forgotten dragons was the ancient relics of the past. The only thing that remained of them was the kobolds, a species that had evolved, supposedly, from the few dragons who had survived the collapse of the empire. As few samples of history as there were for the golden years of the empire, there were fewer still of the collapse. On the subject of the ancient world, there was only a few who decided to specialize in the subject. One such team was an odd pair who had the thinnest of ties to the ancient world. One was a wolfess of black and white named Rhiannon Swift, who shared her last name with a kobold known as Gaius Swift. They surmised that their shared last name wasn’t a coincidence as many tried to tell them. It didn’t make sense for two families from differing species to have a similar name unless they’d once been members of the same family at one point or another. Rhiannon was a retired gladiator of some renown. Unlike others who left her trade with their head still on their shoulders, Rhiannon spent her meager fortune from the pits on her education and was now one of those few mentioned experts on history. Her companion, Gaius had been born into the role as it were. His father had been one of the workers who dug at the behest of such experts. Hearing those experts speak of the relics he pulled up, he taught his son all he could about what he heard, to the point that Gaius surprised the expert enough to earn a mentor.

That old mentor had passed some time ago, but not before leaving Gaius with a full and flourishing education on the matter, as well as financial backing to continue building up the pieces of the past. This latest obsession of theirs, the Last Empress was a source of ridicule from those who were less learned in the field, but they were hailed as ‘heroes’ by their peers. It was a hollow compliment, as they knew it meant they’d likely be dead before their work was finished by whomever they passed their knowledge on to. They were laying the groundwork for the research that would be needed later. They would never see their work finished; heroic is what was known as useless in their circles. Useless to them and their time. Still, with their latest find, they couldn’t bring themselves to give up on their target. The latest find in question, was a sword of impressive size and weight. Even the strongest of their workers couldn’t heft it up out of the pit alone. Such weapons were common among the dragon dig sites of old. However, this one was of remarkable craftmanship. It was a pitch-black material, some sort of metal that wasn’t in the records of the miner’s guild. Such ores weren’t uncommon to be seen among dragon royalty and military sites, as far as their own guild had found. The ‘Relic’ Guild as it was called was less a guild and more a society of experts. They mused that if the miner’s guild didn’t have a record of the metal, then it could be that it was either mined in its entirety, or, as some of the relic guild mused, it could have been taken from meteors that had high amounts of metallic ores inside.

Either way, the blade surprised everyone by being the hardest known object discovered yet. Attempts to scrape a sample from it had failed miserably. More startling still was that the blade was still pristine despite its time in the dirt. Worse still for the hand of one worker, was the fact that the blade was still sharp as the finest razor. Finer perhaps as the cut had gone unnoticed until the man had realized his blood was staining his fur. Gaius paid the man for his injury and saw to it that the mage’s guild sent their finest healer to tend to the man. It was bad to have any injuries on such a dig, as it put the relic guild in a negative light. It was far worse to have a worker cut by a blade that had been in the ground for longer than proper recorded history. A black blade at that with mysterious markings of the old, forged language. Markings that, at present, techniques of the finest blacksmiths would not be able to replicate, as they could not even collect the smallest of samples from it. Rhiannon was fascinated by the sword at first, but she didn’t obsess over it until she found a rune in the old tongue that made her squeal like a giddy child. As a gladiator, she’d never had the chance to be a giddy child, so the sound caught all in earshot quite by surprise. It was the same rune that had been a blessing and a plague upon both her career and Gaius’s. The silver kobold wandered over to see what the wolfess was so excited about, only to shout out in glee as he noticed the symbol too. Eagerly, the traced it with paper and ink and raced back to headquarters, one of the few buildings the relic guild kept up. Known as the Great Library by the common folk, it was the place of power for the guild and a source of knowledge. It was a favorite place for the mage’s guild to send their younger members so they could learn of the history and fundaments of magic, and a place for the oldest of the miner’s guild to refresh their memories on the catalogs of ores.

The ‘leader’ of the relic guild, or rather, the oldest and wisest, nearly fell from his chair as the wolf and kobold burst into his office. The old dwarf, another odd race to find among the mostly animalistic of Geokyn, quickly righted himself before looking over to the two. “Don’t the two of you ever knock?” He asked, though he could not hold a chuckle as he spoke. His pure white beard was a sign of his age, but even in his elderly years, his arms were thick with muscle and his long, prideful beard was maintained when others would have simply braided it and let it rot with the rest of their body. While dwarves lived to be ancient as stone, most let themselves decay and submit to stone-skin disease. This dwarf, known as Glim Ruby-mane, had kept himself limber as possible, by continuing to dig at his own sites and doing his own research rather than having his aids tend to such things as old dwarves often did. His wealth wasn’t in gems and ores, but in knowledge. All who wished to keep their records in his dwelling paid tribute, regardless of how foolish they thought it was for a dwarf from such a well respected family to live the life of a glorified librarian.

Gaius, the less athletic of the two stopped to catch his breath as Rhiannon slammed her finding down on the desk. “It’s the rune again sir! It’s the symbol of the Last Empress again! That damned Omega symbol that the humans are always blabbering about.” When the old dwarf seemed to deflate a bit, she grinned. “Only this time we found it on a black sword that’s been in the ground since the collapse. This blade isn’t just in good condition, its like it never went into the dirt in the first place! It was sharp enough to cut one of our workers, too heavy to carry without two of our strongest and a system of pulleys, and most amazing of all, this blade cannot be chipped, scraped, or otherwise damaged. Even the mage’s guild couldn’t mark it with their most trusted curator in the area.” Rhiannon took a breath before speaking up just as Gaius tried to stop her. “I think this is the fabled black blade of the Last Empress herself. If it isn’t then maybe, it’s the blade of someone close to her or even the very ‘savior’ figure that sparked the legend itself. Regardless, I think the dig site we are working on now is the key to finding the Last Empress!” Her eagerness caught the old dwarf by surprise, but Gaius was quick to calm things down, or rather, temper expectations.

“As amazing as that would be, it may not be that great, sir. However! This is single handedly the most solid lead the relic guild has ever found of ANY artifact from the Forged Empire having ties to the Last Empress, even in the mildest of sense. This sword predates the legends, and we found it right here in the capitol’s dig site. Even if this has nothing to do with the Empress legends, then it is still all the evidence we need to show the council that our dig site isn’t a waste of funds.” That put a glimmer of hope in Glim’s eye as he watched Gaius more carefully. He wasn’t trying to be cruel to Rhiannon, but she was a gladiator when it came to her instincts. She saw an opening at victory, in a manner of speaking, and was trying to push for it when the art of relic hunting was more a game of patience. That said, he knew they’d have never found this sword without Rhiannon’s fans on the council, nor her passion for her new life and her new work. Gaius smiled and continued. “What’s more, the depth we’ve reached might be key at other dig sites for Forged Empire finds! This is a revolutionary discovery for the guild. There hasn’t been a find this monumental since the early days of the guild. Since you finished the Great Library sir. This is going to invigorate our people’s works. You could call it the relic guild’s second wind of sorts.”