The palace of the city's Dominus sat atop the highest point in Leodomum: a towering, rocky mound at the eastern edge of town with a staggeringly beautiful view of the surrounding countryside. Everywhere, rolling hills of grass and trees spread to the horizon, a sea of farms and stone walls and tiny thatched houses, broken up by snaking cobbled roads and the wide, sparkling Tettia River - which cut right through the centre of Leodomum to bring life to the city's boat builders and fishermen. But ... this landscape of life and agriculture should have been a verdant green, speckled with purples and yellows and all manner of wild colours. But, the central province's ongoing drought had left it barren, almost apocalyptic. The grasses had been drained to a sewagey brown, the trees left naked, and the little thatched houses were hollow.

But the palace - by golly, the palace was indomitable; a beacon of nobility, of prosperity. Hundreds of precisely cut steps rose up in a chiselled-straight line to the grand entrance, which was a marvellous colonnade of marble pillars and gold decorative bollocks that lined the foyer like a platoon of royal guards. Flanking the entrance on two sides were great square hedges trimmed to cut-and-paste perfection by artisans whose entire career could be described as 'hedges'.

This entrance was designed to tell you everything you needed to know about the Valenian Empire and its seat of local government here in the far-off province of the Southerlands. It was big, it was proud, and it was built to last. To climb to its withering heights would be to exhaust yourself on a never-ending staircase that soared to the very heavens. To try to topple its might would be to throw yourself against a wall of towering stone soldiers the likes of which could crush your entire army with one itty-bitty pinky toe.

Needless to say, everyone who actually had to come and go from the palace during their day-to-day tasks used the elevator built into the rock just off to the right of the stairs. Who'd use the stairs? Have you seen how many there were? Bugger that for a laugh.

Gaius accompanied Lucilla the entire way from the prison carved out beneath the palace, outside onto the wide street that ringed the hill like a terracotta moat, into the enchanted rocky shaft that carried a surprisingly humble wooden box from the bottom to the top, out into the palace gardens - which maintained their emerald green despite the surrounding famine - and finally into the palace itself through a subtle and somewhat anticlimactic side door.

Dominus Alexio Validuseus I, father to the late Alexio Validuseus II and still-early Lucilla Validuseus, awaited his daughter in a private room out of the public eye where he conducted the bulk of his wartime and intelligence briefings with various officials. Murals of great Valenian victories against the now-pacified Southerland barbarian hordes (and a fair few armies of the Northerland hordes) surrounded not just on all sides, but the ceiling as well. This was a space dedicated to victories against all threats, and the paperwork required to ensure them. A great oak table lined the centre of the space, matted with scrolls and books and communications of every shape and size. Maps were a staple of the room, filling in all the gaps between the books and scrolls, and someone quite thoughtful had popped a few shrubs and small trees around the periphery because, well, it added a bit or freshness, didn't it? Helped the murals really pop.

"Your grace," announced Gaius as he flowed into the room, "I have brought you your child, as requested."

The ageing Monitor placed a hand firmly on the small of Lucilla's back and urged her quite unceremoniously forwards into the room.

The Dominus had been staring at a map of the known Northerlands and now stood to his full height, an army of gems and trinkets tinkling all over him as they knocked each other around during the movement. This was a man well-coated in finery, his toga a gorgeous royal purple highlighted by gold lace, positively decked in silver and gold. Alexio Validuseus may not have been the tallest man on the planet, but he carried himself like a tall man and held his head high, chest puffed, hands clasped behind his back. His air of confidence may also have been helped not only by the, well, general certainty of a man surrounded by highly trained guards that could be summoned to murder an interloper in seconds, but by the knowledge that many of his bejewelled accessories were enchanted with exceedingly potent magics that protected him from, essentially, everything. He was untouchable.

Physically, anyway.

His face looked older than it should have, creased and lined in ways more befitting a labourer than a noble. Greys had started a riot on his temples and the rioting had begun to spread into the rest of his hair and beard. His watery eyes were perpetually worried, lips frozen in a straight line, skin starting to look blemished and pale. Here was a man under stress.

And his daughter wasn't helping.

"Thank you, Monitor," he replied, regarding Gaius with pale blue eyes. "You may leave us now. Captain Ectorius has just returned to us from the north. Please join Monitor Rex in debriefing him, and report back to me what you've learned from the captain's mission. I would like to know if these rumours we're hearing are true."

Gaius bowed low. Lower than necessary. "At once, your grace."

And he departed, leaving Lucilla standing alone at the edge of the room. She fidgeted with her own fingers, eyes downcast, instinctively trying not to attract attention to herself despite being the only other person in the room. It was not effective.

"Daughter," he finally said, and she felt the words pierce right through her into that ancient part of the brain that was always, and would always be, a child. The rest of her façade crumbled away like old plaster. It didn't stand a chance. Tears pricked her eyes and she felt angry at her own body betraying her. "Come here, now. Sit."

Lucilla did as she was asked, having no strength to disobey her father in this moment. She pulled out a tall-backed chair from under the table and sat down, knees together, fingers pressed between her thighs. She still had on her leather from the day, with no time to change into more appropriate clothing. Although no one had yet returned her sword.

"And so we are here again," her father said, and she heard the exhaustion in his voice. She was one more problem he didn't need. He didn't have to say it. Her fingers curled into fists.

"Father, I-" she started.

But he stopped her. "No. Everything you're about to say, daughter, you've said before. Everything I could say back, I've said before. Many times." He sighed openly and placed one hand on the table, appearing to steady himself. "So many times."

She gritted her teeth and stared at the tiled floor.

"I could humour your childish antics once, daughter, when you were small, when the barbarians killed your mother. When they killed your-" he hesitated, "...brother. But that was then. Now it is just us and I need you to grow up. This has to stop."

Next he pulled out a chair of his own and sat heavily upon it, jingling with metal and stones. She could see out of the corner of her eyes that he was staring at her, but she couldn't rise to meet his gaze.

"If all goes well, daughter, you will be Dominus one day. You know this is my plan for you." She'd heard this one before, yes. It was not a future she wanted for herself. "The Monitors like you, except perhaps Gaius but he dislikes everybody. The people, for the most part, approve of you. They have sympathy, at least, for what our family has suffered at the hands of the Northerners. No Monitor would dare elect someone else were there a challenger, even as my own popularity wanes. But ... if you keep up these wild adventures of yours, if you keep rushing headlong into every little thing, that will change, no? I could fill a book with the complaints I've received against you since Alexio passed. You're harming my reputation now as well as your own, and mine cannot afford more harm in these sensitive times."

Lucilla's mind whirled with thoughts she knew she should share, things she should say, things she could scream. I don't want to be Dominus! And don't you dare bring up Alexio - you're the one who sent him off to fight! But none of them came out. Her mouth stayed glued shut, eyes too heavy to lift.

Her father stayed silent too at first, searching her, perhaps waiting to see if she had anything to say for herself. But he didn't leave the gap for long.

He sighed again. A big one this time.

"I suppose I ought to tell you."

She frowned and finally looked up. Tell her what?

Her father's face was a picture of misery. He looked as though he hadn't slept in, well, ever. Pale, pasty, weak. Wherever the end of his tether was, he'd lost it a while ago. Now he was muddling through life pretending he still had it in his pocket. It made her feel all the more guilty for the day's events. Why was she so hot headed, so wilful and righteous? In moments like these she could think of every little reason why chasing after thieves was not something she should be doing, even though it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Moments like these gave her a rushing onslaught of clarity. But in the heat of the moment? In those precious first few seconds where she saw an injustice, a wrong, a perceived villainy, she couldn't help herself. All the cogs turned on their own and she just ... acted. No control. Every time she thought this time would be different. This time it would work out better. This time, she'd be a hero. Make her father proud.

And this was the outcome.

"Daughter, there are things happening in this province that ... that people don't realise," he father began, his voice laden, slow. "The burden that I'm taking on right now, that the Monitors are taking on, is far more significant than we have let the public know. Even some of the Monitors don't know the true extent of things."

Lucilla felt her blood running cold. Still she couldn't speak.

"The emperor has all but abandoned us, Lucilla. Or will soon, anyway."

What?

"Yes, it's true. Our inability to pacify the barbarians, the cost of maintaining the Barricade - the cost of building it in the fist place. The blights, the floods, the droughts. Now these wildfires. We cannot feed ourselves, we cannot home our people, and now, now we're hearing rumours that some of the Northerner clans are planning to break the treaty - start another war. It all costs money, and the emperor has grown tired of spending it on us. He has told me this himself, in person. And daughter, he never portals to the provinces if he doesn't feel very strongly about something."

Lucilla swallowed a lump in her throat, but it bobbed back up again. Tears pricked her eyes once more and this time she couldn't stop them. Sweet mercy, was it really so bad? She didn't even know the emperor had visited. No one did.

Her father looked like he himself was close to tears. She'd never seen him like this. Not even when mother died, or Alexio.

"I have been informed," he continued, pausing to sort his thoughts, "that if we do not bring these costs down - dramatically - then that will it be it for the Southerlands. The emperor wishes to expand the empire elsewhere and he wants our troops. The 25th Legion will be pulled out by year's end, and soon the 11th will follow if we - if I - have not sorted things. That will be it, daughter, do you understand?

"In just one year the Southerlands will have no army. No Dominus. No Monitors. Our people will be left on their own here. Anyone who cannot evacuate the peninsula will be left at the mercy of whoever rises up to seize control. The barbarians will come down from the north and wipe them out. They'll stop at nothing to eradicate every Valenian they can find. Imagine the suffering, daughter. The horror those savages will impart on our kin, like they've done to our family. I cannot let that happen. And every time you create more problems for me, every time we have to have this discussion, you make things worse. Do you hear me, daughter?"

His voice was rising now. "I cannot save this province and deal with your immaturity. You have to grow up. You have to, not just for me but for the province. For all of the innocent people who live here - who will die if we are forced to leave. No more complaints, daughter. No more fights. Definitely no more jail. I need you by my side, not under my heel."

Lucilla felt a sting of pain in her palms and realised she was digging her nails into herself. Tears flowed freely from her eyes and still she said nothing, but her heckles were up, rage seething beneath the surface. Not at her father - at herself. For making him feel this way. For putting this all on him. For not seeing that all of this was going on. For acting like a spoilt, self-righteous noble child on a crusade for justice.

In that moment, she hated herself.

"Do you hear me, daughter?" he asked again, bringing her back. "No more. I need to hear you say it."

She opened her mouth to reply and at first nothing came out. She wrestled back the lump that blocked her voice, her throat aching the whole time, and tried again. "N- no more, father," she croaked. Her saliva had abandoned her. It was all she could manage.

This at least seemed to provide him some visible relief. He relaxed, sat back in his chair. "Good," he said. "Good. That's good. Go, then, daughter. Retire to your room and consider what we have talked about. I have much to do."

She nodded.

Clenched her fingers.

Then fled the room.