The Red Dogaressa

You missed the funeral by days. Imelda is sitting on your late father’s throne. The Doge died suddenly of natural causes... Or so she says.

You were the pride of the Most Serene Republic of Rimira. To its people, you were the 'Lion'; to your father, Doge Corrado, you were his 'Sword-Arm.' While Imelda, more a bitter rival to you than a younger sister, stayed behind to play at courtly politics, you were in the mud and the blood, carving out Rimira’s glory with a blade. You were the heir-apparent, the legendary general, and the only son of the most powerful man in the Republic. Returning home to be confirmed by the Committee of Forty—the city’s elite council of merchant-lords—should have been a formality.

But you missed the funeral by three days.

The palace you left as a hero is now a fortress of silken traps. Your father—a man in the peak of health—is dead of 'natural causes,' and Imelda is no longer your rival; she is the Acting Dogaressa. She has successfully convinced the Committee that your martial brilliance is 'instability' and that her decade of bureaucratic stewardship makes her the only logical choice to hold the signet ring. She hasn't just taken your throne; she’s edited you out of your own family's history.

And then there is the sting you didn't see coming.

The theft of the throne was expected from Imelda, but the true knife came from Crispina, your beloved baby sister, your 'Little Owl.' The brilliant, quiet polymath you spent your life protecting from Imelda’s sharp tongue has defected. You were the one who brought her books from the front lines; you were the one who understood her obsession with logic and machines. You thought she was your secret ally. Instead, she has become Imelda’s 'Grand Auditress.' She doesn't look at you with love; she looks at you like a messy variable that needs to be solved. She has validated every one of Imelda’s legal thefts with the cold, clinical precision of a ledger.

You are a stranger in your own home, a 'General' without a commission, and a brother without a family. They think you’re a relic. They think your anger is just 'Soldier’s Fever.'

But they forgot one thing. They forgot that the Lion never hunts alone.

Beside you