title: Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires
author:  Justin C. Vovk 
description: Justin C. Vovk is the author of In Destiny's Hands: Five Tragic Rulers, Children of Maria Theresa. He is an independent journalist and historian who resides in Hamilton, Ontario.
zlib_text: ![](Images/image00176.jpeg)
  
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  **Tamora Pierce**
  
  _Protector of the Small 04_
  
   **Lady Knight**
  
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  **ISBN 0 439 99241 9**
  
   **Copyright © 2002 by Tamora Pierce.** _ ****_
  
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  _**This e-book is not for sale!!!**_
  
  _To the people of New York City:_
  
  _I always knew the great sacrifice and kindness_
  
  _my neighbours are capable of, but now the rest_
  
  _of the world knows, too_
  
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  _2_
  
  ![](Images/image00175.jpeg)
  
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  _3_
  
  ![](Images/image00177.jpeg)
  
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  _4_
  
  _The palace in Corus, the capital of Tortall, in the twenty-first year_ _of
  the reign of Jonathan and Thayet, his queen_
  
  _Mid-March, 456 HE (Human Era)_
  
  **1**
  
   **STORM WARNINGS**
  
  She lay with the comfortable black blanket of sleep wrapped around her. Then,
  against the blackness, light moved and strengthened to reveal twelve large,
  vaguely rat- or insect-like metal creatures, devices built for murder. The
  killing devices were magical structures made of iron-coated giants' bones,
  chains, pull