Editing Crucible:Hundred Worlds (section)

== The Empress And The Earthman ==

Gauntlet’s position became still more complicated because of his romance with the [[Crucible:Empress of the Hundred Worlds|Empress Xandarre]]. What began amid war, gratitude, and shared danger grew into one of the most famous and controversial relationships in imperial history. To the court, it was a scandal. To the people, it was a romance worthy of epic songs. To the imperial houses, it was a potential dynastic crisis.

The Empress saw in Gauntlet something rare within the machinery of empire: a champion who had not been raised in its intrigues, did not owe his first loyalty to any house, and could speak to her as a person rather than a throne. Gauntlet, for his part, found himself drawn into a world of impossible grandeur, terrible danger, and emotional stakes far beyond the mission that had brought him through the Gate of Horn and Ivory.

Their relationship bound Star Flight’s story to the fate of the Hundred Worlds. It also made Gauntlet’s eventual choices more painful. He had entered the empire as an investigator, become its defender, accepted powers from its highest technologies, and won the heart of its ruler. By the time the crisis deepened into civil war, Gauntlet was no longer merely a visitor from Earth. He had become part of the legend, politics, and tragedy of the Hundred Worlds.