Mistress of the Empire

Mistress of the Empire is a fantasy novel by the American writer Raymond E. Feist, published in 1992. It is the third book of the Empire Trilogy, which he wrote with Janny Wurts.

Lady Mara of the Acoma clan has spent years building her house back up from ruin, and she has been named Servant of the Empire by Ichindar, the Emperor of the Tsuranuanni, whom she raised from a figurehead into a real ruler. For the first time in her life she feels secure from the enemies she has made along the way, and that security is destroyed when an assassination attempt aimed at her kills her young son and heir instead. Mara is convinced that her old enemy Jiro of the House Anasati is behind the attack and begins to plan a war against him. Her intentions run into the reactionary Assembly of Magicians, which she starts to understand is the true power in the Empire and has kept its people docile for a thousand years. To bring down her enemies and secure peace she has to use the nonhuman cho-ja and an ancient secret.

The trilogy is set in the world of Feist's Riftwar books, in an empire that is deliberately modelled on a non-European society, and it follows Mara's rise from a young widow to the most powerful woman in it.