What happened to the Scarlet Empress?
From the beginning-of-chapter fiction in the DB book [175, 265], we strongly suspect that the Empress has been abducted by a Yozi called the Ebon Dragon, and is being held in Malfeas. She and the Ebon Dragon are apparently scheduled to be married at the same time her funeral-in-absentia is held in the real world. What this “marriage” actually entails is unclear, as is how exactly she got into this mess.