On Mon, 13 Mar 2006, Scott Schultz wrote: > There doesn't seem to be any reason to mention that Jamiss' reign > "encompassed... the entirety of the reign of the House of the Vallista..." > unless it's to distinguish it from other periods in which one emperor's > reign did NOT encompass the entire reign of his House. Did this not come up at the time? Anyway, it's good evidence on the multi-emperor side, but Paarfi isn't above tossing in a little more info than strictly necessary. And I still don't see any clear mechanism for the emperor dying and his House remaining in power. Well, of course the Orb could decide - but in the case of the last emperor we know to have died in office, there doesn't seem to have been any question of the Phoenix retaining the throne. And I suspect one can find plenty of instances in the Texts of formulations like "The Athyra Empress of the seventh cycle" and not a single "The third Athyra..." or "An Athyra". Hence "translator's error" seems the best explanation for the cited snippet - probably Paarfi was saying or meant to say that the construction of the palace took up the entire reign.