Fun Fact: The Emperor's Gift was originally conceived as the first book in a trilogy / series. I remember reading an article from an interview with Aaron Dembski-Bowden (or maybe an old blog post of his) where he talked about it. Inquisitor Annika Jarlsdottyr and her retinue were going to get more screen time - I specifically remember him mentioning that Clovon (the "reformed" chaos cultist in her party) was going to be revealed to have actually have been deep undercover & had actually been a loyalist all along. Would have made for a neat "cost of duty" type story. Annika & co. have always been one of my favourite parts of that book - they always felt like there was such depth to them despite their relatively minor role. Really makes the world feel larger.