Regicide anyone

Today's question: Can regicide be applied to someone who murders an emperor? The dictionaries seem pretty firm on the term applying to someone who kills a king, but a few google searches turn it up in articles about assassinating an emperor.

If it only applies to kings, what is the imperial equivalent?

P.S. Why am I obsessing about this when I should be writing?

Writing: 1,015 words on Saturday. Stay tuned for today's report.

Reading: Finished DISAPPEARING NIGHTLY by Laura Resnick. Overall the book was a fun romp, with an intriguing cast of characters. My one nitpick is that the mystery element was barely there--it took far too long for heroine and her helpers to identify the obvious suspects. If you want a mystery look elsewhere. If you're looking for a screwball comedy with a hint of romance, then this is an excellent choice.

Sunday, part deux

Writing: 1,351 words today. (*self-mocking on*)Took four pages to get Josan out of his cell in the dungeons up to the palace above. At this rate I'll be a hundred thousand words into the story and he'll still be having breakfast.(*self-mocking off*)

Went out midday for shopping, and had one of those writer's moments as I sat at the bar of Ruby Tuesday's having lunch, looking over what I'd written yesterday and deciding how much detail I wanted to put in about the prince's torture. People around me were talking about the Superbowl, or lamenting the fact that sales tax amnesty week ended today, and I was trying to decide just how far I wanted to push the reader's (and my own) buttons. It didn't strike me as strange till I was done, and as I came up for air I realized the contrast between my thoughts for the past half-hour and those of the people around me.

In the end I came down on the side of implying horrors and letting the readers fill in the blanks rather than explicitly describing them. Rather like the boggart of the Harry Potter universe, it's a way to let the reader fill in their own darkest fears, and they wind up scaring themselves far more effectively than I could.