DAY NINETY-EIGHT
SHAI knelt on the floor amid a pattern of scattered pages, each filled with cramped script or drawings of seals. Behind her, morning opened her eyes, and sunlight seeped through the stained-glass window, spraying the room with crimson, blue, violet.
A single soulstamp, carved from polished stone, rested facedown on a metal plate sitting before her. Soulstone, as a rock, looked not unlike soapstone or another fine-grained stone, but with bits of red mixed in. As if drops of blood had stained it.
Shai blinked tired eyes. Was she really going to try to escape? She’d had … what? Four hours of sleep in the last three days combined?
Surely escape could wait. Surely she could rest, just for today.
Rest, she thought numbly, and I will not wake.
She remained in place, kneeling. That stamp seemed the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
Her ancestors had worshipped rocks that fell from the sky at night. The souls of broken gods, those chunks had been called. Master craftsmen would carve them to bring out the shape. Once, Shai had found that foolish. Why worship something you yourself created?
Kneeling before her masterpiece, she understood. She felt as if she’d bled everything into that stamp. She had pressed two years’ worth of effort into three months, then had topped it off with a night of desperate, frantic carving. During that night, she’d made changes to her notes, to the soul itself. Drastic changes. She still didn’t know if they had been provoked by her final, awesome vision of the project as a whole … or if those changes had instead been faulty ideas born of fatigue and delusion.
She wouldn’t know until the stamp was used.
“Is it … is it done?” asked one of her guards. The two of them had moved to the far edge of the room, to sit beside the hearth and give her room on the floor. She vaguely remembered shoving aside the furniture. She’d spent part of the time pulling stacks of paper out from their place beneath the bed, then crawling under to fetch others.
Was it done?
Shai nodded.
“What is it?” the guard asked.
Nights, she thought. That’s right. They don’t even know. The common guards left each day during her conversations with Gaotona.
The poor Strikers would probably find themselves assigned to some remote outpost of the empire for the rest of their lives, guarding the passes leading down to the distant Teoish Peninsula or the like. They would be quietly brushed under the rug to keep them from revealing, even accidentally, anything of what had happened here.
“Ask Gaotona if you want to know,” Shai said softly. “I am not allowed to say.”
Shai reverently picked up the seal, then placed both it and its plate inside a box she had prepared. The stamp nestled in red velvet, the plate—shaped like a large, thin medallion—in an indentation underneath the lid. She closed the lid, then pulled over a second, slightly larger box. Inside lay five seals, carved and prepared for her upcoming escape. If she managed it. Two of them she’d already used.
If she could just sleep for a few hours. Just a few …
No. I can’t use the bed anyway.
Curling up on the floor sounded wonderful, however.
The door began to open. Shai felt a sudden, striking moment of panic. Was it the Bloodsealer? He was supposed to be stuck in bed, having drunk himself to a stupor after being roughed up by the Strikers!
For a moment, she felt a strange guilty sense of relief. If the Bloodsealer had come, she wouldn’t have a chance to escape today. She could sleep. Had Hurli and Yil not thrashed him? Shai had been sure that she’d read them correctly, and …
… and, in her fatigue, she realized she’d been jumping to conclusions. The door opened all the way, and someone did enter, but it was not the Bloodsealer.
It was Captain Zu.
“Out,” he barked at the two guards.
They jumped into motion.
“In fact,” Zu said, “you’re relieved for the day. I’ll watch until the shift changes.”
The two saluted and left. Shai felt like a wounded elk being abandoned by the herd. The door clicked closed, and Zu slowly, deliberately, turned to look at her.
“The stamp isn’t ready yet,” Shai lied. “So you can—”
“It doesn’t need to be ready,” Zu said, smiling a wide, thick-lipped smile. “I believe I promised you something three months ago, thief. We have an … unsettled debt.”
The room was dim, her lamp having burned low and morning only just breaking. Shai backed away from him, quickly revising her plans. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She couldn’t fight Zu.
Her mouth kept moving, keeping him distracted but also playing a part she devised for herself on the fly. “When Frava finds out you came here,” Shai said, “she will be furious.”
Zu drew his sword.
“Nights!” Shai said, backing up to her bed. “Zu, you don’t need to do this. You can’t do this. I have work that needs to be done!”
“Another will complete your work,” Zu said, leering. “Frava has another Forger. You think you’re so clever. You probably have some wonderful escape planned for tomorrow. This time, we’re striking first. You didn’t anticipate this, did you, liar? I’m going to enjoy killing you. Enjoy it so much.”
He lunged with the sword, its tip catching her blouse and ripping a line through it at her side. Shai jumped away, shouting for help. She was still playing the part, but it did not require acting. Her heart thumped, panic rising, as she rounded the bed in a scramble, putting it between herself and Zu.
He smiled broadly, then jumped for her, leaping onto the bed.
It promptly collapsed. During the night, while crawling under the bed to get her notes, she had Forged the wood of the frame to have deep flaws, attacked by insects, making it fragile. She’d cut the mattress underneath in wide slashes.
Zu barely had time to shout as the bed broke completely away, crashing into the pit she’d opened in the floor below. The water damage to her room—the mildew she’d smelled when first entering—had been key. By reports, the wooden beams above would have rotted and the ceiling would have fallen in if they hadn’t located the leak as quickly as they had. A simple Forgery, very plausible, made it so that the floor had fallen in.
Zu crashed into the empty storage room one story down. Shai stood puffing, then peered into the hole. The man lay among the broken remnants of the bed. Some of that had been stuffing and cushioning. He would probably live—she’d been intending this trap for one of the regular guards, of whom she was fond.
Not exactly how I planned it, she thought, but workable.
Shai rushed to the table and gathered her things. The box of stamps, the emperor’s soul, some extra soulstone and ink. And the two books explaining the stamps she had created in deep complexity—the official one, and the true one.
She tossed the official one into the hearth as she passed. Then she stopped in front of the door, counting heartbeats.
She agonized, watching the Bloodsealer’s mark as it pulsed. Finally, after a few tormenting minutes, the seal on the door flashed one last time … then faded. The Bloodsealer had not returned in time to renew it.
Freedom.
Shai burst out into the hallway, abandoning her home of the last three months, a room now trimmed in gold and silver. The hallway outside had been so near, yet it felt like another country entirely. She pressed the third of her prepared stamps against her buttoned blouse, changing it to match that of the palace servants, with official insignia embroidered on the left breast.
She had little time to make her next move. Soon, either the Bloodsealer would make his way to her room, Zu would wake from his fall, or the guards would arrive for the shift change. Shai wanted to run down the hallway, breaking for the palace stables.
She did not. Running implied one of two things—guilt or an important task. Either would be memorable. Instead, she kept her gait to a swift walk and adopted the expression of one who knew what she wa
s doing, and so should not be interrupted.
She soon entered the better-used sections of the enormous palace. No one stopped her. At a certain carpeted intersection, she stopped herself.
To the right, down a long hallway, lay the entrance to the emperor’s chambers. The seal she carried in her right hand, boxed and cushioned, seemed to leap in her fingers. Why hadn’t she left it in the room for Gaotona to discover? The arbiters would hunt her less assiduously if they had the seal.
She could just leave it here, in this hallway lined with portraits of ancient rulers and cluttered with Forged urns from ancient eras.
No. She had brought it with her for a reason. She’d prepared tools to get into the emperor’s chambers. She’d known all along this was what she would do.
If she left now, she’d never truly know if the seal worked. That would be like building a house, then never stepping inside. Like forging a sword, and never giving it a swing. Like crafting a masterpiece of art, then locking it away to never be seen again.
Shai started down the long hallway.
As soon as no one was directly in sight, she turned over one of those horrid urns and broke the seal on the bottom. It transformed back into a blank clay version of itself.
She’d had plenty of time to find out exactly where these urns were crafted and by whom. The fourth of her prepared stamps transformed the urn into a replica of an ornate golden chamber pot. Shai strode down the hallway to the emperor’s quarters, then nodded to the guards, chamber pot under her arm.
“I don’t recognize you,” one guard said. She didn’t recognize him either, with that scarred face and squinty look. As she’d expected. The guards set to watching her had been kept separate from the others so they couldn’t talk about their duties.
“Oh,” Shai said, fumbling, looking abashed. “I am sorry, greater one. I was only assigned this task this morning.” She blushed, fishing out of her pocket a small square of thick paper, marked with Gaotona’s seal and signature. She had forged both the old-fashioned way. Very convenient, how he’d let her tell him how to maintain security on the emperor’s rooms.
She got through without any further difficulty. The next three rooms of the emperor’s expansive chambers were empty. Beyond them was a locked door. She had to Forge the wood of that door into some that had been damaged by insects—using the same stamp she’d used on her bed—to get through. It didn’t take for long, but a few seconds was enough for her to kick the door open.
Inside, she found the emperor’s bedroom. It was the same place she’d been led on that first day when she’d been offered this chance. The room was empty save for him, lying in that bed. He was awake, but stared sightlessly at the ceiling.
The room was still. Quiet. It smelled … too clean. Too white. Like a blank canvas.
Shai walked up to the side of the bed. Ashravan didn’t look at her. His eyes didn’t move. She rested fingers on his shoulder. He had a handsome face, though he was some fifteen years her senior. That was not much for a Grand; they lived longer than most.
His was a strong face, despite his long time abed. Golden hair, a firm chin, a nose that was prominent. So different in features from Shai’s people.
“I know your soul,” Shai said softly. “I know it better than you ever did.”
No alarm yet. Shai continued to expect one any moment, but she knelt down beside the bed anyway. “I wish that I could know you. Not your soul, but you. I’ve read about you; I’ve seen into your heart. I’ve rebuilt your soul, as best I could. But that isn’t the same. It isn’t knowing someone, is it? That’s knowing about someone.”
Was that a cry outside, from a distant part of the palace?
“I don’t ask much of you,” she said softly. “Just that you live. Just that you be. I’ve done what I can. Let it be enough.”
She took a deep breath, then opened the box and took out his Essence Mark. She inked it, then pulled up his shirt, exposing the upper arm.
Shai hesitated, then pressed the stamp down. It hit flesh, and stayed frozen for a moment, as stamps always did. The skin and muscle didn’t give way until a second later, when the stamp sank a fraction of an inch.
She twisted the stamp, locking it in, and pulled it back. The bright red seal glowed faintly.
Ashravan blinked.
Shai rose and stepped back as he sat up and looked around. Silently, she counted.
“My rooms,” Ashravan said. “What happened? There was an attack. I was … I was wounded. Oh, mother of lights. Kurshina. She’s dead.”
His face became a mask of grief, but he covered it a second later. He was emperor. He might have a temper, but so long as he was not enraged, he was good at covering what he felt. He turned to her, and living eyes—eyes that saw—focused on her. “Who are you?”
The question twisted her insides, for all the fact that she’d expected it.
“I’m a kind of surgeon,” Shai said. “You were wounded badly. I have healed you. However, what I used to do so is considered … unsavory by some parts of your culture.”
“You’re a resealer,” he said. “A … a Forger?”
“In a way,” Shai said. He would believe that because he wanted to. “This was a difficult type of resealing. You will have to be stamped each day, and you must keep that metal plate—the one shaped like a disc in that box—with you at all times. Without these, you die, Ashravan.”
“Give it to me,” he said, holding his hand out for the stamp.
She hesitated. She wasn’t certain why.
“Give it to me,” he said, more forceful.
She placed the stamp in his hand.
“Don’t tell anyone what has happened here,” she said to him. “Neither guards nor servants. Only your arbiters know of what I have done.”
The cries outside sounded louder. Ashravan looked toward them. “If no one is to know,” he said, “you must go. Leave this place and do not return.” He looked down at the seal. “I should probably have you killed for knowing my secret.”
That was the selfishness he’d learned during his years in the palace. Yes, she’d gotten that right.
“But you won’t,” she said.
“I won’t.”
And there was the mercy, buried deeply.
“Go before I change my mind,” he said.
She took one step toward the doorway, then checked her pocket watch—well over a minute. The stamp had taken, at least for the short term. She turned and looked at him.
“What are you waiting for?” he demanded.
“I just wanted one more glimpse,” she said.
He frowned.
The shouts grew even louder.
“Go,” he said. “Please.” He seemed to know what those shouts were about, or at least he could guess.
“Do better this time,” Shai said. “Please.”
With that, she fled.
She had been tempted, for a time, to write into him a desire to protect her. There would have been no good reason for it, at least in his eyes, and it might have undermined the entire Forgery. Beyond that, she didn’t believe that he could save her. Until his period of mourning was through, he could not leave his quarters or speak to anyone other than his arbiters. During that time, the arbiters ran the empire.
They practically ran it anyway. No, a hasty revision of Ashravan’s soul to protect her would not have worked. Near the last door out, Shai picked up her fake chamber pot. She hefted it, then stumbled through the doors. She gasped audibly at the distant cries.
“Is that about me?” Shai cried. “Nights! I didn’t mean it! I know I wasn’t supposed to see him. I know he’s in seclusion, but I opened the wrong door!”
The guards stared at her, then one relaxed. “It isn’t you. Find your quarters and stay there.”
Shai bobbed a bow and hastened away. Most of the guards didn’t know her, and so—
She felt a sharp pain at her side. She gasped. That pain felt like it did each morning, when the Bloodsealer stamped the do
or.
Panicked, Shai felt at her side. The cut in her blouse—where Zu had slashed her with his sword—had gone all the way through her dark undershirt! When her fingers came back, they had a couple of drops of blood on them. Just a nick, nothing dangerous. In the scramble, she hadn’t even noticed she’d been cut.
But the tip of Zu’s sword … it had her blood on it. Fresh blood. The Bloodsealer had found that and had begun the hunt. That pain meant he was locating her, was attuning his pets to her.
Shai tossed the urn aside and started running.
Staying hidden was no longer a consideration. Remaining unremarkable was pointless. If the Bloodsealer’s skeletals reached her, she’d die. That was it. She had to reach a horse soon, then stay ahead of the skeletals for twenty-four hours, until her blood grew stale.
Shai dashed through the hallways. Servants began pointing, others screamed. She almost bowled over a southern ambassador in red priest’s armor.
Shai cursed, bolting around the man. The palace exits would be locked down by now. She knew that. She’d studied the security. Getting out would be nearly impossible.
Always have a backup, Uncle Won said.
She always did.
Shai stopped in the hallway, and determined—as she should have earlier—that running for the exits was pointless. She was in a near panic, with the Bloodsealer on her trail, but she had to think clearly.
Backup plan. Hers was a desperate one, but it was all she had. She started running again, skidding around a corner, doubling back the way she’d just come.
Nights, let me have guessed right about him, she thought. If he’s secretly a master charlatan beyond my skill, I am doomed. Oh, Unknown God, please. This time, let me be right.
Heart racing, fatigue forgotten in the moment, she eventually skidded to a stop in the hallway leading to the emperor’s rooms.
There she waited. The guards inspected her, frowning, but held their posts at the end of the hallway as they’d been trained. They called to her. It was hard to keep from moving. That Bloodsealer was getting closer and closer with his horrible pets …
“Why are you here?” a voice said.
Shai turned as Gaotona stepped into the hallway. He’d come for the emperor first. The others would search for Shai, but Gaotona would come for the emperor, to be certain he was safe.