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That would be a convenient lie to tell himself. Perhaps Gaotona would start believing it eventually. Unfortunately, he had seen the emperor’s eyes before, and he knew . . . he knew what Shai had done.
“I will go to the other arbiters, Your Majesty,” Gaotona said, standing. “They will wish to see you. ”
“Very well. You are dismissed. ”
Gaotona walked toward the door.
“Gaotona. ”
He turned.
“Three months in bed,” the emperor said, regarding himself in the mirror, “with no one allowed to see me. The resealers couldn’t do anything. They can fix any normal wound. It was something to do with my mind, wasn’t it?”
He wasn’t supposed to figure that out, Gaotona thought. She said she wasn’t going to write it into him.
But Ashravan had been a clever man. Beneath it all, he had always been clever. Shai had restored him, and she couldn’t keep him from thinking.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Gaotona said.
Ashravan grunted. “You are fortunate your gambit worked. You could have ruined my ability to think—you could have sold my soul itself. I’m not sure if I should punish you or reward you for taking that risk. ”
“I assure you, Your Majesty,” Gaotona said as he left, “I have given myself both great rewards and great punishments during these last few months. ”
He left then, letting the emperor stare at himself in the mirror and consider the implications of what had been done.
For better or worse, they had their emperor back.
Or, at least, a copy of him.
Epilogue: Day One Hundred and One
“And so I hope,” Ashravan said to the assembled arbiters of the eighty factions, “that I have laid to rest certain pernicious rumors. Exaggerations of my illness were, obviously, wishful fancy. We have yet to discover who sent the assassins, but the murder of the empress is not something that will go ignored. ” He looked over the arbiters. “Nor will it go unanswered. ”
Frava folded her arms, watching the copy with satisfaction, but also displeasure. What back doors did you put into his mind, little thief? Frava wondered. We will find them.
Nyen was already inspecting copies of the seals. The Forger claimed that he could retroactively decrypt them, though it would take time. Perhaps years. Still, Frava would eventually know how to control the emperor.
Destroying the notes had been clever on the girl’s part. Had she guessed, somehow, that Frava wasn’t really making copies? Frava shook her head and stepped up beside Gaotona, who sat in their box of the Theater of Address. She sat down beside him, speaking very softly. “They are accepting it. ”
Gaotona nodded, his eyes on the fake emperor. “There isn’t even a whisper of suspicion. What we did . . . it was not only audacious, it would be presumed impossible. ”
“The girl could put a knife to our throats,” Frava said. “The proof of what we did is burned into the emperor’s own body. We will need to tread carefully in coming years. ”
Gaotona nodded, looking distracted. Days afire, how Frava wished she could get him removed from his station. He was the only one of the arbiters who ever took a stand against her. Just before his assassination, Ashravan had been ready to do it at her prompting.
Those meetings had been private. Shai wouldn’t have known of them, so the fake would not either. Frava would have to begin the process again, unless she found a way to control this duplicate Ashravan. Both options frustrated her.
“A part of me can’t believe that we actually did it,” Gaotona said softly as the fake emperor moved on to the next section of his speech, a call for unity.
Frava sniffed. “The plan was sound all along. ”
“Shai escaped. ”
“She will be found. ”
“I doubt it,” he said. “We were lucky to catch her that once. Fortunately, I do not believe we have much to worry about from her. ”
“She’ll try to blackmail us,” Frava said. Or she’ll try to find a way to control the throne.
“No,” Gaotona said. “No, she is satisfied. ”
“Satisfied with escaping alive?”
“Satisfied with having placed one of her creations on the throne. Once, she dared to try to fool thousands—but now she has a chance to fool millions. An entire empire. Exposing what she has done would ruin the majesty of it, in her eyes. ”
Did the old fool really believe that? His naiveness often presented Frava with opportunities; she’d considered letting him keep his station simply for that reason.
The fake emperor continued his speech. Ashravan had liked to hear himself speak. The Forger had gotten that right.
“He’s using the assassination as a means of bolstering our faction,” Gaotona said. “You hear? The implications that we need to unify, pull together, remember our heritage of strength . . . And the rumors, the ones the Glory Faction spread regarding him being killed . . . by mentioning them, he weakens their faction. They gambled on him not returning, and now that he has, they seem foolish. ”
“True,” Frava said. “Did you put him up to that?”
“No,” Gaotona said. “He refused to let me counsel him on his speech. This move, though, it feels like something the old Ashravan would have done, the Ashravan from a decade ago. ”
“The copy isn’t perfect, then,” Frava said. “We’ll have to remember that. ”
“Yes,” Gaotona said. He held something, a small, thick book that Frava didn’t recognize.
A rustling came from the back of the box, and a servant of Frava’s Symbol entered, passing Arbiters Stivient and Ushnaka. The youthful messenger came to Frava’s side, then leaned down.
Frava gave the girl a displeased glance. “What can be so important that you interrupt me here?”
“I’m sorry, your grace,” the woman whispered. “But you asked me to arrange your palace offices for your afternoon meetings. ”
“Well?” Frava asked.
“Did you enter the rooms yesterday, my lady?”
“No. With the business of that rogue Bloodsealer, and the emperor’s demands, and . . . ” Frava’s frown deepened. “What is it?”
Shai turned and looked back at the Imperial Seat. The city rolled across a group of seven large hills; a major faction house topped each of the outer six, with the palace dominating the central hill.
The horse at her side looked little like the one she’d taken from the palace. It was missing teeth and walked with its head hanging low, back bowed. Its coat looked as if it hadn’t been brushed in ages, and the creature was so underfed, its ribs poked out like the slats on the back of a chair.
Shai had spent the previous days lying low, using her beggar Essence Mark to hide in the Imperial Seat’s underground. With that disguise in place, and with one on the horse, she’d escaped the city with ease. She’d removed her Mark once out, however. Thinking like the beggar was . . . uncomfortable.
Shai loosened the horse’s saddle, then reached under it and placed a fingernail against the glowing seal there. She snapped the seal’s rim with some effort, breaking the Forgery. The horse transformed immediately, back straightening, head rising, sides swelling. It danced uncertainly, head darting back and forth, tugging against the reins. Zu’s warhorse was a fine animal, worth more than a small house in some parts of the empire.
Hidden among the supplies on his back was the painting that Shai had stolen, again, from Arbiter Frava’s office. A forgery. Shai had never had cause to steal one of her own works before. It felt . . . amusing. She’d left the large frame cut open with a single Reo rune carved in the center on the wall behind. It did not have a very pleasant meaning.
She patted the horse on the neck. All things considered, this wasn’t a bad haul. A fine horse and a painting that, though fake, was so realistic that even its owner had thought it was the original.
He’s giving his speech right now, Shai thought. I would like to have heard that.
&n
bsp; Her gem, her crowning work, wore the mantle of imperial power. That thrilled her, but the thrill had driven her onward. Even making him live again had not been the cause of her frantic work. No, in the end, she’d pushed herself so hard because she’d wanted to leave a few specific changes embedded within the soul. Perhaps those months of being genuine to Gaotona had changed her.
Copy an image over and over on a stack of paper, Shai thought, and eventually the lower sheets will bear the same image, pressed down. Deep within.
She turned, taking out the Essence Mark that would transform her into a survivalist and hunter. Frava would anticipate Shai using the roads, so she would instead make her way into the deep center of the nearby Sogdian Forest. Those depths would hide her well. In a few months, she would carefully proceed out of the province and continue on to her next task: tracking down the Imperial Fool, who had betrayed her.
For now, she wanted to be far away from walls, palaces, and courtly lies. Shai hoisted herself into the horse’s saddle and bid farewell to both the Imperial Seat and the man who now ruled it.
Live well, Ashravan, she thought. And make me proud.
Late that night, following the emperor’s speech, Gaotona sat by the familiar hearth in his personal study looking at the book that Shai had given him.
And marveling.
The book was a copy of the emperor’s soulstamp, in detail, with notes. Everything that Shai had done lay bare to him here.
Frava would not find an exploit to control the emperor, because there wasn’t one. The emperor’s soul was complete, locked tight, and all his own. That wasn’t to say that he was exactly the same as he had been.
I took some liberties, as you can see, Shai’s notes explained. I wanted to replicate his soul as precisely as possible. That was the task and the challenge. I did so.
Then I took the soul a few steps farther, strengthening some memories, weakening others. I embedded deep within Ashravan triggers that will cause him to react in a specific way to the assassination and his recovery.
This isn’t changing his soul. This isn’t making him a different person. It is merely nudging him toward a certain path, much as a con man on the street will strongly nudge his mark to pick a certain card. It is him. The him that could have been.
Who knows? Perhaps it is the him that would have been.
Gaotona would never have figured it out on his own, of course. His skill was faint in this area. Even if he’d been a master, he suspected he wouldn’t have spotted Shai’s work here. She explained in the book that her intention had been to be so subtle, so careful, that no one would be able to decipher her changes. One would have to know the emperor with extreme depth to even suspect what had happened.
With the notes, Gaotona could see it. Ashravan’s near death would send him into a period of deep introspection. He would seek his journal, reading again and again the accounts of his youthful self. He would see what he had been, and would finally, truly seek to recover it.
Shai indicated the transformation would be slow. Over a period of years, Ashravan would become the man that he’d once seemed destined to be. Tiny inclinations buried deep within the interactions of his seals would nudge him toward excellence instead of indulgence. He would start thinking of his legacy, as opposed to the next feast. He would remember his people, not his dinner appointments. He would finally push the factions for the changes that he, and many before him, had noticed needed to be made.
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