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 door.
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.
Shai stepped up to him, anxious. This, she thought, is probably my worst idea ever for a backup plan.
“It worked,” she said softly.
“You tried the stamp?” Gaotona said, taking her arm and glancing at the guards, then pulling her aside well out of earshot. “Of all the hasty, insane, foolish—”
“It worked, Gaotona,” Shai said.
“Why did you come to him? Why not run while you had the chance?”
“I had to know. I had to.”
He looked at her, meeting her eyes. Seeing through them, into her soul, as he always did. Nights, but he would have made a wonderful Forger.
“The Bloodsealer has your trail,” Gaotona said. “He has summoned those . . . things to catch you.”
“I know.”
Gaotona hesitated for only a moment, then brought out a wooden box from his voluminous pockets. Shai’s heart leaped.
He handed it toward her, and she took it with one hand, but he did not let go. “You knew I’d come here,” Gaotona said. “You knew I’d have these, and that I’d give them to you. I’ve been played for a fool.”
Shai said nothing.
“How did you do it?” he asked. “I thought I watched you carefully. I was certain I had not been manipulated. And yet I ran here, half knowing I’d find you. Knowing you’d need these. I still didn’t realize until this very moment that you’d probably planned all of this.”
“I did manipulate you, Gaotona,” she admitted. “But I had to do it in the most difficult way possible.”
“Which was?”
“By being genuine,” she replied.
“You can’t manipulate people by being genuine.”
“You can’t?” Shai asked. “Is that not how you’ve made your entire career? Speaking honestly, teaching people what to expect of you, then expecting them to be honest to you in return?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not. But it was the best I could manage. Everything I’ve said to you is true, Gaotona. The painting I destroyed, the secrets about my life and desires . . . Being genuine. It was the only way to get you on my side.”
“I’m not on your side.” He paused. “But I don’t want you killed either, girl. Particularly not by those things. Take these. Days! Take them and go, before I change my mind.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, pulling the box to her breast. She fished in her skirt pocket and brought out a small, thick book. “Keep this safe,” she said. “Show it to no one.”
He took it hesitantly. “What is it?”
“The truth,” she said, then leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “If I escape, I will change my final Essence Mark. The one I never intend to use . . . I will add to it, and to my memories, a kindly grandfather who saved my life. A man of wisdom and compassion whom I respected very much.”
“Go, fool girl,” he said. He actually had a tear in his eye. If she hadn’t been on the very edge of panic, she’d have felt proud of that. And ashamed of her pride. That was how she was.
“Ashravan lives,” she said. “When you think of me, remember that. It worked. Nights, it worked!”
She left him, dashing down the corridor.
Gaotona listened to the girl go, but did not turn to watch her flee. He stared at that door to the emperor’s chambers. Two confused guards, and a passage into . . . what?
The future of the Rose Empire.
We will be led by someone not truly alive, Gaotona thought. The fruits of our foul labors.
He took a deep breath, then walked past the guards and pushed open the doors to go and look upon the thing he had wrought.
Just . . . please, let it not be a monster.
Shai strode down the palace hallway, holding the box of seals. She ripped off her buttoned blouse—revealing the tight, black cotton shirt she wore underneath—and tucked it into her pocket. She left on her skirt and the leggings beneath. It wasn’t so different from the clothing she’d trained in.
Servants scattered around her. They knew, just from her posture, to get out of the way. Suddenly, Shai felt more confident than she had in years.
She had her soul back. All of it.
She took out one of her Essence Marks as she walked. She inked it with bold strikes and returned the box of seals to her skirt pocket. Then, she slammed the seal against her right bicep and locked it into place, rewriting her history, her memories, her life experience.