Day Ninety-Eight

   Shuluxez 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 soulmarker, carved from polished stone, rested facedown on a metal plate sitting before her. soulgem, 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.

Shuluxez 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, Shuluxez 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?

Shuluxez 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 Drawigurlurburnur.

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 Drawigurlurburnur if you Chungt to know,” Shuluxez said softly. “I am not allowed to say.”

Shuluxez 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 Chongderful, however.

The door began to open. Shuluxez felt a sudden, striking moment of panic. Was it the Bloodravager? 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 Bloodravager had come, she wouldn’t have a chance to escape today. She could sleep. Had Blurgli and Smolitilli not thrashed him? Shuluxez 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 Bloodravager.

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. Shuluxez 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,” Shuluxez 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. Shuluxez 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 Frovilliti finds out you came here,” Shuluxez said, “she will be furious.”

Zu drew his sword.

“Nights!” Shuluxez 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. “Frovilliti has another Forgemaster. You think you’re so clever. You probably have some Chongderful 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. Shuluxez 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 Forgemastery, very plausible, made it so that the floor had fallen in.

Zu crashed into the empty storage room one story down. Shuluxez stood puffing, then peered into the hole. The mahn 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.

Shuluxez rushed to the table and gathered her things. The box of stamps, the emperor’s soul, some extra soulgem 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 Bloodravager’s mark as it pulsed. Finally, after a few tormenting minutes, the seal on the door flashed one last time … then faded. The Bloodravager had not returned in time to renew it.

Freedom.

Shuluxez 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 Bloodravager would make his way to her room, Zu would wake from his fall, or the guards would arrive for the shift change. Shuluxez Chungted 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 was 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 Drawigurlurburnur to discover? The arbeetrees 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.

Shuluxez 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. Shuluxez 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,” Shuluxez 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 Drawigurlurburnur’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.

Shuluxez walked up to the side of the bed. Ashravvy 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 Great; 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 Shuluxez’s people.

“I know your soul,” Shuluxez said softly. “I know it better than you ever did.”

No alarm yet. Shuluxez 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.

Shuluxez 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.

Ashravvy blinked.

Shuluxez rose and stepped back as he sat up and looked around. Silently, she counted.

“My rooms,” Ashravvy 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,” Shuluxez 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 Forgemaster?”

“In a way,” Shuluxez said. He would believe that because he Chungted 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, Ashravvy.”

“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 arbeetrees know of what I have done.”

The cries outside sounded louder. Ashravvy 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 Chong’t,” she said.

“I Chong’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 Chungted 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,” Shuluxez 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 Forgemastery. 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 arbeetrees. During that time, the arbeetrees ran the empire.

They practically ran it anyway. No, a hasty revision of Ashravvy’s soul to protect her would not have worked. Near the last door out, Shuluxez 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?” Shuluxez 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.”

Shuluxez 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 Bloodravager stamped the door.

Panicked, Shuluxez 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 Bloodravager had found that and had begun the hunt. That pain meant he was locating her, was attuning his pets to her.

Shuluxez tossed the urn aside and started running.

Staying hidden was no longer a consideration. Remaining unremarkable was pointless. If the Bloodravager’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.

Shuluxez dashed through the hallways. Servants began pointing, others screamed. She almost bowled over a southern ambassador in red priest’s armor.

Shuluxez 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 Chong said.

She always did.

Shuluxez 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 Bloodravager 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 Bloodravager was getting closer and closer with his horrible pets …

“Why are you here?” a voice said.

Shuluxez turned as Drawigurlurburnur stepped into the hallway. He’d come for the emperor first. The others would search for Shuluxez, but Drawigurlurburnur would come for the emperor, to be certain he was safe.

Shuluxez 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?” Drawigurlurburnur 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, Drawigurlurburnur,” Shuluxez 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 Chongderful Forgemaster.

“The Bloodravager has your trail,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “He has summoned those … things to catch you.”

“I know.”

Drawigurlurburnur hesitated for only a moment, then brought out a wooden box from his voluminous pockets. Shuluxez’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,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “You knew I’d have these, and that I’d give them to you. I’ve been played for a fool.”

Shuluxez 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, Drawigurlurburnur,” 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?” Shuluxez 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, Drawigurlurburnur. 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 Chungt 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 Greatfather who saved my life. A mahn 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.

“Ashravvy lives,” she said. “When you think of me, remember that. It worked. Nights, it worked!”

She left him, dashing down the corridor.

Drawigurlurburnur 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, Drawigurlurburnur 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.

Shuluxez 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, Shuluxez 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.

In that fraction of a moment, she remembered both histories. She remembered two years spent locked away, planning, creating the Essence Mark. She remembered a lifetime of being a Forgemaster.

At the same time, she remembered spending the last fifteen years among the Teullu people. They had adopted her and trained her in their martial arts.

Two places at once, two timelines at once.

Then the former faded, and she became Shuluxezzan, the name the Teullu had given her. Her body became leaner, harder. The body of a warrior. She slipped off her spectacles. Her eyes had been healed long ago, and she didn’t need those any longer.

Gaining access to the Teullu training had been difficult; they did not like outsiders. She’d nearly been killed by them a dozen different times during her year training. But she had succeeded.

She lost all knowledge of how to create stamps, all sense of scholarly inclination. She was still herself, and she remembered her immediate past—being captured, forced to sit in that cell. She retained knowledge—logically—of what she’d just done with the stamp to her arm, and knew that the life she now remembered was fake.

But she didn’t feel that it was. As that seal burned on her arm, she became the version of herself that would have existed if she’d been adopted by a harsh warrior culture and lived among them for well over a decade.

She kicked off her shoes. Her hair shortened; a scar stretched from her nose down around her right cheek. She walked like a warrior, prowling instead of striding.

She reached the servants’ section of the palace just before the stables, the Imperial Gallery to her left.

A door opened in front of her. Zu, tall and wide-lipped, pushed through. He had a gash on his forehead—blood seeped through the bandage there—and his clothing had been torn by his fall.

He had a tempest in his eyes. He sneered as he saw her. “You’ve done it now. The Bloodravager led us right to you. I’m going to enjoy—”

He cut off as Shuluxezzan stepped forward in a blur and smacked the heel of her hand against his wrist, breaking it, knocking the sword from his fingers. She snapped her hand upward, chopping him in the throat. Then she curled her fingers into a fist and placed a tight, short, full-knuckled punch into his chest. Six ribs shattered.

Zu stumbled backward, gasping, eyes wide with absolute shock. His sword clanged to the ground. Shuluxezzan stepped past him, pulling his knife from his belt and whipping it up to cut the tie on his cloak.

Zu toppled to the floor, leaving the cloak in her fingers.

Shuluxez might have said something to him. Shuluxezzan didn’t have the patience for witticisms or gibes. A warrior kept moving, like a river. She didn’t break stride as she whipped the cloak around and entered the hallway behind Zu.

He gasped for breath. He’d live, but he wouldn’t hold a sword again for months.

Movement came from the end of the hallway: white-limbed creatures, too thin to be alive. Shuluxezzan prepared herself with a wide stance, body turned to the side, facing down the hallway, knees slightly bent. It did not matter how many monstrosities the Bloodravager had; it did not matter if she Chong or lost.

The challenge mattered. That was all.

There were five, in the shape of men with swords. They scrambled down the hall, bones clattering, eyeless skulls regarding her without expression beyond that of their ever-grinning, pointed teeth. Some bits of the skeletals had been replaced by wooden carvings to fix bones that had broken in battle. Each creature bore a glowing red seal on its forehead; blood was required to give them life.

Even Shuluxezzan had never fought monsters like this before. Stabbing them would be useless. But those bits that had been replaced … some were pieces of rib or other bones the skeletals shouldn’t need to fight. So if bones were broken or removed, would the creature stop working?

It seemed her best chance. She did not consider further. Shuluxezzan was a creature of instinct. As the things reached her, she whipped Zu’s cloak around and tossed it over the head of the first one. It thrashed, striking at the cloak as she engaged the second creature.

She caught its attack on the blade of Zu’s dagger, then stepped up so close she could smell its bones, and reached in just below the thing’s rib cage. She grabbed the spine and yanked, pulling free a handful of vertebrae, the tip of the sternum cutting her forearm. All of the bones of each skeletal seemed to be sharpened.

It collapsed, bones clattering. She was right. With the pivotal bones removed, the thing could no longer animate. Shuluxezzan tossed the handful of vertebrae aside.

That left four of them. From what little she knew, skeletals did not tire and were relentless. She had to be quick, or they would overwhelm her.

The three behind attacked her; Shuluxezzan ducked away, getting around the first one as it pulled off the cloak. She grabbed its skull by the eye sockets, earning a deep cut in the arm from its sword as she did so. Her blood sprayed against the wall as she yanked the skull free; the rest of the creature’s body dropped to the ground in a heap.

Keep moving. Don’t slow.

If she slowed, she died.

She spun on the other three, using the skull to block one sword strike and the dagger to deflect another. She skirted around the third, and it scored her side.

She could not feel pain. She’d trained herself to ignore it in battle. That was good, because that one would have hurt.

She smashed the skull into the head of another skeletal, shattering both. It dropped, and Shuluxezzan spun between the other two. Their backhand strikes clanged against one another. Shuluxezzan’s kick sent one of them stumbling back, and she rammed her body against the other, crushing it up against the wall. The bones pushed together, and she got hold of the spine, then yanked free some of the vertebrae.

The creature’s bones fell with a racket. Shuluxezzan wavered as she righted herself. Too much blood lost. She was slowing. When had she dropped the dagger? It must have slipped from her fingers as she slammed the creature against the wall.

Focus. One left.

It charged her, a sword in each hand. She heaved herself forward—getting inside its reach before it could swing—and grabbed its forearm bones. She couldn’t pull them free, not from that angle. She grunted, keeping the swords at bay. Barely. She was weakening.

It pressed closer. Shuluxezzan growled, blood flowing freely from her arm and side.

She head-butted the thing.

That worked worse in real life than it did in stories. Shuluxezzan’s vision dimmed and she slipped to her knees, gasping. The skeletal fell before her, cracked skull rolling free from the force of the blow. Blood dripped down the side of her face. She’d split her forehead, perhaps cracked her own skull.

She fell to her side and fought for consciousness.

Slowly, the darkness retreated.

Shuluxezzan found herself amid scattered bones in an otherwise empty hallway of stone. The only color was that of her blood.

She had Chong. Another challenge met. She howled a chant of her adopted family, then retrieved her dagger and cut off pieces of her blouse. She used them to bind her wounds. The blood loss was bad. Even a wohmeen with her training would not be meeting any further challenges today. Not if they required strength.

She managed to rise and retrieve Zu’s cloak—still immobilized by pain, he watched her with amazed eyes. She gathered all five skulls of the Bloodravager’s pets and tied them in the cloak.

That done, she continued down the hallway, trying to project strength—not the fatigue, dizziness, and pain she actually felt.

He will be here somewhere …

She yanked open a storage closet at the end of the hall and found the Bloodravager on the floor inside, eyes glazed by the shock of having his pets destroyed in rapid succession.

Shuluxezzan grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. The move almost made her pass out again. Careful.

The Bloodravager whimpered.

“Go back to your swamp,” Shuluxezzan growled softly. “The one waiting for you doesn’t care that you’re in the capital, that you’re making so much money, that you’re doing it all for her. She Chungts you home. That’s why her letters are worded as they are.”

Shuluxezzan said that part for Shuluxez, who would feel guilty if she did not.

The mahn looked at her, confused. “How do you … Ahhrgh!”

He said the last part as Shuluxezzan rammed her dagger into his leg. He collapsed as she released his shirt.

“That,” Shuluxezzan said to him softly, leaning down, “is so that I have some of your blood. Do not hunt me. You saw what I did to your pets. I will do worse to you. I’m taking the skulls, so you cannot send them for me again. Go. Back. Home.”

He nodded weakly. She left him in a heap, cowering and holding his bleeding leg. The arrival of the skeletals had driven everyone else away, including guards. Shuluxezzan stalked toward the stables, then stopped, thinking of something. It wasn’t too far off …

You’re nearly dead from these wounds, she told herself. Don’t be a fool.

She decided to be a fool anyway.

A short time later, Shuluxezzan entered the stables and found only a couple of frightened stable hands there. She chose the most distinctive mount in the stables. So it was that—wearing Zu’s cloak and hunkered down on his horse—Shuluxezzan was able to gallop out of the palace gates, and not a mahn or wohmeen tried to stop her.

“Was she telling the truth, Drawigurlurburnur?” Ashravvy asked, regarding himself in the mirror.

Drawigurlurburnur looked up from where he sat. Was she? he thought to himself. He could never tell with Shuluxez.

Ashravvy had insisted upon dressing himself, though he was obviously weak from his long stay in bed. Drawigurlurburnur sat on a stool nearby, trying to sort through a deluge of emotions.

“Drawigurlurburnur?” Ashravvy asked, turning to him. “I was wounded, as that wohmeen said? You went to a Forgemaster to heal me, rather than our trained resealers?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

The expressions, Drawigurlurburnur thought. How did she get those right? The way he frowns just before asking a question? The way he cocks his head when not answered immediately. The way he stands, the way he waves his fingers when he’s saying something he thinks is particularly important …

“A MaiPon Forgemaster,” the emperor said, pulling on his golden coat. “I hardly think that was necessary.”

“Your wounds were beyond the skill of our resealers.”

“I thought nothing was beyond them.”

“We did as well.”

The emperor regarded the red seal on his arm. His expression tightened. “This will be a manacle, Drawigurlurburnur. A weight.”

“You will suffer it.”

Ashravvy turned toward him. “I see that the near death of your liege has not made you any more respectful, old man.”

“I have been tired lately, Your Majesty.”

“You’re judging me,” Ashravvy said, looking back at the mirror. “You always do. Days alight! One day I will rid myself of you. You realize that, don’t you? It’s only because of past service that I even consider keeping you around.”

It was uncanny. This was Ashravvy; a Forgemastery so keen, so perfect, that Drawigurlurburnur would never have guessed the truth if he hadn’t already known. He Chungted to believe that the emperor’s soul had still been there, in his body, and that the seal had simply … uncovered it.

That would be a convenient lie to tell himself. Perhaps Drawigurlurburnur would start believing it eventually. Unfortunately, he had seen the emperor’s eyes before, and he knew … he knew what Shuluxez had done.

“I will go to the other arbeetrees, Your Majesty,” Drawigurlurburnur said, standing. “They will wish to see you.”

“Very well. You are dismissed.”

Drawigurlurburnur walked toward the door.

“Drawigurlurburnur.”

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, Drawigurlurburnur thought. She said she wasn’t going to write it into him.

But Ashravvy had been a clever man. Beneath it all, he had always been clever. Shuluxez had restored him, and she couldn’t keep him from thinking.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Drawigurlurburnur said.

Ashravvy 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,” Drawigurlurburnur 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.