The Emperors Soul

his soul fight against the invasion? Or instead, would it accept the stamp, wishing to have righted what had gone wrong? Much as that window had wanted to be restored to its former beauty. She didn’t know.
    Gaotona opened his eyes. “Did it . . . work?”
    “It took, for now,” Shai said.
    “I don’t feel any different.”
    “That is the point. If the emperor could feel the stamp’s effects, he would realize that something was wrong. Now, answer me without thought; speak by instinct only. What is your favorite color?”
    “Green,” he said immediately.
    “Why?”
    “Because . . .” He trailed off, cocking his head. “Because it is.”
    “And your brother?”
    “I hardly remember him,” Gaotona said with a shrug. “He died when I was very young.”
    “It is good he did,” Shai said. “He would have made a terrible emperor, if he had been chosen in—”
    Gaotona stood up. “Don’t you dare speak ill of him! I will have you . . .” He stiffened, glancing at Zu, who had reached for his sword in alarm. “I . . . Brother . . . ?”
    The seal faded away.
    “A minute and five seconds,” Shai said. “That one looks good.”
    Gaotona raised a hand to his head. “I can remember having a brother. But . . . I don’t have one, and never have. I can remember idolizing him; I can remember pain when he died. Such pain . . .”
    “That will fade,” Shai said. “The impressions will wash away like the remnants of a bad dream. In an hour, you’ll barely be able to recall what it was that upset you.” She scribbled some notes. “I think you reacted too strongly to me insulting your brother’s memory. Ashravan worshipped his brother, but kept his feelings buried deep out of guilt that perhaps his brother would have made a better emperor than he.”
    “What? Are you sure?”
    “About this?” Shai said. “Yes. I’ll have to revise that stamp a little bit, but I think it is mostly right.”
    Gaotona sat back down, regarding her with ancient eyes that seemed to be trying to pierce her, to dig deep inside. “You know a great deal about people.”
    “It’s one of the early steps of our training,” Shai said. “Before we’re even allowed to touch soulstone.”
    “Such potential . . .” Gaotona whispered.
    Shai forced down an immediate burst of annoyance. How dare he look at her like that, as if she were wasting her life? She loved Forgery. The thrill, a life spent getting ahead by her wits. That was what she was . Wasn’t it?
    She thought of one specific Essence Mark, locked away with the others. It was one Mark she had never used, yet was at the same time the most precious of the five.
    “Let’s try another,” Shai said, ignoring those eyes of Gaotona’s. She couldn’t afford to grow offended. Aunt Sol had always said that pride would be Shai’s greatest danger in life.
    “Very well,” Gaotona said, “but I am confused at one thing. From what little you’ve told me of this process, I cannot fathom why these seals even begin to work on me. Don’t you need to know a thing’s history exactly to make a seal work on it?”
    “To make them stick, yes,” Shai said. “As I’ve said, it’s about plausibility.”
    “But this is completely implausible! I don’t have a brother.”
    “Ah. Well, let me see if I can explain,” she said, settling back. “I am rewriting your soul to match that of the emperor—just as I rewrote the history of that window to include new stained glass. In both cases, it works because of familiarity . The window frame knows what a stained glass window should look like. It once had stained glass in it. Even though the new window is not the same as the one it once held, the seal works because the general concept of a stained glass window has been fulfilled.
    “You spent a great deal of time around the emperor. Your soul is familiar with his, much as the window frame is familiar with the stained glass. This is why I have to try out the seals on someone like you, and not on myself. When I stamp you, it’s like . . . it’s like I’m presenting to your soul a piece of something it should know. It only works if the piece is very small, but so long as it is—and so long as the soul considers the piece a familiar part of Ashravan, as I’ve indicated—the stamp will take for a brief time before being rejected.”
    Gaotona regarded her with bemusement.
    “Sounds like superstitious nonsense to you, I assume?” Shai said.
    “It is . . . rather mystical,”