The Emperors Soul

it did.
    She felt that she finally understood why Ashravan had abandoned his youthful optimism. At least, she knew the factors that had combined to lead him down that path. Corruption was part of it, but not the main part. Again, lack of self-confidence contributed, but hadn’t been the decisive factor.
    No, Ashravan’s downfall had been life itself. Life in the palace, life as part of an empire that clicked along like a clock. Everything worked. Oh, it didn’t work as well as it might. But it did work.
    Challenging that took effort, and effort was sometimes hard to muster. He had lived a life of leisure. Ashravan hadn’t been lazy, but it didn’t require laziness to be swept up in the workings of imperial bureaucracy—to tell yourself that next month you’d go and demand that your changes be made. Over time, it had become easier and easier to float along the course of the great river that was the Rose Empire.
    In the end, he’d grown indulgent. He’d focused more on the beauty of his palace than on the lives of his subjects. He had allowed the arbiters to handle more and more government functions.
    Shai sighed. Even that description of him was too simplistic. It neglected to mention who the emperor had been, and who he had become. A chronology of events didn’t speak of his temper, his fondness for debate, his eye for beauty, or his habit of writing terrible, terrible poetry and then expecting all who served him to tell him how wonderful it was.
    It also didn’t speak of his arrogance, or his secret wish that he could have been something else. That was why he had gone back over his book again and again. Perhaps he had been looking for that branching point in his life where he had stepped down the wrong path.
    He hadn’t understood. There was rarely an obvious branching point in a person’s life. People changed slowly, over time. You didn’t take one step, then find yourself in a completely new location. You first took a little step off a path to avoid some rocks. For a while, you walked alongside the path, but then you wandered out a little way to step on softer soil. Then you stopped paying attention as you drifted farther and farther away. Finally, you found yourself in the wrong city, wondering why the signs on the roadway hadn’t led you better.
    The door to her room opened.
    Shai bolted upright in her bed, nearly dropping her notes. They’d come for her.
    But . . . no, it was morning already. Light trickled through the stained glass window, and the guards were standing up and stretching. The one who had opened the door was the Bloodsealer. He looked hungover again, and carried a stack of papers in his hand, as he often did.
    He’s early this morning, Shai thought, checking her pocket watch. Why early today, when he’s late so often?
    The Bloodsealer cut her and stamped the door without a word, causing the pain to burn in Shai’s arm. He hurried out of the room, as if off to some appointment. Shai stared after him, then shook her head.
    A moment later, the door opened again and Frava entered.
    “Oh, you’re up,” the woman said as the Strikers saluted her. Frava set Shai’s book down on the table with a thump. She seemed annoyed. “The scribes are done. Get back to work.”
    Frava left in a bustle. Shai leaned back in her bed, sighing in relief. Her ruse had worked. That should earn her a few more weeks.

Day Seventy
    “So this symbol,” Gaotona said, pointing at one of her sketches of the greater stamps she would soon carve, “is a time notation, indicating a moment specifically . . . seven years ago?”
    “Yes,” Shai said, dusting off the end of a freshly carved soulstamp. “You learn quickly.”
    “I am undergoing surgery each day, so to speak,” Gaotona said. “It makes me more comfortable to know the kinds of knives being used.”
    “The changes aren’t—”
    “Aren’t permanent,” he said. “Yes, so you keep saying.” He stretched out his arm for her to stamp. “However, it makes me wonder. One can cut the body, and it will heal—but do it over and over again in the same spot, and you will scar. The soul cannot be so different.”
    “Except, of course, that it’s completely different,” Shai said, stamping his arm.
    He had never quite forgiven her for what she had done in burning ShuXen’s masterpiece. She could see it in him, when they interacted. He was no longer just disappointed in her, he was angry at her.
    Anger faded with time, and they had a