The Emperors Soul

him to his feet. The move almost made her pass out again. Careful.
    The Bloodsealer whimpered.
    “Go back to your swamp,” Shaizan 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 wants you home. That’s why her letters are worded as they are.”
    Shaizan said that part for Shai, who would feel guilty if she did not.
    The man looked at her, confused. “How do you . . . Ahhrgh! ”
    He said the last part as Shaizan rammed her dagger into his leg. He collapsed as she released his shirt.
    “That,” Shaizan 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. Shaizan 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, Shaizan 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—Shaizan was able to gallop out of the palace gates, and not a man or woman tried to stop her.

    “Was she telling the truth, Gaotona?” Ashravan asked, regarding himself in the mirror.
    Gaotona looked up from where he sat. Was she? he thought to himself. He could never tell with Shai.
    Ashravan had insisted upon dressing himself, though he was obviously weak from his long stay in bed. Gaotona sat on a stool nearby, trying to sort through a deluge of emotions.
    “Gaotona?” Ashravan asked, turning to him. “I was wounded, as that woman said? You went to a Forger to heal me, rather than our trained resealers?”
    “Yes, Your Majesty.”
    The expressions, Gaotona 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 Forger,” 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, Gaotona. A weight.”
    “You will suffer it.”
    Ashravan 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,” Ashravan 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 Ashravan; a Forgery so keen, so perfect, that Gaotona would never have guessed the truth if he hadn’t already known. He wanted 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 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