The Emperors Soul

industry and beauty instead of wealth and deception?”
    “What I do is great art.”
    “No. You copy other people’s great art. What you do is technically marvelous, yet completely lacking in spirit.”
    She almost slipped in her carving, hands growing tense. How dare he? Threatening to execute her was one thing, but insulting her art? He made her sound like . . . like one of those assembly line Forgers, churning out vase after vase!
    She calmed herself with difficulty, then plastered on a smile. Her aunt Sol had once told Shai to smile at the worst insults and snap at the minor ones. That way, no man would know your heart.
    “So how am I to be kept in line?” she asked. “We have established that I am among the most vile wretches to slither through the halls of this palace. You cannot bind me and you cannot trust your own soldiers to guard me.”
    “Well,” Gaotona said, “whenever possible, I personally will observe your work.”
    She would have preferred Frava—that one seemed as if she’d be easier to manipulate—but this was workable. “If you wish,” Shai said. “Much of it will be boring to one who does not understand Forgery.”
    “I am not interested in being entertained,” Gaotona said, waving one hand to Captain Zu. “Whenever I am here, Captain Zu will guard me. He is the only one of our Strikers to know the extent of the emperor’s injury, and only he knows of our plan with you. Other guards will watch you during the rest of the day, and you are not to speak to them of your task. There will be no rumors of what we do.”
    “You don’t need to worry about me talking,” Shai said, truthfully for once. “The more people who know of a Forgery, the more likely it is to fail.” Besides, she thought, if I told the guards, you’d undoubtedly execute them to preserve your secrets. She didn’t like Strikers, but she liked the empire less, and the guards were really just another kind of slave. Shai wasn’t in the business of getting people killed for no reason.
    “Excellent,” Gaotona said. “The second method of insuring your . . . attention to your project waits outside. If you would, good Captain?”
    Zu opened the door. A cloaked figure stood with the guards. The figure stepped into the room; his walk was lithe, but somehow unnatural. After Zu closed the door, the figure removed his hood, revealing a face with milky white skin and red eyes.
    Shai hissed softly through her teeth. “And you call what I do an abomination?”
    Gaotona ignored her, standing up from his chair to regard the newcomer. “Tell her.”
    The newcomer rested long white fingers on her door, inspecting it. “I will place the rune here,” he said in an accented voice. “If she leaves this room for any reason, or if she alters the rune or the door, I will know. My pets will come for her.”
    Shai shivered. She glared at Gaotona. “A Bloodsealer. You invited a Bloodsealer into your palace?”
    “This one has proven himself an asset recently,” Gaotona said. “He is loyal and he is discreet. He is also very effective. There are . . . times when one must accept the aid of darkness in order to contain a greater darkness.”
    Shai hissed softly as the Bloodsealer removed something from within his robes. A crude soulstamp created from a bone. His “pets” would also be bone, Forgeries of human life crafted from the skeletons of the dead.
    The Bloodsealer looked to her.
    Shai backed away. “Surely you don’t expect—”
    Zu took her by the arms. Nights, but he was strong. She panicked. Her Essence Marks! She needed her Essence Marks! With those, she could fight, escape, run . . .
    Zu cut her along the back of her arm. She barely felt the shallow wound, but she struggled anyway. The Bloodsealer stepped up and inked his horrid tool in Shai’s blood. He then turned and pressed the stamp against the center of her door.
    When he withdrew his hand, he left a glowing red seal in the wood. It was shaped like an eye. The moment he marked the seal, Shai felt a sharp pain in her arm, where she’d been cut.
    Shai gasped, eyes wide. Never had any person dared do such a thing to her. Almost better that she had been executed! Almost better that—
    Control yourself, she told herself forcibly. Become someone who can deal with this.
    She took a deep breath and let herself become someone else. An imitation of herself who was calm, even in a situation like this. It was a crude forgery, just a trick of the mind, but it