“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 worked.
She shook herself free from Zu, then accepted the kerchief Gaotona handed her. She glared at the Bloodsealer as the pain in her arm faded. He smiled at her with lips that were white and faintly translucent, like the skin of a maggot. He nodded to Gaotona before replacing his hood and stepping out of the room, closing the door after.
Shai forced herself to breathe evenly, calming herself. There was no subtlety to what the Bloodsealer did; they didn’t traffic in subtlety. Instead of skill or artistry, they used tricks and blood. However, their craft was effective. The man would know if Shai left the room, and he had her fresh blood on his stamp, which was attuned to her. With that, his undead pets would be able to hunt her no matter where she ran.
Gaotona settled back down in his chair. “You know what will happen if you flee?”
Shai glared at Gaotona.
“You now realize how desperate we are,” he said softly, lacing his fingers before him. “If you do run, we will give you to the Bloodsealer. Your bones will become his next pet. This promise was all he requested in payment. You may begin your work, Forger. Do it well, and you will escape this fate.”
Day Five
Work she did.
Shai began digging through accounts of the emperor’s life. Few people understood how much Forgery was about study and research. It was an art any man or woman could learn; it required only a steady hand and an eye for detail.
That and a willingness to spend weeks, months, even years preparing the ideal soulstamp.
Shai didn’t have years. She felt rushed as she read biography after biography, often staying up well into the night taking notes. She did not believe that she could do what they asked of her. Creating a believable Forgery of another man’s soul, particularly in such a short time, just wasn’t possible. Unfortunately, she had to make a good show of it while she planned her escape.
They didn’t let her leave the room. She used a chamber pot when nature called, and for baths she was allowed a tub of warm water and cloths. She was under supervision at all times, even when bathing.
That Bloodsealer came each morning to renew his mark on the door. Each time, the act required a little blood from Shai. Her arms were soon laced with shallow cuts.
All the while, Gaotona visited. The ancient arbiter studied her as she read, watching with those eyes that judged . . . but also did not hate.
As she formulated her plans, she decided one thing: getting free would probably require manipulating this man in some way.
Day Twelve
Shai pressed her stamp down on the tabletop.
As always, the stamp sank slightly into the material. A soulstamp left a seal you could feel, regardless of the material. She twisted the stamp a half turn—this did not blur the ink, though she did not know why. One of her mentors had taught that it was because by this point the seal was touching the object’s soul and not its physical presence.
When she pulled the stamp back, it left a bright red seal in the wood as if carved there. Transformation spread from the seal in a wave. The table’s dull grey splintery cedar became beautiful and well maintained, with a warm patina that reflected the light of the candles sitting across from her.
Shai rested her fingers on the new table; it was now smooth to the touch. The sides and legs were finely carved, inlaid here and there with silver.
Gaotona sat upright, lowering the book he’d been reading. Zu shuffled in discomfort at seeing the Forgery.
“What was that?” Gaotona demanded.
“I was tired of getting splinters,” Shai said, settling back in her chair. It creaked. You are next, she thought.
Gaotona stood up and walked to the table. He touched it, as if expecting the transformation to be mere illusion. It was not. The fine table now looked horribly out of place in the dingy room. “This is what you’ve been doing?”
“Carving helps me think.”
“You should be focused on your task!” Gaotona said. “This is frivolity. The empire itself is in danger!”
No, Shai thought. Not the empire itself; just your rule of it. Unfortunately, after eleven days, she still didn’t have an angle on Gaotona, not one she could exploit.
“I am working on your problem, Gaotona,” she said. “What you ask of me is hardly a simple task.”
“And changing that table was?”
“Of course it was,” Shai said. “All I had to do was rewrite its past so that it was maintained, rather than being allowed to sink into disrepair. That took hardly any work at all.”
Gaotona hesitated, then knelt beside the table. “These carvings, this inlay . . . those were not part of the original.”
“I might have added a little.”
She wasn’t certain if the Forgery would take or not. In a few minutes, that seal might evaporate and the table might revert to its previous state. Still, she was fairly certain she’d guessed the table’s past well enough. Some of the histories she was reading mentioned what gifts had come from where. This table, she suspected, had come from far-off Svorden as a gift to Emperor Ashravan’s predecessor. The strained relationship with Svorden had then led the emperor to lock it away and ignore it.