The Empire's Ghost

by Isabelle Steiger

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  For my parents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Without the encouragement of Emily DeLeonardo, who has been spending entire afternoons letting me all but act out my stories for her since we were fifteen, I could never have believed my writing would be of interest to anyone. Without the efforts of Thomas Flannery Jr., David Vigliano, and Pete Wolverton, this book would be a dormant manuscript, its indulgences uncurtailed and its sharp edges not yet sharp enough. And without my brother’s craftsmanship, I could never have sat at my desk through multiple rounds of revisions without succumbing to the pain of irritatingly persistent injuries. If the computer he built makes it that much easier to play games instead of working, the fault is mine alone.

  PROLOGUE

  The last time it snowed, Roger took a bundle of firewood and some biscuits to the Dragon’s Head.

  The streets of Sheath Alleys were perpetually dank, as narrow and twisting as a guilty thought—and they inspired many, as Roger knew all too well. It was as if Valyanrend itself fled to Sheath to escape its past, to disappear into the shadows as so many of its citizens had done. For the city, at least, it was a lost cause. A stray motif here, a crumbling cathedral there—all pointed to the capital’s storied history, its follies and its fall. Even the cobbles of the streets were suspect—you could fancy you saw dried flecks of red in the mortar, the remnants of countless uprisings and revolts. As a boy, Roger himself found what he convinced himself was a bone from a human finger in a crack between two pieces of brick in an alleyway; now he admitted it was as likely a fragment of chicken picked clean by a dog, but it could have been the lost remains of a dethroned emperor. Who was anyone to say?

  But now the jagged streets of Sheath looked almost peaceful, all the grime covered by cold, cloying white. Roger pulled off his cap before he’d gotten halfway, feeling the snow settle behind his ears and catch in his hair. Whenever he stepped into the shadows—there were always shadows to spare in Sheath—he watched his breath, pale and smoky in the dark. The moon was high and full, but even if every star had been snuffed out, he could have found his way by less than a candle flame.

  His ears had gone numb by the time the old tavern came into sight, but he didn’t mind. He stood before it for a few breaths, feeling the cold so fresh and sharp in his lungs that it seemed almost to have bitten him, left a pain gentle enough to cleanse. Too bad ale’d soon ruin all that, he thought, and rapped three times.

  Little Seth, Morgan’s only hired hand, opened the door for him, his pale face brightening at the sight of what Roger held. “Miss Imrick!” he called through teeth that were slightly chattering. “Mister Halfen’s here!”

  Morgan Imrick came out from the back room, shaking her head. “Gods’ sakes, you two, pull the door closed!” She grabbed a fistful of Roger’s coat, dragging him inside and shutting the offending object on its hinges—the wood was old and scarred, and the hinges were so loose that you didn’t so much open the door as send it hurtling toward the wall. But it was so tightly fitted to the frame that when she slammed it, you’d believe even death couldn’t slip past. Only then did she turn to him. “Good to see you, Roger. Get that wood to the fireplace, all right? Braddock!” she called to the tavern’s only other occupant, snapping her head in the direction of the far corner. “Help Roger with the firewood, would you please?”

  As far as Roger had been able to tell, Braddock never went anywhere without three things: a shabby brown coat, three-day-old stubble, and a surpassingly gruff demeanor. Roger usually tried to keep clear of anyone with a large assortment of weapons and a small sense of humor, but Braddock had earned Morgan’s trust somehow. And Roger had never known him to be disorderly in her tavern, no matter how drunk he got. He’d been sitting in his accustomed spot by the window, but he stood up and plunked his tankard down when Morgan spoke, with a vague grunt that could not possibly have been an honest attempt at a word. “Right then,” Roger said, dropping the bag of biscuits on the bar and passing Braddock half the wood. “Where are Lucius and Deinol?” he asked Morgan over his shoulder.

  She clicked her tongue. “Out,” she said flatly, pouring some ale into another tankard. “Here.” She slid it down the counter toward him as if the movement signaled an end to the discussion.

  But Roger couldn’t have a drink until he got the wood settled, and with his reward secure, he figured he could keep talking a bit. “Those two are on the ups, eh?” he asked. “Big job going down tonight?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Morgan said, so primly that he knew there were secrets to be ferreted out.

  He grinned. “Well, I hear that old merchant Lorrin’s planning on moving house tonight, and their best route takes them right through Ebon Corners. Rotten luck, that—everyone knows Ebon’s crawling with brigands of the worst sort. Be pretty hard to find the culprits if anything were to go missing, eh?”

  “I suppose it would be,” Morgan said, as if she couldn’t care less. “Try your drink.”

  “Don’t mind if I do!” He raised his tankard to the room at large. “And a hearty gods’ grace to you all.”

  “Grace,” Seth said, with a timid smile. The other two were silent.

  Roger laid claim to his favorite stool, placing the tankard back on the bar and draping himself beside it. You couldn’t say much for the decoration in the Dragon’s Head—Morgan refused to hang anything on the walls, and Seth’s attempts to brighten up the mantel over the fireplace were more well intentioned than effective. Roger supposed he understood flowers, even if he held no personal attachment to them, but the boy had found much more than that: oddly shaped stones, bits of colored glass, four-fifths of a porcelain dish he’d pulled out of some rubbish heap. Morgan complained about nearly every new addition, but she’d outright refused him only the pigeon feathers—if Seth wanted to catch diseases, she had said, there were plenty of poorer districts that could accommodate him. In fact, as far as Roger was concerned, Morgan’s fastidiousness more than made up for her lack of aesthetic sense: he didn’t doubt that the Dragon’s Head was the cleanest establishment in Sheath, despite the best efforts of some of its patrons. How she got the wood of that bar to gleam like that was beyond him.

  “So,” he said after polishing off the ale, wiping his mouth contentedly with his sleeve, “can a fellow get another swallow or so? It is mighty cold out there.”

  Morgan rolled her eyes. “You’re just the same as ever, aren’t you, Roger?”

  “And why should I be otherwise, my dear?” He aimed a cheeky smile at Seth, who started to grin back, though the expression immediately disappeared when Morgan turned on him.

  “Seth,” she said, “if you have time to flirt with Roger, you have time to stoke the fire. I suggest you get to it.”

  “R-right away, Miss Imrick!” Seth squeaked, nearly throwing himself at the hearth. One of the Dragon’s Head’s best features, it was large enough for the boy to curl up in, but the re
sulting fire never seemed to bother him—it was the cold he couldn’t handle.

  “You needn’t shrink from her so,” Roger said, laughing. “When has she ever laid a hand on you?”

  “I hit far too hard for one so delicate,” Morgan—quite rightly—pointed out. She turned to Roger with her arms folded, but he caught the wry smile tugging at one side of her mouth. “I do appreciate the supplies, Roger—and the company, believe it or not—but this is a tavern, not a home for the destitute. And tavern means business, and business, as I know you’re not too familiar with the term, means standards.”

  Morgan had been saying that since she’d first taken over the Dragon’s Head, and, well, she did mean it, but her tavern didn’t attract the types it did for nothing. A thief had to choose his haunts carefully, after all, and the Dragon’s Head had become Roger’s because Morgan was one of the precious few people he both trusted and liked—which, given his profession, meant trusting her discretion as much as her honesty. Her standards, if she had them, were a good sight stranger than everyone else’s.

  “There’s something doing in the streets,” Braddock said suddenly, peering outside. “I don’t think I like the look of it.”

  The Dragon’s Head had two walls open to the street, both generously studded with windows. But the glass was cheap and milky, and all Morgan’s attempts to clean it couldn’t change that. The light that filtered in always had a muted quality, and you had to get up close to the windows in order to get a detailed view of the other side—no doubt that was why Braddock always chose to sit there. Morgan strode over to stand by Braddock’s stool, following his gaze. “Soldiers passing through,” she said for Roger’s and Seth’s sakes. “More than I’d like. Were there supposed to be military maneuvers tonight?”

  Roger scratched his head, trying to remember. “I want to say no, but I don’t recall, honestly. Course, the usual channels aren’t infallible.”

  “This is bad,” Seth said, his voice skidding high on the last syllable. “What if Lucius and Deinol—”

  “Hush,” Morgan said, with an abortive wave of her hand. “If anything had happened to Lucius and Deinol, there’d be no reason for soldiers to show up here, would there?” But her face was drawn, and Roger knew what she was thinking: if Lucius and Deinol were doing what Roger was almost certain they were doing, there was a chance they’d bring the loot back here—and they couldn’t do that with a bunch of soldiers making the rounds.

  It was Braddock, surprisingly, who broke the silence. “Doesn’t look like a patrol to me,” he said. “Strange for little pests like those to be passing through so far from their fellows, though.”

  “It is strange,” Morgan said—but she only looked puzzled now, not anxious, and Roger would have flashed Braddock a grateful smile if he’d thought for a moment it would have been accepted. “It didn’t seem like they were responding to a crime—”

  “Pah,” Braddock spat. “Whenever there’s real trouble, those dogs are nowhere to be found. I’d say they’ve caught the scent of a profit, but there’s slim chance of that down here.”

  “And we’d’ve heard if there were some sort of plot about,” Seth added.

  Morgan looked to Roger. “You’re sure there’s been nothing?”

  He shook his head. “Quiet as a Ninist vestry—for the last fortnight, no less. Nothing doing in all Sheath Alleys, I warrant you.”

  As their imperator’s war with Lanvaldis had dragged on, he’d started pulling more and more soldiers out of the capital, either to join the front lines directly or to replace men he’d taken from other strategic locations across the country. Perhaps that was why it felt so strange to see them now, though Roger had always known them to give Sheath a wide berth regardless. It was probably good for him that their presence was reduced in his city, but thinking about the war always made him uneasy, for reasons he’d never been able to determine. It wasn’t that he feared for himself: every battle so far had taken place on Lanvaldian soil, and the vast majority of them had ended in victory for Hallarnon, especially of late. Better still, a month ago Imperator Elgar himself had left Valyanrend to join his troops on the front lines as they inched ever closer to the Lanvaldian capital of Araveil. Most of the people Roger trusted to understand military matters had even claimed that the Lanvalds’ defeat, at this point, was practically inevitable. So then why did seeing those soldiers give him such a bad feeling? Surely it wasn’t pity for people he’d never seen?

  Morgan frowned, drawing her fingers absentmindedly across the windowsill. “I suppose,” she said at last, “that if the soldiers are only passing through, there’s no sense in getting worked up over it. Isolated little groups like that one probably make many inconsequential movements over the course of a single day, and we’d think nothing of it if we weren’t … on edge.” Waiting, Roger thought, was the word she was looking for—waiting on a couple of brigands, no less.

  “I could go,” Seth offered suddenly, trying to draw himself up to his full height—which wasn’t much. “I could go ask—”

  Morgan shook her head with surprising gentleness. “They’ll be all right,” she said. “They always are. You’ll just have to trust in them, Seth.”

  “They’re fond of flash,” Braddock added, “and they talk a good game, but they’ve skill to back it up—we all know it. And even if Deinol sometimes lacks the sense to be discreet, Lucius always makes him mind in the end. They won’t go courting danger tonight.”

  “I think,” Roger said, “we could all use another round. And nobody’s so much as touched these biscuits yet. I guarantee they’re fresh enough—fully half delicious, in fact. Allow me to demonstrate.” He strode over to where he’d left the biscuits atop the bar, fished in the bag until he found one, and then took a huge bite, chewing merrily. “You see? Perfectly edible, and not half hard. I spoil the lot of you, swear on the gods I do.”

  Seth smiled at him, and Morgan said, “I’ll take one—pass them here.” Even Braddock raised his head and looked at him. Roger grinned at them all and then tossed another biscuit across the room to Morgan, then held the bag teasingly over Seth’s head when the boy asked for one too.

  When they were all supplied with biscuits, Morgan passed out the tankards: stout for Braddock, another ale for Roger, and the same for Seth, albeit it was one-third water. Morgan herself didn’t drink during business hours, though she wasn’t overfond of the stuff in the first place, having as she did to kick out passels of drunkards nearly every evening. Roger and Seth stoked the fire, and once his ears had forgotten what it felt like to be cold, Roger said, “End of the year’s approaching, isn’t it? Good time for aspirations, I’d say.”

  “Aspirations?” Morgan asked, her elbows resting on the bar.

  “I mean,” Roger said, “look to the future, and say what you’d like to see. Why not?”

  Morgan shook her head, casting free a brief laugh that wasn’t quite bitter. “What aspirations, Roger? We’re all stuck down here, and you know it.”

  “Nothing’s permanent,” Roger said, but somehow it didn’t sound as forceful as it had in his mind.

  Lacking a tankard, Morgan raised one fist in a mock-salute. “I suppose we shan’t see you around here much longer, then. No aspirations, I’m sure, ever thrived long in the Dragon’s Head. And you’ll be wanting bigger and better things, won’t you?”

  “Things are always changing,” Roger said, because saying nothing was tantamount to sulking. “There’s another year about to go by, and … and perhaps it’ll snow again tomorrow, and perhaps it won’t.”

  Seth looked about to speak, but Braddock’s grunt silenced him. “Thinks he’s a bard,” he said, “thinks he’s—”

  But Roger was not destined to find out what he thought he was, for at that moment the door leaped nearly off its hinges, banging with such force against the opposite wall that all four of them were stunned into silence. And into that sudden absence the two interlopers poured enough commotion for all of them, nearly dancing into the ro
om, hands full and lips brimming with merriment. “Shut the door!” Morgan yelled over the tumult, and Lucius Aquila cast the cloth bag he was carrying to the floor, pausing only a moment to make sure the entrance was well and truly closed. Then he looked up in triumph, the customary enigmatic smile smoothing his face.

  Deinol had already bounded into the center of the room, dropping his own sack and throwing an arm around Seth’s shoulders. “And there’s my boy!” he said in full jubilance, mussing Seth’s pale hair. “And he’ll come with us one of these days, won’t he?”

  “He certainly will not,” Morgan replied, as unamused as only she could look. “No hired hand of mine is going gallivanting off for a night of pilfering, I warrant you that for certain.”

  “Ah, Morgan, the boy’ll grow up as dull as one of Roger’s fake flints if you don’t loose your hold on him.”

  Morgan arched a single eyebrow. “I seem to recall that someone was entirely convinced the boy wouldn’t get the chance to grow up at all if I didn’t take him in.”

  “You did say something of the sort,” Lucius said, clapping a hand on Deinol’s shoulder. “Besides, Seth’s a right proper boy, isn’t he? He’s an honest living to put us both to shame, and Roger, too.”

  “Hey there,” Roger said, “don’t lump me in with your sort. There’re leagues of difference between us—for one thing, I’m a coward, the way a true swindler ought to be—”

  “As much as I love being made privy to confessions of dishonesty and criminal acts in my own establishment,” Morgan interrupted, “I don’t believe I gave you two any impression—any at all—that this was the proper place to stash your spoils.”

  Deinol looked genuinely puzzled. “But, Morgan, where did you think we were going to stash it? These days we do everything here.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?” She sighed. “Well, let’s see it then. What’ve you got?” Then, as she saw what he was about to do, she tried to grab his arm. “No, no, don’t—”