by Jordan Rivet
The Spy in the Silver Palace
Empire of Talents Book One
Jordan Rivet
Copyright © 2017 by Jordan Rivet
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contact the author at [email protected]
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Cover by Deranged Doctor Design
Edited by Red Adept Publishing
Map by Jordan Rivet
Created with Vellum
For Chelsea.
I’m happy we’re sisters,
but I’m even happier we’re friends.
Contents
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Jordan Rivet
Map
Chapter One
Mica wore her own face as she ran across the cobblestones. The assembly hall rose ahead of her, the burnished bronze dome glowing like a second sunrise. She squeezed through the visitors making their way to the ceremony, noting interesting features along the way: a set of high cheekbones, a pair of protruding ears, a scarred lip.
She dodged a small family, catching a snippet of their conversation.
“Are we going to see real Mimics today?” one of the children asked.
“Hush, darling,” said the mother, clearly distracted by the crowds.
Mica filed away the details of the woman’s appearance out of habit: thick black hair, a wide mouth turned down at the corners, a lean brown hand clutching her younger child.
“You see Mimics every day,” said an older boy (similar mouth below a flat, sunburned nose). “You just don’t know it.”
Mica didn’t hear the child’s reply as she pushed onward through the throng. She should have arrived long before the guests, but she had only just escaped the ramshackle inn where her family was staying. They had traveled on horseback for three days to reach the town of Redbridge from Stonefoss Infantry Base, and she had skipped the celebrations in the Academy dormitory to spend the night with them. Her parents and four brothers had smothered her with hugs and good wishes before letting her leave that morning.
“It’s not every day your baby sister graduates from Mimic Academy,” her brother Aden had said, nearly crushing her with his unnatural strength.
“You’re not supposed to call it that,” Emir had said. “You’ll get Mica in trouble.”
“Everyone calls them Mimics,” Aden said. “Even Mica.”
“Not where my instructors can hear it,” Mica said.
Aden shrugged. “You Impersonators have no sense of humor.”
“That’s enough of that,” their father cut in. “This is Mica’s day. You should be proud to have an Imperial Impersonator in the family.”
Mica had rolled her eyes for her brothers’ benefit, but she was secretly pleased. As the youngest of five—and the only girl—she wasn’t used to being the center of attention. She was surprised that her parents and all four brothers had managed to secure leave from the base to travel the length of Amber Island for her Assignment Ceremony. She hoped she’d make them proud.
She reached the assembly hall at the center of the town square and darted up the granite steps, escaping the early-summer heat for the cool, echoing interior of the ancient building. Voices issued from the main hall, where she glimpsed the families of the graduates gathering beneath the bronze dome. She ducked down a side corridor, nerves wriggling in her stomach.
She shouldn’t be too concerned. She had worked hard at the Redbridge Academy for Professional Impersonators, the best institution of its kind in the empire, and she was near the top of her class. She was sure to get a good assignment. The question was whether it would be the one she had coveted since her very first day at the Academy.
Mica turned a corner and found her classmates lined up by a side door, waiting to be called into the assembly hall. The torchlit corridor echoed with the voices of a hundred anxious young Impersonators preparing to receive their first missions. Their nervous babble nearly drowned out the scraping benches and tapping feet inside the hall itself. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, torch smoke, and just a hint of last night’s liquor.
Mica squeezed into line in front of a familiar woman with raven hair, an aquiline nose, and perfect curves.
“You made it,” the woman said in a throaty purr.
“Am I the last one?” Mica asked.
“Not even close.” The raven-haired beauty rubbed her eyes, which were a luminous shade of lavender. “Half the cohort didn’t even go to bed last night. A few more will stumble in.”
“Where’s Danil?”
“Still sleeping it off, I expect. Tiber stole a crate of brandy from his mother’s cellar. Oh, strike it.” Suddenly the woman’s figure flattened and stretched into a taller, more athletic shape. The raven hair faded to an ashy blond, and the aquiline nose shortened and widened. In seconds, a tall, fresh-faced girl, who was cute rather than stunning, had replaced the alluring beauty. This was the true face of Mica’s friend Sapphire.
Mica grinned. “Changed your mind, eh?”
“You were right,” Sapphire said. “We should look like ourselves today. Also, it’s too much effort to hold that figure with a headache.” She rubbed her eyes, which remained lavender rather than their natural blue—possibly to hide how bloodshot her real eyes were. The throaty voice was all hers, though it sounded scratchier than usual after the night’s revels.
“You look gorgeous,” Mica said. She surveyed their hundred-odd classmates, many of whom were wearing their favorite faces today. They had been developing those faces for the past five years, training their features to morph into ever more difficult variations. Some Mimics preferred their impersonations to their normal appearances, and the crowd in the corridor contained an unusually high percentage of staggering beauties. “People really went all out.”
“That elfin look over there is new.” Sapphire nodded at a girl who’d sharpened her features to look like a fairy from a story, complete with shimmering blue hair. “I wonder who that is.”
“Probably won’t be the most useful face,” Mica said, “unless she gets assigned to one of those fancy performance troupes.”
Mica’s Talent enabled her to change individual features at will, and she’d been taught to create a collection of practical looks she could slip into without thought. There was the plain-faced cowherd’s daughter. The big-eyed and buxom barmaid. The lad with foppish hair and a twinkle in his green eyes. The lean old soldier. The humpbacked crone. Most important of all was an array of faces from the Obsidian Kingdom, a land of pale eye
s and paler skin, where the people stood out against the dark, rocky landscape like doves in a tar pit.
Mica had studied more Obsidian faces than anyone else at the Academy. Impersonation was useful in a wide range of professions, but she had trained with a single goal in mind: to serve the Windfast Empire as a spy in Obsidian territory. Windfast, also known as the Empire of Islands, encompassed a dozen small island nations that had banded together against their larger, more powerful neighbor to the east. The Obsidian Kingdom had been a looming threat over Mica’s homeland for generations. Windfast spies served as the first line of defense against the dark kingdom, the secret agents whose work in the shadows could save thousands of lives. If everything went according to plan, Mica was about to become one of them.
“I hope my hand-to-hand results don’t set me back,” she whispered to Sapphire. Combat had been Mica’s weakest subject at the Academy. Her build was slight, and though she was nimble and quick with a knife, she had little hope of overpowering enemy combatants.
“Master Kiev knows what you can do,” Sapphire said. “Besides, the ability to disappear is more important than being strong enough to knock someone out.”
“I hope you’re right.” Mica worried the spymasters on the front lines in Obsidian would be expecting the Academy to send them only skilled fighters. She’d hate to be stuck working as a body double in a field unrelated to espionage. They couldn’t all be spies.
“Shh!” Sapphire held up a hand. “They’re quieting down.”
Mica held her breath, listening to the sounds inside the assembly hall. Applause broke out on the other side of the wall.
“It’s starting!”
“Master Kiev must be walking up to the stage now.” Mica pictured the Head of the Academy climbing the platform with his uneven gait and raising his hands to silence the applause.
She and Sapphire exchanged excited glances as Master Kiev’s deep voice rumbled through the wall, the cadence familiar even though they couldn’t make out the words. He must be welcoming the guests, many of whom had traveled much farther than Mica’s family to reach the northern heartland of Amber Island for the Assignment Ceremony.
“Get back in line!” The message was whispered down the torchlit corridor from the Academy instructor who’d been posted by the door. “Master Kiev will call you in two minutes.”
The students straightened their clothes and made last-minute adjustments to their faces, a little extra color here, a few more lashes there. Mica bounced on the balls of her feet, fidgeting with the pockets in her sturdy gray skirt, the best one she owned. She hadn’t altered her appearance at all today, despite her skill. She wore her own snub nose, hazel eyes, and nut-brown hair, which just brushed her shoulders. She had prepared for a life of secrecy, one where she could go months without ever showing her true face to anyone. But on this day, she wanted to look like herself.
“Danil’s going to miss the whole thing.” Sapphire stood on her toes to search for their friend amongst the students, though she towered over most of them anyway. “What is he doing?”
“He’ll be here.” Mica scanned the corridor, absently making her bottom lip grow and shrink. She half expected one of the other students to sprout curly dark hair, revealing that Danil had been there all along. It wasn’t like him to be late. Barrel-chested and merry, their friend was one of the most reliable people Mica knew.
“Will they give him his scroll later if he doesn’t make it?” Sapphire asked.
“I hope so.” Their instructors weren’t known for being lenient, but surely they wouldn’t withhold Danil’s assignment for celebrating too hard last night.
Mica, Sapphire, and Danil had been inseparable since their first day at the Academy. They had helped each other through some arduous tasks on their five-year journey to become Imperial Impersonators. It was strange to think that this morning’s ceremony marked the end of their time together. As an Obsidian spy, Mica would spend most of her career overseas, while Sapphire and Danil both had their sights on assignments in the empire. She pushed aside a hint of melancholy at the prospect of not seeing them often. This was a day for celebration.
“It’s time,” called the instructor at the front of the line. “Quit yammering, everybody.”
Mica squeezed Sapphire’s hand as the door at the end of the corridor opened at last, allowing them to hear Master Kiev’s voice just as it reached a crescendo.
“. . . to present the graduates of the Redbridge Academy for Professional Impersonators!”
Applause erupted around the assembly hall as Mica and her classmates entered to the sound of blaring trumpets. Light filled the vast space beneath the bronze dome, spilling from windows set high in the granite walls. A platform had been set up directly beneath the dome, the sides draped with banners bearing the Redbridge Academy crest and the Windfast flag. Heavy wooden benches surrounded the stage, every seat filled except for the front rows, which were reserved for the hundred graduates. Mica felt a thrill of pride as she marched down the aisle with her cohort, hardly able to believe this was finally happening.
Benches scraped against the granite floor as the guests stood to get a better look at the Impersonators. This was the only time some of them would ever see real Mimics—at least as far as they knew. More than a few jaws dropped at the sight of so many beautiful young people parading toward the front of the hall. For a moment, Mica regretted not assuming her most beautiful face for the occasion. Beauty was a tool like any other, but the best Impersonators knew that going unnoticed was often more important—and took more skill—than being the prettiest person in the room. Besides, she wanted her family to know it was her.
The trumpets faded as the students took their seats at the front of the hall. Mica and Sapphire left a space between them for Danil in case he made it at the last minute. They looked up at Master Kiev, who leaned on a wooden podium on the center platform. He was a huge man, with black skin and wild white hair. The Academy instructors sat on his right—many of them also wearing their best faces for the occasion. On his left sat a handful of dignitaries who had traveled from the capital city of Jewel Harbor to represent the emperor. One of the seats on stage remained empty.
“Welcome, Impersonators,” Master Kiev began. “Today we are gathered to . . .”
Mica couldn’t concentrate on the words of his speech. Her focus was drawn to a stack of scrolls on the podium, rolls of parchment bound with simple black ribbon. There they were. The assignments. In a matter of minutes, Mica would know whether the life she had worked toward for the past five years would be hers. She would embark on a great adventure across the sea, facing countless perils in service of her homeland. She would use all the faces she had practiced at the Academy and more, wearing and discarding features like so many cheap hats.
She studied the pyramid of scrolls intently, counting them, trying to read the names scrawled on the sides. Her entire future rested in one of those scrolls. It was impossible to think of anything else. She tuned in to Master Kiev’s oration only when he was clearly drawing to the end.
“Most people in the empire will never know your names.” He paused to meet the eyes of several of his students in turn. “They will never see your best works or speak of your greatest deeds. That is your purpose, your mission. This may be one of the few moments when you will receive public recognition for the skills you have trained so hard to acquire. This is your day, Impersonators. May you thrive.”
“May you thrive,” the students intoned. Then someone whooped, and applause echoed through the assembly hall once more.
Mica tore her eyes from the scrolls long enough to seek out her family in the crowd. Her mother caught her eye and waved. The details of their assignments would be kept private, and the Impersonators would be unrecognizable for most of their careers. This was truly their only chance for acknowledgement.
When Mica turned back to face the platform again, Master Kiev was introducing one of the visiting dignitaries, a man in his late fifties with th
ick gray hair, a prominent nose, and a finely sculpted beard. Mica took special note of the shape of the nose.
“Lord Ober has been a stalwart supporter of all Talents in Emperor Styl’s court, including our fellow Impersonators,” Master Kiev said. “We are honored he could be here today to help us present the assignments.”
“Thank you, Master Kiev,” Lord Ober said. “May I also introduce my lady wife, Euphia, and esteemed guests Lord Riven, Lady Lorna, and my nephew, Lord Caleb of the Pebble—hmm, it looks as though Lord Caleb hasn’t made it this morning.” Lord Ober gestured at the empty chair and chuckled. “I believe he made the most of your celebrations last night. In any case, we are all proud of our young Impersonators. Talents form the backbone of this empire, and I’m pleased to witness this momentous occasion as you complete your training. May we work together toward the good of the Windfast Empire and of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Styl.”
Lord Ober relinquished his spot at the podium, positioning himself so he could shake hands with the Impersonators after they received their scrolls from Master Kiev. The other three nobles watched the proceedings with indifference, occasionally fanning themselves or looking down at their fingernails. Nobles were usually too busy with the courtly frivolities of Jewel Harbor to concern themselves with working Talents. If Lord Ober’s admiration was genuine, he was a rare breed.
Master Kiev reminded everyone one last time to be discreet about their assignments, picked up the first scroll from the top of the pyramid, and read out the name.