by Jordan Rivet
“Go on then, Mica,” her mother said. “I’m sure you want to see your friends.”
“Are you sure?”
“We’ll be fine here.”
Mica thanked her and leapt up, intending to look for Master Kiev first. She hurried across the green, where her classmates were relaxing with their own families or swearing to each other they’d keep in touch after they left the Academy. She answered vaguely when anyone asked about her assignment.
She spotted Sapphire with Danil’s younger sister over near the bridge. The little girl had similar curly hair and round features. Mica didn’t see Danil, but he had to be here by now. There’d be plenty of time to catch up with her friends later—hopefully when she had better news to share.
Master Kiev was nowhere to be found. She didn’t think he’d assume a different face on such an important occasion, but she began looking more closely at the people spread around the green and the cobblestone square, trying to judge by size rather than features. The primary limitation of impersonation was that a person’s mass always remained the same. A slight girl like Mica could become a perfect copy of a broad fellow like Tiber Warson, but at half his size. Mass was one of the factors the Academy took into account when they doled out assignments. Tall, strapping Sapphire wouldn’t be much use as a body double for a child, for example.
There were ways around the limitation. They had all practiced making themselves appear bigger or smaller than they were. Mica could make herself look like a tall man, providing no one noticed she had squeezed her waist as thin as a wrist beneath her shirt, and taller Impersonators could thicken their legs in order to make themselves appear smaller. Mica wondered if her relatively small size had something to do with her assignment. It shouldn’t matter. If anything, it ought to be better for a spy to be slight, able to pass as a serving boy or little old lady. They needn’t all be hulking brutes.
Speaking of which . . .
“Ho there, my Mica!” A rotund matron by the assembly hall steps suddenly morphed into Tiber Warson. “You get the scroll you wanted?”
Mica grimaced. She should have recognized him. She’d seen Tiber impersonate a similar woman before, but this time he’d used a prominent nose that looked suspiciously like Lord Ober’s.
Tiber stepped into her path. “Well? We going to be working together, or what?”
“None of your business.” Mica wished she hadn’t let word get around that she was after an Obsidian assignment.
“I reckon we’ll make a good team,” Tiber said. “You think we’ll be sent to the same city? I hear they usually send new assignees to the—”
“Have you seen Master Kiev?” Mica interrupted.
“He was avoiding that Lady Euphia,” Tiber said. “Look for a bald fellow with a long scar down his cheek.”
“Thanks.”
“Wait, you didn’t answer my question!”
Mica pretended she didn’t hear him. She should have adopted a different look before searching through the crowd. She could turn herself into a shambling madman when she wanted to make sure people would turn the other way. She wasn’t sure what to make of Tiber’s overtures of friendship. It was possible he didn’t realize how irritating Mica had found him since their first week of school, when he had taken to shouting, “My my Mica!” whenever she arrived at a lesson.
She doubled back across the square, keeping an eye out for the bald, scarred man Tiber had described. She spotted Lord Ober and Lady Euphia and decided to work from there. A ring of Impersonators and their families surrounded the nobles, some apparently acquainted with the guests of honor already. Lady Euphia’s fine silk gown and her husband’s elegant coat looked out of place on the Redbridge green. A handful of students from noble families studied at the Academy, but the Talent strain occurred more frequently among the common people.
Mica had never paid much attention to nobles, but she was curious about what they were discussing. She made a few quick changes, lightening her hair and multiplying the freckles on her skin, an impersonation of a morose cowherd’s daughter she had seen once on the road from Stonefoss. It was the kind of face a group of nobles and hangers-on would never look at twice. More important than the physical change was the way she altered her stance, drooping her shoulders and making her nimble footsteps heavy. Impersonating someone was about a lot more than looking like them. The bearing had to match the appearance. Beautiful people carried themselves differently than plain ones. The same was true of soldiers compared to shepherds compared to nobles. She had the least experience with nobles. Until she opened her assignment scroll, she hadn’t thought it would matter.
Her transformation complete, she shuffled into the crowd surrounding the noble pair.
“So good to be back at the Academy,” Lord Ober was saying. “I used to visit often, but I’ve been busier than ever these past few years.”
“Emperor Styl relies on us,” Lady Euphia said. She had a high, simpering voice that sounded a bit affected. She appeared old enough to have gray hair like her husband’s, but it was dyed a brassy bronze. Her face powder stuck in her wrinkles, and her lip stain was a shade too pink.
“He’ll have to do without us for a few more days, darling.”
“We’re honored you could be here,” said a man in the crowd with receding hair and soft pouches under his eyes. “Our son will be along in a moment. We’d love to introduce you.”
“It would be a pleasure,” Lord Ober said. “I wonder where my nephew has gotten to. I want him to meet the empire’s best Impersonators.”
The man preened as if Ober had named his son the best of the Impersonators.
“I daresay Lord Caleb has found companionship,” Lady Euphia said with a titter. “Some of these lovelies wouldn’t look out of place at a palace gala. They are simply marvelous.”
The drawn-out way Lady Euphia said marvelous made Mica grind her teeth. The noblewoman talked about Mica’s friends and classmates as if they were dolls in a toyshop. The other two nobles, Lord Riven (black hair, fine-boned nose) and Lady Lorna (buxom, with pouty lips), stood off to the side, gazing haughtily at the country folk around them. Mica had no desire to live among people like that, prestigious assignment or not.
A shimmer of sunlight on a bald pate drew her eye. A thickset man with a gruesome scar on his cheek hovered a few paces away from the crowd around the nobles. Mica hurried over to him, and he acknowledged her with a nod. Master Kiev had helped her work on the stance for this impersonation, and he knew it well.
“Miss Graydier. I hope you are enjoying your first few hours of post-Academy life.” He hadn’t altered his usual voice, the deep tone matching this face as well as his own.
“Master Kiev, I need to talk to you about my assignment,” Mica said.
“Go on.”
“I was wondering if, well, if there’s been some mistake?”
“Oh?”
“You know I’ve been working on my Obsidian impressions, and I thought . . . I thought maybe I got the wrong scroll.”
Master Kiev studied her gravely. She had always thought she was among his favorite students, but she wondered if she’d gotten the wrong idea. He was a guarded sort, with a long history of hiding his true thoughts.
“There was no mistake,” he said at last. “I chose you for this assignment myself.”
A little piece of her deflated. “So . . . so it wasn’t supposed to be a Master Black scroll?”
“I’m afraid not,” Master Kiev said. “I assumed you’d be honored to work for a member of the emperor’s family.”
Mica blushed, struggling to keep the red flush from overcoming her fake freckles.
“I appreciate the honor. But . . . will this just be body double work?”
“Just?”
“I didn’t mean that,” Mica said quickly. Serving as a body double was supposed to be as valuable as being a spy, but she couldn’t help feeling it was a job that could be accomplished by a less skilled Mimic. She wasn’t the best of them, but she like
d to think she knew her own worth. “I mean . . . did you only choose me because I’m the same size as the princess?”
Master Kiev’s sigh rumbled in his chest. “I remember the day you arrived at the Academy, Miss Graydier,” he said. “You were sitting in your very first class when I outlined the possible careers a well-trained Impersonator might pursue in the empire.”
“You were my favorite teacher.” Mica wasn’t sure where this was going.
Master Kiev smiled, stretching the false scar on his face. “I recall how starry-eyed you became when I described the work of a covert operative in Obsidian territory.”
Mica remembered it well. The drafty classroom with shared desks. The window with a view of the bronze dome. The gangly girl sitting beside her whose hair changed color when she got excited. Sapphire had long since grown out of that habit. They’d been thirteen at the time, and they could hardly wait to start learning to use the ability that set them apart from almost everyone they knew. She remembered the burst of exhilaration she’d felt at the thought of herself as an imperial spy. She’d get to see the world. She’d have adventures full of daring and intrigue. Most of all, she’d show her annoying older brothers that she could be just as important as them.
“I also remember, though you may not,” Master Kiev continued, “how you were so caught up in the idea of being a spy that you did not listen to what I said about the other ways to serve the empire, many of them just as vital as foreign espionage.”
“But—”
“Miss Graydier, do you wish to defend the empire against threats posed by the King of Obsidian?”
“Of course.”
“Think about it carefully. Is that truly your aim?”
Mica hesitated. Truth be told, the prospect of adventure, of doing something grand and important occupied more of her daydreams. Master Kiev must realize it. But she wanted to help the empire too. The Obsidian King enslaved Talents like Mica and her family. He forced them to labor in his mines and build his cities under terrible conditions. He was constantly seeking to expand the reach of his dark dominion, to swallow up the islands of Windfast one by one. Mica’s family would lay down their lives to prevent that from happening. She wanted to show that she could do the same.
“Yes,” she said. “I want to use my Talent for the good of Windfast.”
“Then I am going to tell you something, and I trust you will understand my meaning.” Master Kiev looked around, well aware the people nearby could be wearing faces that were not their own. He lowered his voice. “The last Impersonator employed by Princess Jessamyn was not especially skilled. Her mastery of her Talent was adequate for the task.”
Mica’s stomach lurched, and her features slid out of shape on her face. Was he saying she was nothing special too? What if she wasn’t among the best Impersonators in her year at all, and she’d been too proud and naïve to see it?
But Master Kiev fixed her with a piercing gaze. “I believe your mastery of your Talent is also adequate for the task at hand.”
Mica frowned. Had the task of serving the princess changed since she last employed an Impersonator? Could there be more to this assignment than just being the princess’s body double when she didn’t feel like going to royal balls—or whatever imperial princesses did?
Master Kiev watched her steadily for a moment longer. Then his scar disappeared and white hair burst from his skull as he resumed his usual appearance.
“I believe you will do well in Jewel Harbor,” he said. “I will send more information when I have it. In the meantime, keep your eyes open for anything unusual.”
“Yes, Master Kiev,” she said, hope stirring within her once more.
“Good. I will arrange for you to travel to the Silver Palace with Lord Ober. You will need to study the mannerisms of the nobility carefully. And Miss Graydier?”
“Yes?”
“Do not underestimate anyone you meet in the capital.”
Chapter Three
Mica had planned to show her family around Redbridge in the days after the Assignment Ceremony, eager to introduce them to her second home, but they ended up spending most of their time helping to look for Danil. Her curly-haired, merry-faced friend had never surfaced to collect his scroll. His father and sister, who had traveled all the way from Dwindlemire for the event, were positively frantic. Mica, Sapphire, and their families helped them comb through the town, searching all their old haunts and trying to reassure themselves that his absence wasn’t sinister.
“Maybe he was sent on an early assignment,” Mica said as she, Sapphire, and the twins walked through a pasture outside town where they used to practice hand-to-hand combat. “One Master Kiev can’t talk about.”
“Maybe,” Sapphire said. “But don’t you think, well, that Danil would tell me anyway?”
“Did he have a chance?”
“We were together most of that night, until—never mind.” Sapphire kicked at a tuft of grass.
“What?” Mica checked to make sure her brothers were too far away to hear. They were busy throwing old cow pies at each other by the pasture gate. “You can tell me, Sapph.”
“Fine.” Sapphire kept her attention on the ground, her hair shifting gradually through different shades as the story came out. “We kissed. It was late, after the festivities were winding down. We were standing on the bridge, and I just got the feeling that it was my last chance to tell him how I feel. I turned toward him to say something, and before I could get a word out, we were kissing. I’m not even sure who started it.”
“Was it nice?”
Sapphire blushed. “Yes. Or it was for me. Now I’m worried that maybe he—”
“Don’t even say it. He’s been wanting to kiss you for ages too.”
“Then why did he vanish into the night afterwards? He was supposed to go back to his dormitory, but no one has seen him since. I thought maybe he didn’t like it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Mica said. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. We’ll figure it out.”
“The other possibilities aren’t much better,” Sapphire said. “What if raiders from Obsidian . . .”
She trailed off, but Mica knew what she was getting at. Windfast Talents had been known to disappear along the eastern border of the empire. The Obsidians enslaved any of their own people born with the supernatural abilities, and they paid handsomely for captives from the empire.
“We’re nowhere near the coast,” Mica said firmly, trying not to let Sapphire see her own apprehension. “They couldn’t get him in the middle of Amber Island.”
They went over every theory a dozen times as they continued to search, but Sapphire still acted as if it were somehow her fault, as if one kiss had sent Danil straight into the clutches of darkness.
By the third day, it became clear that Danil was not in Redbridge, and none of the townsfolk or students had seen him depart. They could only hope that he would return from wherever he had wandered to that night of his own volition.
“He probably just got nervous,” Mica’s brother Aden reassured her on their final evening before everyone had to go their separate ways. “Maybe he was afraid he’d get sent to Jewel Harbor.”
“Thanks a lot.”
Mica still hadn’t told her family she would be working for Princess Jessamyn herself, not wanting to reveal too much until she knew more about her mission. Her brothers were already having too much fun teasing her about becoming a proper lady. As a child, she had tried to prove she was as rough-and-tumble as the boys. She thought she’d grown out of that at the Academy, thanks in large part to Sapphire’s influence, but she fell back into old habits around her brothers.
The night before their departure from Redbridge, Mica and her brothers stayed up in the ramshackle inn’s common room after their parents went up to their room, drinking ale and chatting as the fire burned low.
“Don’t get all snooty on us in the capital,” Aden said. “Wearing silks and gems can do that to a person, I hear.”
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br /> Mica rolled her eyes. “I’ll still be a working Talent, not some indolent lady.”
“You have to introduce us to all your fancy lady friends, though,” Wills said.
“He has a point.” Rees gave a wolfish grin. “You can demonstrate in advance how handsome we are.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be friends with the ladies,” Mica said.
“They wouldn’t be interested in the likes of you, anyway.” Emir stole a leftover roll off of Wills’s plate. “You spend too much time getting covered in sweat and mud on maneuvers.”
Aden nodded. “Yes, they all want sweet-smelling lordlings with big . . . estates.”
“Ah, strike off,” Wills said. “I bet even fine noblewomen appreciate a good-looking man in uniform.”
“Hear! Hear!” Rees said. The twins clinked glasses.
“That’s the whole point of being a soldier,” Wills said.
“How’d that work out with the redhead from the picnic?” Mica said sweetly.
Wills quickly drained his ale, muttering something about Mimics and their tricks, while the others roared with laughter.
They stayed up talking late into the night, even though they all had to be up before dawn. The boys swapped stories about the young men and women in their companies. Muscles and Shields, like Aden and the twins, were the most common Talents found in the infantry. They trained together, never as effective alone as they were in a unit. Blurs had their place too, mostly as couriers and scouts, but also as elite fighters. Mica had watched Emir and their father train with sword and spear, twirling so fast it was impossible to connect the thwack of the weapons with the individual movements. Speed trumped strength in a one-on-one contest—unless one was fighting a Shield, of course.
Mica used to wish she were a different kind of Talent, until she realized that being a Mimic set her apart from her brothers, giving her a chance to thrive on her own. But as she watched her family ride away the next day, back to where they’d once again train with their comrades to defend the empire, ever ready to march to the front lines, some of her old jealousy surfaced. Instead of becoming a warrior, she was about to enter a world she knew precious little about.