Page 152 of A Drop of Corruption

“Why, it’s the…the crushing disappointment of it all. The investigation ends. It’s all over now. No more riddles, no more need for imagination. And all was so small, at the end. It was for money, and land, and brutal, petty nihilism. Honestly, how…how tremendouslydisappointing.”

I studied her, curled upon the cradle. I suddenly realized for the first time that Ana might feel much as I did at the end of an investigation: the loneliness, the alienation. Yet hers was different, perhaps: a hunger unsated, and hopes dashed.

A person, just like everyone else. It made me think on Pyktis’s last true words, before he died.

“You think of him now,” said Ana faintly. “Don’t you?”

“Can you read minds as well?” I asked.

“Despite all my wishes, no! But a frustrated imperial servant might see a little of themself in the man who was killed tonight—true?”

“Some…some words he said had the semblance of truth,” I admitted.

She laughed bitterly. “And which words are those?”

“That we are but tools. I make my body and mind an instrument for others and have no say in its use.”

“You are a junior officer, Din,” said Ana, bemused, “a hypokratos. All such officers feel so. Indeed, many senior ones feel the same—asdo many civilians, I suspect! What are we, if not instruments in service to one another? But…” She sighed deeply. “I do owe you something, boy. I owe you a conversation about your future, and which path you shall choose.”

“Even you cannot change my debts, ma’am.”

Another bitter laugh. “How certain you seem! But we shall soon have more to discuss than debts, dear Din.” She paused for a moment, panting. Then she said offhandedly, “I…I need for you to recall a segment of conversation we had, boy. Just after we first met Ghrelin and Thelenai—I mentioned an art the Empire occasionally uses to keep secrets safe. Recite what I said now, please.”

My eyes fluttered in my skull as I summoned up that evening. “But…what would it pertain to no—”

“Just do it, please,” she said, but her voice was oddly strangled.

I took a breath, and her words spilled from my mouth: “Did you know, boy, that the Empire has methods of rendering certain secrets unmentionable? Grafts and arts that, when suffused into the body and mind, alter a person in such a way that they arephysically incapableof divulging a specific piece of information?” I blinked as I finished. “But then, you told me youdidn’tthink this had been done to Ghrelin.”

“True,” she said weakly. “I did.”

Slowly, my skin began to crawl, and something went cold in my belly.

“Why do you mention this now, ma’am?” I asked softly.

Ana swallowed, then said in a carefree manner, “I have a gift for you, Din! Listen carefully now. I wish to give you a…a blue scarf.”

“A scarf?”

“Yes. One that I enclosed in a book, to keep my place. The book is under my bed.” Again, she swallowed. “Please open it and get the scarf for me. I believe it would look quite lovely on you, with your uniform. Again—open the book and get it for me.” She rolled over and hid her face from me. “Do that, Din, and let me sleep. And in five days, we shall talk again.”

—

I returned tomy quarters, my mind awash in blood, betrayals, and the sight of Thelenai so pristine and despairing before the Shroud. I knew that the cause of this was fatigue, at least in part, but before I slept, I went to Ana’s chambers to fulfill her request, no matter how strange it might be.

I got down on all fours before her bed and found many books waiting there, but only one had been marked with a blue scarf. I pulled the book out and squinted to read its spine:The Letters and Conversations of Ataska Daavir, Fourth and Final Emperor of the Great and Holy Empire of Khanum.

I grunted in surprise: this was the very book that Pyktis had quoted so often when taunting us. It was a slender volume, a bare slip of a thing compared to the usual ponderous tomes Ana so frequently preferred. She’d marked her spot with a blue scarf, just as she’d said, yet this too was strange, as she often read so quickly that I could scarcely recall her needing to mark a page at all.

Hints and suggestions, but nothing ever said outright.

“Because,” I said softly, “shecannotsay it outright?”

I flipped to the marked page, and slowly read:

“And so we have wrought edifices and structures and entities to replace the brilliance of my lost kin,” the emperor said to them. “For while one common man is no equal to a Khanum, a great host of them working in agreement, and describing all they see and know, may not only match my kin, but exceed them in their deeds. Thus, with laws and strictures, and offices and election, and the changing of coin and the scribblings of many ledgers, shall a new Empire be fashioned. And should all proceed as I have foreseen, I shall watch these fruits ripen from within my Sanctum, and smile as the years slide over me, and stay silent.” And at this, the Senate of the Sanctum made great acclamation.

And Portniz Minor approached the throne, and bowed sixteen times, and said, “So shall it be, Your Grace, and very justly so. Yet eagerly shall we await the day when the titan’sblood spills forth new life, and the great and venerable line of Khanum can be remade again, and your holy kin can walk among us once more.” But at this, the emperor was silent.