Eleven
Yslie and Peroen were awake and dressed, enjoying a breakfast of fruit and yogurt, when someone knocked on Peroen’s door. Frowning, Peroen rose and crossed the room to see who it was.
Sophenie peeked around him the instant the door swung wide enough. She met Yslie’s eyes. “Good, you’re here.”
“Sophenie?” Peroen stepped back, wordlessly inviting her inside. “Our session doesn’t start for another quarter of an hour.”
“I know. But I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to find Yslie if I waited that long. She needs to come with us to the archives.”
Yslie wiped her hands and stood. “You saw something?”
Sophenie shrugged. “Too many things, as always. But most of the futures I saw included the guards telling us to leave too soon. If you come, then there is more distraction while you and the prince argue with the guards and I gain a few more minutes to look at everything.”
“The guards are going to cause problems?” Peroen asked sharply.
“They’ll let us in if you are convincing enough,” Sophenie replied. “But once we are in, one of them will run and tattle to the Emperor, who will give orders to have us removed.”
“Is this going to be dangerous?” Yslie didn’t mind providing a diversion, but Sophenie’s explanation made her nervous.
“Not so long as we don’t physically resist. Don’t worry, unless I have truly misjudged your personalities, the most likely futures don’t get any worse than some ugly words.”
Peroen looked at Yslie and she shrugged. He had agreed to take Sophenie to the archives. They’d have to trust she had judged the probabilities accurately.
“Let’s go, then.”
???
Two guards stood outside the archives. Peroen walked past them and opened the door without trouble, but the instant Sophenie moved to follow him, one of the guards blocked the way. “The Imperial Archives are not open to the public.”
Peroen spun around to face him. “Sophenie and Yslie are not the public. They are my guests.”
“They are not members of the imperial family.”
“But either of them could be very soon.”
“Soon is not now.”
Peroen drew himself up to his full height. “They are my guests,” he repeated. “As I am the imperial heir, if I say they are welcome in the archives, then they are welcome in the archives. Step aside.”
Grudgingly, the guard moved. Peroen gestured the two women into the room ahead of him, then pulled the door shut with enough force that if anyone other than an imperial prince had done it, it would have been called a slam.
“I strongly suspect we have taken a path that results in the guards acting very quickly to inform the Emperor of our presence,” Sophenie warned as she ventured deeper into the large room.
Yslie shared a look with Peroen, and then they drifted around the room at a slower pace. If she had thought Sophenie was looking for a particular document, rather than wanting access to it all, Yslie would have offered to help her search. As it was, she instead picked up journals and books at random, turning a few pages, then putting them back.
There were memoirs written by emperors, empresses, and their advisors. Ancient ledgers detailing the expenses of the empire. Reports that undoubtedly contained data Sophenie would tell her was critically important, but that Yslie couldn’t make heads nor tails of.
When she came across a small journal nearly lost between larger tomes, its pages yellowing with age, Yslie carefully cracked it open. The writing was faded, yet easier to read than in many of the other books she had picked up. There were no fanciful flourishes. This wasn’t an account penned by a lifelong scribe. Rather, it was a personal journal, with the writer’s name signed on the front page. Daitano Tjawer. Not a scholar, but a warrior—the warlord who had united the empire.
Yslie didn’t slide this book back like she had every other after identifying the contents. She went to turn the page, wondering what the first emperor had written about, but the first sheets stuck together. She wondered if it would be possible to separate the pages without damaging the journal.
A commotion at the door had her snapping the cover closed and hiding the journal behind her back, an instinctive reaction. Yslie was supposed to delay the guards to give Sophenie more time, but she wanted more time, too. Angling so that her actions couldn’t be seen from the door, she slipped the small book into her pocket. Between the loose fit of her trousers and the length of her tunic, no one would notice it.
Then she took her spot at Peroen’s side.
A woman had joined the two guards from earlier. Yslie didn’t remember her name, but she recognized her. Dressed all in black, from her sheer veil, to her short bodice and billowing trousers, the woman was a member of the Emperor’s Will. Not just any member, either. She was the one who always stood behind Emperor Envaho’s left shoulder. The First of His Will.
“You are not a member of the imperial family either, Lhashiki,” Peroen said as Yslie slid into the spot next to him.
“I am the Emperor’s Will, and His Will is that I am here,” the woman—Lhashiki—said. “The oracles are not allowed in the imperial archives.”
“I am the imperial prince, and it is my will that Yslie and Sophenie are here.”
“Your will does not transcend His Imperial Majesty’s.”
“But you said his orders were that no one not of the imperial bloodline could enter. Which would mean that you cannot come inside. So, which is it, Lhashiki? Is there one rule we must all abide, or are there exceptions, even to my father’s decrees?”
Peroen seemed to have a handle on stalling, talking in circles around Lhashiki. Yslie didn’t want to interrupt. Perhaps Sophenie had judged the possibilities incorrectly. But she had been so adamant that Yslie come to the archives. Then again, her reason might not have been the same as she stated. Yslie knew as well as any oracle that the act of telling a person their future often altered the paths. Maybe she wasn’t here to give Sophenie more time, but to do something else.
Wrapping her arm around Peroen’s, Yslie rested her head on his shoulder as if she didn’t have a single care in the world. Let Lhashiki think she simply wanted to be close to him. The older woman made a noise in the back of her throat when she noticed Yslie’s presence, then pointedly focused only on Peroen.
Being ignored suited Yslie fine. She waited another moment, enjoying listening to Peroen give his father’s lackey the runaround and making sure no one was paying attention to her. Then she let her eyes drift closed and reached out with her power.
Lhashiki’s past flooded her senses. Yslie watched a guard from the archives report that the prince had brought two oracles into the repository of historical documents. She saw Envaho pale at the news before he flushed with anger. He shouted that no oracle was ever to be allowed inside the archives and to “get them out, immediately!”
The guard asked if he had the authority to force the prince out if he resisted. Then Lhashiki stepped forward and assured her emperor that she’d handle the matter.
Blinking her eyes open, Yslie hoped Sophenie was satisfied with whatever she had found in their short time in the archives. They would not be allowed back inside again so long as Envaho sat on the throne. Not because they weren’t members of the imperial family, but because they were oracles. The current emperor feared allowing anyone of their race into this room. Scanning Lhashiki’s past wasn’t enough for Yslie to understand why that fear existed, but she could see how strong it was.
While she had been lost in her vision, Peroen’s conversation with Lhashiki had escalated. The woman gestured to the two guards, and Yslie decided it was her turn to step in. She placed a hand against Peroen’s chest, but directed her attention at Lhashiki. “Threats are unnecessary. I’ll tell Sophenie we need to leave.”
The guards didn’t move, her calm tone reassuring them that they wouldn’t have to resort to violence. It also allowed her to make her way deeper into the archives slowly, dragging out every second she could for Sophenie.
“I hope you have what you need,” she whispered when she reached the other oracle. “If we delay any longer, the guards are going to haul us out by force. And be warned, after this, Peroen won’t be able to get you back in the archives so long as his father has any say in matters.”
Sophenie looked over the books she had spread out and grabbed the smallest one. Like Yslie, she slipped it into her pocket. Her choice was a little thicker than the journal Yslie had stolen, however.
“Stay on my left and a little behind me,” Yslie advised her. “If someone looks closely, they might make out the outline of the book.”
Sophenie nodded, then looked around the archives one last time with a sigh. “All right, I’m ready.”