Page 13 of A Trade of Blood

She waved a hand—Goon.

“When I first looked at the room, ma’am, some…some presence within my thoughts seemed to react to it. With a voice of its own. Specifically, the voice did not much like that the room was soundisturbed, and the blood so strangely distributed. I found it very uncomfortable—and very strange. It has never happened before to me.”

I expected her to gawk at me, to claim I was going stark mad. Instead, she blithely waved a hand.

“Ahh!” she said. “You shouldn’t worry! Nothing is wrong.”

“No?” I said, relieved.

“No, no. It simply seems your engraved memories have now attained a new level of maturation, Din.”

“I…what? How do you mean, ma’am?”

“Oh, it’s very common for Imperial Sublimes such as yourself. I thought you knew of it, but—you likely did not know how it wouldfeelwhen the time came.” She touched the tips of her indexes to her temples. “The accumulated memories build up within the mind, you see, and if they are memories of similar subject—say, scenes of violent death—they begin to respond when exposed to new experiences of that same subject. They are almost like an alternate identity within the mind, voicing when things are similar or dissimilar, right or wrong, suspect or trustworthy.”

I listened to this distantly, aware only of the hum of my heart.

“Your memories reacted instantly, child,” she continued, “because they saw the pristine nature of the room and did not like it. Nor should they have! Oh, it is often a very handy thing to have your memories surveying your experiences, counseling you when things are awry. But that voice is not always to be listened to, for the past is not always an accurate predictor of the future! You must not fully trust this voice within you, as beguiling as it may sound.”

A deep pit of dread bloomed in my belly. “I…see.”

Ana cocked her head. “Something wrong, Din? Most engravers welcome this maturation. It often proves a useful tool.”

“Yes. But—my augmentations are…changing, then, ma’am? Entering the…thematurepart of their span?”

“So it seems.”

“I see,” I said weakly. “I just…I thought I would have more time, ma’am.”

“More time?”

“Yes. Before things changed. Before…”

There was a long silence. I could not give voice to the thought but knew it well.

All Imperial Sublimes—the folk augmented by the Empire to possess profoundly heightened cognitive powers—experienced truncated life spans, and were afflicted by madnesses and pains in later life. Engravers like myself often fared poorest: to have so many memories stored within the mind was like running a horse at full gallop too often. Things simply fell apart.

To hear now that my alterations were “maturing” suggested I was further along in this process than I’d thought. I touched my brow, trying to fight the vague feeling that there was something gestating in my skull: an awful little fetus quietly devouring my thoughts, like a chick consuming the albumen within its egg.

“You, ah,knewthe nature of your augmentations when you accepted them, I thought?” asked Ana.

“I knew them,” I murmured. “But knowing them and living them are two different things.”

“I see…Well. The Empiredoeslabor to amend the pains of its Sublimes,” she said carefully. “Though, I will note, not necessarily out of some beneficent impulse—it is no good thing for your most valuable servants to perish early.”

“Last I heard,” I said tartly, “these treatments were still decades away.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “I confess, I do not know, Din. What Idoknow is that all Sublimes are generously rewarded with lands and dispensation at the end of their service. Yet…I feel this is likely of little balm to you now.”

I stayed silent, struggling to think.

She raised a hand. “I have kept you too busy to permit the necessary reflections here, child. And I should not have brought it up now—not when we have hundreds of gentry farm folk dreaming of slitting one another’s throats! We have pressing matters today.”

I gritted my teeth and took a moment. “Yes, yes…” I said. “I see.”

“Here is what we shall do now,” said Ana. “You must go and talk to Castus Armenta immediately—and specifically, Din, you must ask him what Zansay over there didaftershe died.”

All thoughts of my own plight faded as I struggled to comprehend her words.