The Counterfeit Empress

The Unluckiest of Nights

Chetal was beaten, bruised, had been almost caught by the guards twice this night, and had nothing to show for it. Less than a hundred copper jitals and Ahar, the handler, wouldn't let you eat that night. Less than a ten and the doors of the safehouse were closed to you. Gangs of grave-eaters roamed the streets late in the night, and survival was a coinflip. If they caught your scent, you were dead - and one thing Chetal shared with the other kids in the safehouses across Hampi was that all of them stank to high heaven.

Empty-handed, and Ahar would welcome you with open arms into the safehouse, for a meeting with his whip. Chetal's back was scored up-and-down from half-healed whip scars.

She approached the safehouse with dread, her eyes combing the dimly-lit streets for a rich drunk or an idiot roaming around in the night, an easy target for her tired hands.

But there was no one to be seen. In fact, strangely enough, there were no lookouts outside the safehouse door. Two kids were always supposed to be at the door at night. You couldn't get in without giving them the password. There were sometimes incidents with kids of rival safehouses trying to sneak in and steal the night's haul, and Ahar was strict about security.

Chetal opened the door with apprehension. The safehouse was empty. Beds were lined all the way to the back of the wide hall, but no kids occupied them. Something hung from the orblight in the centre of the hall.

She went to it with trembling legs. It was Ahar's body, hanging upside down, his throat slit into a wide smile. Blood dripped from his head, pooling onto the wooden boards beneath.

For a moment, Chetal just stood there, soaking in the horror. What did this mean?

It means no whipping tonight, a voice in her head murmured. It meant the safehouse was no longer any kind of safe. It meant she was a witness to murder.

Oh shit. She had to get out of here.

Chetal rushed to the open door, which slammed shut in her face. She pulled out her knife, still facing the door, terrified of turning around.

"See this is why I hate making a mess. It spooks people out, causes them to reach for the nearest weapon, and makes it difficult to have a conversation. I would drop that knife if I were you. It can be...a choking hazard."

Chetal turned around, the knife still clutched tight in her hand.

A man sat in a chair beside Ahar's upside-down body. Neither he nor the chair had been there a moment ago.

There was only one explanation. The man was a shaper. There was no running from him.

"I take it you are Chetal. Ahar did the introductions before his untimely demise," the man said with a gesture towards the body.

Chetal swallowed. "What do you want?" she asked.

He smiled. "You seem to be a reasonable girl. I like reasonable kids. Tell me, Chetal, what do you know of the royal family?"

What was this about? Was he toying with her? Did he plan the same fate for her as Ahar? Where were the other kids?

"What did you do to the others?" she asked, dreading the answer.

"I set them free. The night is theirs. No more beatings, no more having to work for a man who was running a theft-racket in the guise of an orphanage."

"There are grave-eaters out there," Chetal replied.

"A little danger is often just the right impetus for building character. Wouldn't you say so?"

"I know the Emperor lives in the huge palace at the top of the hill with his wife and daughter. That he's old and sick, and blind to what's happening in the city."

"And he's dead. Would you like to guess how many people in the Vijaynagara Empire know that right now?" the man asked, leaning forward. His eyes shone in the orblight.

"You're lying."

"Let's play a game, where everything I say is supposedly true. Now, make a guess."

"I don't know," Chetal replied, feeling increasingly weird about the situation. What was happening?

"Well, I am obviously one of those people, cause I told you. And you, my future Empress, are the other. Just the two of us. I killed the assassins, but sadly only after they had done what they came for. In this moment, no one else knows."

Chetal's brain couldn't process what was going on. Her thoughts were stuck on one word. "Empress?"

"Ah, you caught that. You see, along with the Emperor, his wife and daughter were also murdered. But the empire is at a tipping point. We cannot let power slide into the hands of the squabbling, greedy nobles. And so the young princess cannot be allowed to stay dead. How would you like to be her?"

"I...don't understand."

"It's very simple, dear Chetal," the man said spreading his hands. "I couldn't save Princess Ara, but I saved her body. I can shape a living person into that body. And so I'm here."

"But...why me?"

"There are fifty safehouses in the city of Hampi. Hundreds of girls across them who would be the right age to be shaped into the body of the Princess. You just happen to be my first stop. There is no compulsion. Say no, I'll wipe your memory of the night, and be gone."

Being shaped into Princess Ara's body would mean losing hers. But so what? What had this face, this body, this life given her? Only beatings and hungry nights and fear. The man could be lying, of course, but he was a shaper. If he wanted her dead, he only had to show her a card. Besides, orphans made sense. There was no one to ask about them. An orphan disappearing in Hampi wouldn't even make a ripple.

But other parts of his explanation were slightly harder to believe. If she was merely one of hundreds of options, why kill the keeper of the safehouse? Why send all the kids away? Why not just meet her outside, in the streets or on the roofs, and figure out if she was interested? There was something he wasn't telling her. She mattered enough for him to commit a murder. And she couldn't really imagine him streaking across the city killing dozens of handlers. But calling his bluff might annoy him. And a shaper was the last person Chetal wanted to annoy. Especially one who'd dispatched her handler mere minutes ago. This secret would need to be thought about later.

"What's your name?" Chetal asked.

The man smiled. "For now you can call me Jin."

"I'll do it, Jin," she said before she could change her mind.