Marie Brennan - Doppelganger

“Sort of a faded brown—but there’s a bint of green in it, too. Which is how it’ll be recognizable as a blood-oath scar. It doesn’t look natural.”

“Now, I might be wrong about this, but I seem to remember a conversation back when we were trainees, where Talon mentioned that you can tell the Ray of the witch who cast the blood-oath spell by the color of the scar it leaves.”

Eclipse looked at the scar again, then at her. “Greenish brown. Earth?”

“That would be my guess. It’s certainly not a fiery color.”

“So if our second witch wasn’t Fire Ray, neither was our first.”

Mirage pulled her gauntlet back on and kneed Mist forward; they couldn’t afford to waste all day sitting on their horses in the middle of the road. “We thought she might be Void Ray, remember. And maybe we weren’t wrong. But if she was Earth, and this second witch was something other than Fire—why are so many witches of other Rays involved in this investigation?”

“Tari-nakana was an important woman. Her assassination might mean trouble for all of them.”

“Maybe. But it seems too pat.”

More silence as they rode. Mirage kept quiet, for she could feel Eclipse was working through something in his mind. Morning had come in full by the time he had his thoughts together. She looked up sharply when he spoke again.

“Do you remember anything odd about those papers and letters in Tari-nakana’s study?”

“I assume you mean the ones besides the itinerary.” Mirage considered it, then shook her head. “Nothing jumps to mind. It looked like routine paperwork and correspondence.”

“Who was she receiving letters from?”

“Witches, mostly. Also Lords and Ladies of domains, of course, and some of their more important ministers and governors. But the bulk of it was from witches.”

“Which makes sense, given that she was a Key, and of the Heart Path to boot. She was responsible for coordinating the activities of her Ray, and sending out orders that came down from her Prime. But what I want to know is, why were so many of those letters from witches—un-ranked ones, no less— outside her Ray?”

Mirage closed her eyes and summoned to mind as many of the endless sheets of paper as she could recall. She supposed Eclipse was right, but still—“Most of those letters were unimportant. Personal in nature. Like the one about the cat.”

“They looked unimportant.”

“You think they were in code?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. We may have to ask our contact—or whoever it is we’re dealing with now—to send us the papers from Starfall. I think I’m going to want another look at them.”

The thought of having to cart the contents of Tari-nakana’s study with them across the land made Mirage cringe. “Let’s at least wait until we’ve spoken to Avalanche. If there’s something hidden in those letters, he may know about it.”

Miryo schooled her face to calm, her eyes in soft focus on the far wall. Once she might have paced, might have bit at her fingernails or her hair. The ritual had changed her, though; the calm of Air was in her, and she knew it now. She needed all its help to stay tranquil.

I have been marked. But in what ways? Goddess, Lady, I don’t understand—have I passed, or not? What is to become of me?

Miryo had not seen many people since the ritual; for a while it had just been Nenikune. Then, when the healer was satisfied with Miryo’s physical health, Satomi’s secretary Ruriko had come to summon Miryo.

Summon me to judgment?

Just then Miryo would have given a great deal to talk to Ashin. She wasn’t certain of her own status, but it didn’t much matter; whether she was a witch or not, she would have cornered the Hand Key and forced information out of her. Ashin had suspected this was coming. And Miryo wanted to know why.

She wondered how long she had been unconscious. No way of knowing; Nenikune had refused to say, and Miryo had known better than to ask Ruriko. The summons had been too formal. For all she knew, it could have been a week since her trial. The room she’d woken in had no windows, but if Nenikune had been bringing meals at regular intervals, then Miryo had been awake for two days.

The double doors, each carved with the symbols of the five Elements, swung open. Miryo rose to face Ruriko and bent into a tiny bow. Even if Miryo was a witch—and she wasn’t at all certain of that—it couldn’t hurt to be polite. The secretary gestured wordlessly for Miryo to enter, and exited after she passed, closing the doors with a final-sounding thud.

Miryo had never liked the hall she stood in now. Though beautiful, it lacked Star Hall’s aura of magic; it was merely a place for mundane ruling, and not a space for ritual. Its intimidation was grimmer.

She walked the hall’s length, hearing her footsteps echo coldly off the stone. In the floor beneath her feet were five parallel ranks of marble slabs; beneath them lay the bones of early Primes. The inscriptions were nearly illegible on many of them, worn smooth by generations of footsteps. It was a stark reminder of age and endurance, and it made Miryo feel small.

At last she came to the front of the hall and sank without hesitation into a full bow. Even if she was a witch, she was facing the Primes now, and respect was still required.

“Rise,” Satomi said.

Miryo forced her knees straight and lifted her chin. She had no idea what was going on, or what had happened to her, but she was damned if she’d cower. The five Primes eyed her from their thrones on the dais before her. Behind each of them hung beautifully stitched banners in their Elemental colors. Satomi’s pale, fiery hair stood out starkly against its black background. It did nothing to soften her unreadable expression.

“You do not know what has happened to you,” the Void Prime said at last.

Miryo remained silent, not knowing what she should say, or if she should speak at all.

“You could not have known,” Satomi continued. “The information necessary to understanding has not been made available to you. We will give it to you now, so you may know what it is you must do to fix that which has gone awry.”

Her voice had the measured cadences of formal words. Miryo forced herself to breathe, and did not look away from the Prime’s pale green eyes.

“Five days after a witch gives birth to a daughter, before the infant is exposed to starlight, before the eyes of the Goddess bestow a soul upon the child, the witch performs a ritual that will, in the full course of time, allow that child to work magic. A channel is created. It is then blocked, that the child may learn the patterns of magic before its power is thrust upon her. And that block is not removed until the child is twenty-five.”

None of this was new to Miryo; it was a part of the general course of study. She kept her eyes on Satomi, waiting for the new information that must be coming, the information that would tell her why she had suffered so terribly in Star Hall.

“But this ritual has a second effect. It creates a doppelganger—a second shell, a copy of the first, identical in every way, save that it lacks the capacity to work magic.”

A second shell — Cousins? But no, Cousins are different — what happens to the other child ?

Satomi answered the question for her. “This copy is danger to the witch-child. Thus it is always killed.”

Miryo’s hands curled into fists at her sides.

“Your doppelganger is alive,” the Void Prime said, her words whispering in the vast spaces of the hall.

And Ashin knew it. I’d swear my life on it .

She swore my life on it .