Shale stretched, clinking. “That trip seems to get longer every time.”

“It would probably be more comfortable without the armor.”

“I’m your bodyguard, Kai,” Shale said. “One of us has to be ready. Remember when those sky nomads tried to pinch you?” Shale smiled fondly, in the way a man might while remembering a youthful romance. “Or that time when we got trapped in the Tendrils of Sashim?”

“Sure do. You carried me . . . how far?”

“A good fifty miles,” Shale said. “Lords. That was . . . that was over a hundred years ago now, wasn’t it?”

I said nothing. Shale didn’t age—long ago, he and I had discovered a secret draught of long life in the hoard of the dragon Galbrometh. These days, I wondered if that draught had been placed there specifically for me to find, so I’d have an acceptable reason for not aging. I hadn’t known the truth of my nature until I’d reached fifty, the Wode’s Age of Awareness.

Shale stretched again. “Well, best to remain vigilant. It’s when everything is calm that you need to be most alert.”

“Most certainly. Thank you for your help today.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s a good thing I’m around, eh? Anyway, I’m going to go check in with Sindria. See what the kids are up to, you know?”

“Good idea,” I said, watching the servants carefully arrange all the items on my desk. Did I have time to file those reports . . . ?

No. I needed to get moving. I walked toward Shale, who was opening the doors that led to the hallway. He gave me a questioning look.

“If I’m quick,” I explained, “I might be able to get down into the lab before Besk can—”

Shale pulled the door all the way open. Besk stood outside.

“Ouch,” Shale said. “Sorry, Kai.”

Besk raised a single painted-on eyebrow. He was like one of those statues that people carved on the outsides of buildings. Limbs that seemed too long, robes too stiff, face expressionless. Long ago, I’d shared a drop of my draught of immortality with him. He’d haunted me ever since.

He bowed. “Your Imperial Majesty.”

“Besk,” I said. “I’m afraid the daily briefing will have to wait. I had some very important mental breakthroughs regarding Lancing that I absolutely must record.”

Besk regarded me for a long, unblinking moment. He carried a distinctive piece of slate in his fingers. As large as a book, yet incredibly thin, there was nothing else like it in the empire. To the side, one of the servants helpfully carried in the crumpled paper I’d left on the balcony, then set it on the desk, just in case it was important.

Besk’s eyebrow rose another notch. “I will walk with you to the lab then, Your Majesty.”

Shale gave me a farewell pat on the shoulder, then clanked away. He’d faced assassins, terrors, and rebels without flinching, but even after all this time, Besk made him nervous.

“You may wish to consider giving Sir Shale a leave of retirement, Your Majesty,” Besk said as we began to walk.

“He likes what he does. And I like having him around.”

“Your will is, of course, law.”

“Yeah. Unless the Wode is involved.”

“In over a century of rule, this is the only time the Wode has called upon you.” Besk held up the piece of slate he carried. The Wode Scroll, the only official means of communicating with the outside.

The Scroll was filled with words, none of which I wanted to read. From the little I saw, however, the tone of the Wode’s letters was growing more forceful. I had been ignoring them too long.

We walked for a time in silence until we eventually left the corridor and stepped out onto a wall-walk between towers. I shouldn’t be so hard on Besk, I knew. He was acting according to his Concept, and was loyal in his own way, even when he was disobedient.

Below, a cheer went up, and I raised a hand absently toward my subjects. Was that a band playing? The Grand Aurora shimmered in the sky, though—for once—its light failed to comfort me.

“Is it such an onerous task, Your Majesty?” Besk asked. “The Wode requests of you only one day, to go and perform a task most people would consider pleasurable.”

“It’s not the task itself. It’s the nature of being . . . summoned like this. What good is it to be emperor if someone else can just call on me as if I were a common cupbearer or messenger boy? It undermines everything I’ve done, everything I’ve accomplished.”

“They merely ask you to do your duty to your species.”

“What duty has my species ever done to me?”

“My lord,” Besk said, stopping on the wall-walk. “This is most unseemly of you. I’m reminded of the child you were, not the king you have become.”

I tried to walk onward without him, but my shoes felt as if they were filled with lead. I stopped a few steps ahead of him, not looking back.

“It is your duty,” Besk repeated.

“I’m a brain in a jar, Besk,” I said. “One of trillions. Why can’t they bother one of the others?”

“It has been determined that you have accomplished great—”

“We’ve all accomplished great things,” I said, spinning and waving my hands toward the city. “That’s the point of all this. How many of those trillions of others are living lives just like mine, in Primary Fantastical States?”

“The programming allows—even requires—that each State be individually tailored.”

“It doesn’t matter, Besk,” I said. Lords! I hated thinking about this.

The Wode had only interfered with my life twice. First at age fifty, to inform me that my reality was a layered simulation.

And now to demand that I procreate.

“It’s meaningless,” I said, stepping up to Besk. He wasn’t of the Wode, of course; I’d never actually met any of them. He was a part of my reality, my State. But he, like everything else in the entirety of my existence, would serve the Wode if required. They controlled the programming and, if pressed, they could change anything in this world—anything but me myself—to force me to obey.

Lords, how it hurt to think about that.

“The requirements are inane,” I continued. “They need my DNA to create new Liveborn humans? Well, fine. They can take it. Stick a little needle or whatever into my jar and withdraw it. Simple.”

“They require you to interact with a woman, Your Majesty. The precepts say you must choose her, and she you, and then you must meet one another and perform the act.”

“Our bodies are just simulations. Why must we meet?”

“I do not know.”

“Bah!” I stalked off the wall-walk and back into the palace.

Besk followed. “I’ve ordered the hunting range filled with wild draklings, Your Majesty. The most vicious we could find. Perhaps destroying them will put you in a more fond mood.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

Even thinking about the Wode turned me into a child again; Besk was right on that count. I’d commanded armies of thousands and I’d single-handedly forged an empire that spanned continents. But this . . . this made a spoiled brat out of me. I stopped inside the stairwell.

“I do not know all the reasons for the rules, my lord,” Besk said more softly, stepping up and resting a hand on my shoulder. “But they are ancient, and have served your kind well. XinWey’s Doctrine states—”

“Don’t lecture me,” I said.

He fell silent, but . . . damn it . . . I could hear his voice in my head. He’d read off these rules to me often enough.

XinWey’s Doctrine states that the most essential morality of mankind is to create the greatest amount of happiness among the greatest number of people while using the least amount of resources.

Turned out, the best way to create greatly satisfied people using minimal resources was to remove their brains when they were fetuses and attach them to simulated realities tailored to fit their emerging personalities. Each Liveborn received an entire world in which they were the most important person of their time. Some became artists, others politicians, but each had a chance for supreme greatness.