It was titled, quite simply, Memory, and it was the most famous work of art in all the Empire. The story of the Empire’s beginning, told in a series of tableaus—ambitious enough—but the sculptures themselves weren’t carved, cast, or assembled. They were formed of living nima, forever dancing in the shapes proscribed by the artist, Kosuri Alexis. No artist before or since had managed nima art of such scope or such beauty.

Yeijiro needed that beauty today. He needed that escape.

As Yeijiro’s orders had directed, he’d come straight to Terris on the first day it was safe for ships to move through darkspace. He’d been in the Golden Palace for almost a week, but Dahle Roderich—along with the Emperor, Miyōshi Tōru, and most of the court—had detoured to the City of Lights. Roderich had left no instructions for Yeijiro in his absence—neither orders for Yeijiro to follow or, it seemed, directions for what his superiors should be doing with him. So Yeijiro had been going through notes, and today he’d met with the marshal in charge of operations here at the Imperial Court.

Yeijiro had looked forward to meeting Marshal Lindsay Elena. A Tacitus-born Griffon who had joined the marshals at a young age, she’d risen quickly through the ranks to become Roderich’s right hand, his chief administrator, and an extraordinary investigator in her own right. Yeijiro had read extensively about the smuggling ring on Maximus that Elena had single-handedly infiltrated and brought down. He’d studied her methods, her notes, and had used that at guidance for his own investigation during Shadow Court. She was one of the people at the Imperial Court he’d been most excited about.

All those hopes were dashed when he walked into her office. When she’d looked up from her desk and her expression had turned to one of pure disgust.

Still, he’d bowed. “Marshal Lindsay.”

“Marshal Miyōshi.” Her tone twisted the words into an accusation. Of what, Yeijiro couldn’t imagine.

She didn’t invite him to sit. So Yeijiro could only stand there, waiting, in a silence growing more hostile by the moment.

“The Lord Marshal is a studiously fair man,” she finally said. “He believes in giving everyone a chance.”

She paused, seeming to expect a response. Yeijiro spoke carefully. “That’s been my experience.”

“I had this conversation with him when you were accepted. I tried to remind him of the number of our investigations that have gone astray because of Serpent interference. The spies your clan have tried to embed into our organization.” She pointed a finger at Yeijiro’s chest. “I’ve spent my career trying to protect the Marshals from you.

“But the Lord Marshal insisted that anyone who wishes to serve the Emperor be allowed to serve the Emperor. He doesn’t understand—it’s never sank in for him—that a Serpent’s first loyalty is always to the Serpent.”

Yeijiro couldn’t argue with the truth. He could only remind her, “I swore an oath to the Lord Marshal, to the Emperor.”

“Yes. I know you did. I also know that Serpents lie.”

It wasn’t going to help his case to try to explain he was actually terrible at lying. So he held his peace.

“Do you know—are you even aware how many marshals your Lord Miyōshi has personally ruined? For years, every marshal we send to his court, he treats like a plaything, and then destroys. Good people, who all devoted their lives to the Emperor, and they were nothing but a game to him.”

That gave Yeijiro pause, and he wondered how much truth there was to it. Not that Elena was likely to be lying—Yeijiro didn’t see what she’d gain from that—but there was always the question of the truth being more complicated than she could see.

But that was a Serpent’s answer, and wouldn’t gain him any points. So he continued to stay silent.

“The Lord Marshal has made your assignment, and I’m not going to go against his wishes. But understand, Miyōshi, I’ll be watching you. No criminal has ever—ever—escaped me once I set my eye to them.”

Yeijiro had bowed and Yeijiro had retreated. After that, he’d desperately needed something else to occupy his mind.

The Golden Palace was the size of a city, a series of buildings, large and small, interconnected by arching walkways, colorful gardens, and glittering courtyards. Official residence of the Emperor and the Imperial Court, it was a glorious combination of beauties, indulgences, and entertainments. This museum, which lived at the heart of the palace, beneath a rainbow-shaded crystal dome, was all three.

Yeijiro walked the long hall that Memory occupied, studying each scene as he came to it, letting it fill his mind and drive away less pleasant thoughts. He’d been an industrious student, and he knew this history well, but one of the lessons Yeijiro had taken to heart from his Serpent teachers was that the most interesting story was the story you already knew. The details of the telling betrayed everything about the storyteller.

The first image—Earth—a swirling sphere of mottled greens, mud browns, and decaying black. Yeijiro reached into the chaotic storm of colors, felt the spirits moving over his skin, around, and even through him. Cold and prickly, almost to the point of pain. Earth, the dying world, where humanity had been born and from which it had barely escaped. No reliable records had survived about what had happened, what had driven their ancestors from their birthplace. All anyone knew was that they had fled.

Next in line, the ships that had carried humanity through the stars for thousands of years. Here the nima shimmered in silvers and grays, with tiny twinkling motes suggestive of starlight reflecting off the hulls. These ancient ships, huge and round and clumsy, forced to travel through real space on their slow, tedious journey to find a new home.

Five ships for the five clans—artistic license on the part of the creator. At least two dozen of the generation ships had left Earth in the Empire’s cluster. Over half of those had survived to find Terris. The division into clans had come later. But it was a striking image, the five ships arranged in a wedge, each shape just slightly different, suggestive of the animals that had become the clans’ namesakes.

Those first two sculptures were simple, clean, with limited palettes and one distinct central image. The third was an explosion of color and form and beauty. The arrival on Terris. People the size of a fingernail, but exquisitely detailed, pouring out of the ships to race across a green field. The nima themselves were rendered here, darting about free as wisps of color and light, bringing movement to the otherwise static image. The nima were featured because this was their world. This was where the refugees had first found them. This landing had marked the end of humanity that had evolved on Earth and the beginning of the change—of their partnership.

The next frame was similar in composition, but its colors were deep red and black. People dying. Blood covering the grass as bodies that couldn’t adapt rotted, split open and bled out. An unpleasant scene. A grisly reminder of the cost the nima had demanded for their gifts.

Yeijiro was impressed this entry was here at all. No one liked to talk about it. No one liked to remember. Today, a thousand years later, the Empire was thriving, billions of people spread across nine worlds, but this had been the price paid in blood. Fourteen ships had landed on the planet that had seemed like a miracle—water and oxygen and green growing things. These people had survived generation after generation in the dangers of space, had struggled through a journey that had lasted even longer than the Empire now had been in existence. Of those people, no more than ten percent had survived, the rest rejected by the beings who were the true natives of this world.

These survivors had been people like Yeijiro—compatible enough to be able to breathe the air and drink the water and live in the nima's space, in the nima's world, but no more than that. In that initial group of colonists, people like Yeijiro had been the rule, rather than the exception.

The final tableau showed the exceptions. The largest and brightest, there was no background here, no artistic frills. Only six people standing together, facing forward, with the rest of the exhibit—the past—at their backs. The images breathed with life; they shifted, turned to look at each other, expressive faces as clear as conversation, communicating how they felt about their new world, about each other.

Six people who had not only survived their first encounter with the nima, but with whom the nima had merged. Gifting them—adapting them.

At the front, Lord Faust. Huge and imposing, he towered over all the rest. With a sledgehammer gripped in his fists, he looked back and forth, scanning the horizon for danger, ready to protect all those who stood behind him. The first Wolf, the guardian of the Empire, given the gift of seeing farther, seeing more than mere human senses were capable of.

At his shoulder stood Lord Suri, founder of the Griffon clan. He held out his hand and wisps of light flew around it, suggestive of birds and other small animal shapes. Around his feet, larger animals gathered, beautifully rendered with life of their own. Lord Suri watched the dancing lights, the menagerie that surrounded him, delighted. He’d been the first empath.

To the other side, a little apart from all the rest, her eyes burning with bright red flames, was Lord Nita, the first akashic. Her figure glowed with the power that had become the birthright of the Dragon clan. Her stern, serious face was forbidding, until a ripple of power ran through her and her eyes lit with wonder.

The other three clustered together, laughing, taking obvious delight in each other and the world. Lord Dahle, whose nima-granted beauty even this sculpture made of magic struggled to capture. Lord Miyōshi, the first Serpent, with an etheric gift so strong she couldn’t hold one shape for more than a moment. Her face and features, her body, shifted through over a hundred forms before Yeijiro lost count. Lord Miyōshi, who’d donned the first mask to hide her ever-changing appearance.

At the center, even more radiant than the rest, Eiji Shinichi, the first Emperor. The other five had each been touched by the nima, but Shinichi had been truly chosen. He, like every Emperor who had come after him, had adapted to every gift. The Emperor was the living conduit, the connection between the nima, humanity, and the world.

Yeijiro reached out to touch and froze at the sound of a growl. The lion that sat next to Lord Suri detached itself from the sculpture and stretched. It gave a wide yawn, showing off a large mouth full of sharp-looking teeth.

“Kaveh, stop that.”

Yeijiro had been so wrapped up in the art, he hadn’t noticed he wasn’t alone in the hall. On a bench, all the way back at the first sculpture, a man leaned back against the wall, a sketchbook in his lap. He was the one who’d spoken, and he was the one to whom the lion padded towards without another glance for Yeijiro.

“I’m sorry,” the man said, standing. He wasn’t like anyone else Yeijiro had seen at the palace so far. The crest at his shoulder was blank, its shape marking him as masculine, but offering no information about his clan or family. He was dressed in a plain fashion, with no jewelry or any of the other adornments that were currently fashionable among the courtiers. His age was hard to guess. His light brown skin was perfectly smooth, but his head was bald—shaved, Yeijiro guessed—and while his features had the perfect beauty that only the nima could grant, lines of care were starting to spread from the corners of his dark eyes.

“I’m Vin,” he said. “And you’re new.”

He didn’t talk like a courtier. Yeijiro wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

Vin buried a hand in the lion’s mane and the lion settled next to him. Vin was an empath; that much was obvious. A powerful one, to have a full grown lion at his side, rubbing against him like a house cat. “Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t criticizing. You just had that look.”

“What look?”

“Like you’re actually interested. Studying it as though you care.” Vin scratched at Kaveh’s forehead and the lion’s tail swished. “People who live here, they get jaded.” He came over to stand next to Yeijiro, giving the final sculpture a thoughtful look. “I’m sure the art likes being appreciated.”

“Does it?” Yeijiro hadn’t thought about that—about the nima that made up the sculptures. “Do they know? Can they tell?”

“I like to think so, but who knows? I mainly just come here for the quiet.” He trailed his fingers through the fur of a large dog that seemed to actually be part of the sculpture, and not another real animal in hiding. “It’s beautiful work.”

“It’s perfect.”

Vin raised an eyebrow, gave Yeijiro a sideways look. “When most people say that, it doesn’t sound like a criticism.”

Yeijiro bowed his head in brief apology. “I’m not a student of art. Sur Vin shouldn’t pay me any mind.”

“Except here you are and now I’m curious. Tell me, Marshal Miyōshi.” His voice shifted to an imitation of Yeijiro’s formal tone. “What’s wrong with perfection?”

Yeijiro had only met Vin, didn’t know who he was, whether he’d think Yeijiro was talking out of turn. But Vin had asked, so Yeijiro would answer. “Perfection—it’s the weapon of the Swan. One could tell this was made by them, even if one never knew the artist’s name. It’s studiously beautiful; the founders are heroic and noble and untouchably greater than any of us.

“The Swan love to pretend they can create a perfect world—that if they surround themselves with enough art and beauty and wonder they can erase all the imperfections that exist. It creates…unattainable ideals.”

“An interesting perspective. Especially considering…” Vin glanced down at the crest of the Imperial Marshal that graced Yeijiro’s collar.

Yeijiro guessed what he was thinking. Dahle Roderich—the Lord Marshal, the Lord of the Swan—the man who held himself and everyone around him to the most uncompromising standards in the Empire.

Yeijiro had no answer to that. Instead, he once again leaned forward to trail his fingers through the nima, felt their sharp, tingling presence.

Vin said, “I wonder if they do have opinions—the nima, here. What they feel. If they feel. I’ve never found an akashic who would deign to talk to me about it.” He looked sideways at Yeijiro. “You’re not an akashic, are you?”

Yeijiro shook his head. He confessed the truth, because it was easiest to just get it out. “I’m not anything.”

Surprisingly, Vin’s expression didn’t immediately turn to pity, which was the most common response when someone found out. Vin didn’t say, “I’m sorry,” which Yeijiro hated even more, or offer a forcibly bright, “but you’ve done so well for yourself.” He nodded in silent acceptance, as though the information had changed nothing.

What he asked, after a moment, was, “Have you had lunch?”

Yeijiro shook his head.

“If you’re willing to go into the city, there’s a little place down by the docks. I love to go. Kaveh likes it too. I swear they catch the fish fresh for every order. Come with us?”

Yeijiro nodded, surprised and delighted by the invitation. By Vin’s quiet, easy acceptance of him, and by the fact it seemed his day was looking up. That maybe he’d made a friend.

He followed Vin out of the gallery, and for the first time since his meeting with Elena, dared to think that he could fit in here after all.