The man looked old enough to be my father. When his gaze turned to me, I saw the contempt written behind the polite, confident smile. “I don’t see why that is necessary. I have studied the city’s layout extensively. The only thing along the southern walls is the slave holdings.” He chuckled, casting off those lives as if they were only sand dirtying the bottom of his robes. “There won’t be a line to break with those weak creatures in our way, increasing the speed my unit can attack the Teshka troops from behind.”

My horror and anger were only an echo of my past life’s. Her jaw clenched as if it were my own and there was the briefest moment of confusion as our sense of selves mingled and then broke again when she looked down at her clenched fist resting on the table. My vision flickered, and my head nearly exploded with pain as images of a bare arm covered in bruises and branded flickered over hers. They were gone before I had a sense of what exactly I had just seen. Vhal’s emotions drowned me. A foreign understnading and urgency overwhelmed me before it faded again like a forgotten dream. Had that been real? 

I pulled my gaze away from my fist, loosening my fingers until my hand rested palm down once more against the table. This body hadn’t experienced that torture or lack of owning oneself. I couldn’t explain those things to these men. They were still of an age where people could be owned, traded, and bred like cattle. It was that mindset I wanted to change so badly. 

My temptation to expel General Miash from this battle was growing, but I knew there would be consequences on the morale and trust of his soldiers if I dismissed him for this. His was in  ignorance born of culture; I had to remind myself.

Opening my eyes, I met his, and could almost feel the hesitation coming off of him as if he knew he had made an error somewhere but was unsure where. “General Miash, I must insist you reconsider.”

“What is to reconsider? They are slaves. They bring no value to this war and serve no purpose beyond performing whatever job was required of them.” The man shook his head, dismissing me entirely. 

“Then allow me to rephrase,” I said, my voice suddenly cold. “I order you to not attack the southern wall. You will not bring harm to the people who do not possess wills of their own.”

“This is war,” he laughed, looking at the other men as if knowing they shared his opinion. “There is no room for sentimentalities of the gentler sex.”

Ara whistled behind me and Sepher cursed, but I already had my dagger out and I threw it with explosive accuracy across the table to land inches from General Miash’s fingers. Fire licked along the metal, hissing as it ate up the map. I stood to my feet, walking calmly around the table to look down at the floor where General Miash had fallen, his eyes wide at my sudden and violent attack. 

“I will repeat myself only once more,” I said coldly, anger dripping from my tongue at his ‘gentler sex’ comment. “Because I’m afraid you didn’t hear me correctly. You will not attack the southern wall. If you think this is from any sentimentalities, by all means, pick up your blade and show me exactly how much stronger you are to me. I insist.”

He was thinking about it. His hand inched towards the sword at his hip, refusing to look away from me just in case I attacked him again with magic. Every person in this tent knew of my abilities and though they would never admit it aloud, they knew I was more powerful than they were magically and more skilled with a sword. When he didn’t make a move to pull his weapon, I straightened and took a step back. 

“Now that we have settled that matter,” I said, dismissing the event and returning to my cushion. “Allow me to remind you why we are here. We are here to defend the human rights of our people and unite this empire under one rule so that all are equal. We are not here for profit, or to satisfy your own personal pride. They may be slaves to you, but when that city is under my control, then they will be a free people with the rights of any other.”

“The economic impact of that decision will devastate the empire! We won’t be able to recover from it,” a man dressed in elaborate robes called from the back. 

“If the economic impact is all you care about, then you haven’t been paying attention in the years we have been at war,” I stated plainly, eyeing him before making a motion to Ara to hand me the papers I had told her to pack earlier. “What you don’t realize is that slavery itself is devastating to the economy as it is. They trained slaves for specific jobs, but when those jobs are no longer needed, they don’t have the skills or knowledge to perform other necessary tasks. Freeing them and giving them skills, and the education to support themselves, benefits our society and not just the nobles who owned them.”

“Much has gone into this decision,” Sepher said, with much more patience than I would have given them, “and there are fail-safes in place so the change will be gradual enough that no loss will be too great as we made the change.”

“It will not be instantaneous,” I agreed, as much as I wished it would be. “However, this generation of slaves will be the last, and if I can manage it, even they will not live their entire lives as they are. When the empire is under my control, this will be the second act of my will, after women of any age will have the equal rights to men.”

They greeted the rights of women with silence, as I expected. They knew why I fought, and some even agreed with me, despite the cultural and generational prejudices that got in our way. I had been straightforward with them from the beginning, but I knew that if they weren’t so loyal to my family that even I would have failed to make it this far. I earned the loyalty of the commoners through blood and sweat, but the nobles were a different breed. All they cared about was filling their own coffers. What did it matter to them if their daughters were sold to the highest bidder as long as someone bid? 

I had almost been among them. If I hadn’t been the only child my mother conceived before she died, the one sold to the highest bidder could have been me. It was a fact I lived with every day, and it still disgusted me even now when I had the freedom and the power to make my own choices. 

Smiling, I reached out and placed my hand against the map. Fire flashed to life around my fingers and spread across the table, burning the map to ash and leaving nothing but wisps of ember flickering above us. “Swear your allegiance to me now, by blood and by ash. I will rule this empire and bring it into a new age.”

My eyes flew open, and I jerked up, throwing the blankets off me. Sweat soaked my skin, dripping down my face as I gasped for breath. My eyes stared down at my shaking hands, unable to believe it. The memories I had just experienced, relived even… it couldn’t be real. It was impossible. 

Still unable to catch my breath, I reached up and pushed my hair back, my fingers falling through the short damp strands, hardly longer than my chin. Even as I made the once familiar motion, it suddenly felt wrong, like the memory implanted into my skin. It was too short. It should be longer. What was familiar, the auburn strands I’ve had my entire life suddenly felt wrong. It should be long and smooth as silk, the black strands falling down my back and touching the ground when I was sitting like this. 

“No,” I whispered, confused by the contrasting sensations of what I felt and what I somehow expected. “I’m not her. My name is Rueln. I’m Rueln.” Repeating my name grounded me. My racing heart began to at last slow down long enough for me to realize where I was. 

I lay in the middle of the floor in the hotel room Master Esra had rented. Soft breathing nearby told me Master Esra was asleep. Turning to follow the noise, I found her resting on the bed without a pillow or a blanket. 

How long has it been? Who am I kidding? How long doesn’t matter? How is this even possible? I knew exactly whose memories I had just experienced, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. She was already reincarnated. On the day of my memory test, when I was five. I remember everyone celebrating, praising her—my name…

I couldn’t be... Empress Vhal Aairith. 

Even as I thought it, I knew it was true. I was the Empress reborn. Which meant that somehow, the empire was being fooled into thinking it was that girl, whatever her name was. Even if that were the case, she was so public with it. It was impossible for me to claim otherwise. I would be the one labeled the liar and fraud. Who would believe some nobody kid who didn’t even get a recall until he was eight? 

Slowly I shifted, my body rigid with exhaustion and my head still trying to work itself back on straight. I rose to my feet and stumbled the few feet to the wall so I could use it as support to get to the water basin. Not caring how I looked, and not seeing a glass anywhere nearby, I ducked my head into the cool water and drank deeply, soothing my parched throat. I only stopped when my lungs couldn’t handle the strain any longer. 

Holding onto the table, I leaned heavily against it, looking up into the reflection of Rueln and immediately felt like I was looking out of foreign eyes. A sense of wrongness overwhelmed me as if I expected to see the dark eyes and sharp features of Vhal Aairith again. Rueln’s face… my face looked frail and worn in comparison, still recovering from so many years of malnutrition. 

Still, I stared at myself, trying to see past the face and to the soul within, knowing that was where the answers lay. “Why was I so sure I lived more lifetimes?” It was impossible, right? No one lived more than twice. “Tell me,” I whispered, knowing there would be no one to answer. I didn’t know how to access the memories of my past life. But I would learn.