By midday the square before the palace was already humming with rumours.
Rumours always travelled faster than decrees. A decree required seals, witnesses and scribes. News passed from person to person in kitchens, stables, bedrooms and shops. By the time Elian emerged from the archive, half the capital was already retelling three incompatible versions of events.
The first: the impostor had risen from the dead.
The second: the Empty Throne itself had carved his name.
The third: Regent Savern had discovered a dangerous error in the palace and was now deciding whether it was possible to kill someone who could not stay dead.
A crowd had gathered at the gates.
Elian saw servants, guards, craftsmen and lesser kinsmen who were not usually allowed beyond the second courtyard. They had not come to save him. People rarely rushed to help someone whose name was dangerous to utter. Each of them wanted to know whether the new rule might apply to them tomorrow.
Savern grasped that before anyone else.
He came out to the gates without sword or crown, wearing only the regent's dark cloak and carrying the book of night orders. Savern seldom needed the threat of a weapon. He knew how to present events in a way that made murder begin to seem a necessary measure.
"People of Astern," he said.
The crowd fell silent.
Elian stood one step below him. Miran was beside him without her guard insignia, while Tavel stood a little behind them with the empty book under his arm. There was no sign of Shani or Lissa, and he could not shake his fear for them.
Savern raised the night book.
"Today an error in the world entered the palace. It has my nephew's face and his voice. It exploits the pity of those who remember the boy once taken in by the king. But pity confers no right to the throne."
He did not say "Elian".
Neither did the crowd.
Elian heard Miran breathe out softly beside him.
"He isn't denying that you're alive," she said. "He's proving to them that you have no right to be."
Savern continued:
"The executioner was forced to pronounce an incomplete formula. A guard was forced to testify while off duty. An archivist was forced to open books never intended for the public square. This is not an heir before you. It is a crack through which dead Drafts seek to enter our world."
He did not call Elian a monster. He called him a passage for dead worlds, and part of the crowd already wanted that passage sealed.
Tavel stepped forward, but Elian barred his way.
"Not now," he said.
"If we say nothing, his version will take hold."
"If we speak without proof, he'll have his answer ready."
Elian did not know where this caution had come from. Perhaps his previous deaths had taught him.
A stranger appeared among the people at the gates, though Elian did not notice him at once. The moment Elian looked away, he forgot the man's features. A grey cloak, average height, unremarkable hands and a smooth face without a single memorable feature.
He moved through the crowd. People made way for him not out of fear, but because they forgot he was there as soon as he came near.
Tavel went pale.
"The Corrector."
Immediately afterwards, the system announced:
"Correction active."
Elian felt a sharp pain. Miran's name vanished from his memory for an instant, then returned.
The Corrector stopped at the lowest step. He did not attack, draw a knife or utter a spell. He simply raised a hand and touched Savern's night book with two fingers.
A new line appeared on the page.
Savern read it and, for the first time that day, gave the faintest smile.
"Miran Kest does not serve and has never served in the palace guard."
The crowd stirred.
Miran straightened.
"A lie," she said.
But in the Draft of Truth, a lie had to be paid for in pain and blood. Miran's voice did not waver, which meant she had spoken the truth.
But the record had already changed, and truth alone was not enough to convince the crowd.
Savern turned the book towards the people. In the watch list, between two names, there was a blank line. It had not been crossed out or corrected: it looked as though Miran truly had never held that post.
"The testimony of someone who is not in service carries no weight," Savern said.
Miran stepped forward, but Elian caught her by the arm.
He wanted to promise that he would put everything right, but said nothing: the system's voice was already sounding in his head.
"Witness Miran Kest lost in two Drafts out of six."
The system said it without emotion. In some Drafts Miran was still a guard; in others she had already lost her home and her position. Each of his victories might erase another part of her past, until all that remained of Miran was someone else's memory.
The stranger's name surfaced of its own accord in Elian's mind: Nim Arg. The Corrector turned to him. Then Elian understood his purpose: after every change to a Draft, Nim would erase the consequences of victory.
Savern closed the book.
"You see?" he said to the crowd. "Even his witnesses cannot withstand the world's scrutiny."
The people at the gates began to retreat.
Not everyone left. A few servants remained, along with a boy carrying a bucket, an old cook and Shani, almost invisible by the side arch. There were only a handful of them, but not one looked away, though leaving now would have been safer.
Elian looked through the open doors at the Empty Throne.
The name was still there on the stone.
But now he knew: a name on stone would save no one if there was no living person left beside it who could speak it.
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