Continuing on my quest to read all of the Cosmere Universe stories by Brandon Sanderson, I read the novella The Emperor’s Soul.

Set on the same world as Elantris, this tale follows the character Shai who is a “forger”, someone who can use magic to create nearly flawless copies of items. Yes, Sanderson introduces yet another magical system into his universe.

The Emperior’s Soul won the best Novella Hugo in 2013.

Mild spoilers to follow.

In Elantris, the magic system of AonDor is based on symbols that are “drawn” in the air by a practitioner. In this story, forgers create seals containing symbols that, when pressed against an object, will rewrite its history. For example, if there is a broken chair, a seal could remove the event that broke the chair from its past, making it whole again.

The tale is set in the Rose Empire, a nation on the planet Sel, and it is on the same continent as the nation of Teod from Elantris, but separated from it by mountains. There is almost no mention of the places and events of Elantris in this story.

It follows Shai, a master forger who is caught trying to replace a treasure with a copy, which results in her imprisonment. About the same time, the emperor Ashravan is attacked by assassins, nearly fatally, and left without consciousness but still alive. His wife was killed in the attack and the palace uses the traditional period of 100 days of mourning to account for his absence. If it is discovered that he is wounded, his line will end.

Gaotona, a member of the court and friend of the emperor, enlists Shai to “recreate” his soul. Soul-forgery is considered taboo, but Shai has created stamps for herself that can do things such as change her appearance or make herself stronger. Those stamps are being held hostage by Gaotona in order to make her work on a stamp for the emperor.

Of course, for a forgery to be successful the forger has to know, in great detail, about the item being forged. This results on Gaotona and Shai forming an alliance as Gaotona shares information about his friend and they race against the 100 day deadline.

With most Sanderson stories, there is a lot of intrigue as other factions try to work out what is going on with the emperor and to mold the situation to fit their own desires.

I liked this story. It was well paced and an easy read. It didn’t surprise me that he got the idea when seeing the red stamps East Asian artists use to sign their work (see example below). You can also read this story without having read Elantris or any of his other stories.