Every warlord, every commander and every magister was tripping over each other for months, trying to be the one to put the rebel generals’ heads on a spike. They still thought they had a chance of being named a Hero of the Times.

  My father and Uncle didn’t seem to agree, but nor did they break camp and return to Iron Tower with their armies. They simply remained above the yellow plains, eating, drinking, resting, and running drills to keep the men sharp, as if this were all an extended hunting trip. I had no choice but to do the same.

  As I handed the wooden sword back to the quartermaster, I moved to the washbasin to wipe the sweat and dust from my body. The men I had trained against didn't bother. They grumbled something about "using real blades like real men" as they wandered off in a group without me. I ignored them; it was nothing I wasn't used to.

  Now as clean as one got on campaign, I returned to my tent and donned a fresh robe, then settled into my writing desk while the noonday sun slanted across it through the canvas.

  Having already read every scroll, memorandum, and scrap of intelligence available over the course of the long war, I found the waiting intolerable.

  I had begun begging my father to be put in charge of reading the reports from our scouts, spies, and messengers. Anything to keep my mind as sharp as my body. Either the reports had become so inconsequential, or my insistence had finally prevailed upon him, and he had ordered all missives brought to me directly.

  So it was, that when the message from the Marshal, stamped with the Imperial seal, came to us, I was the first to read it.

  I ran straight into the mustering ground, where my father and uncle were putting their men through a massively complicated maneuver that was probably impossible without a very powerful gift from Heaven.

  “What is it?” my Uncle snapped, metal Mandate fading like mist before the blistering sun.

  I ignored him and addressed my father. “Commandant, there’s been news from the Marshal. The generals are dead. The rebellion is done.” There was an art to making a report to a busy clan leader. It was the first thing I had mastered when my father had drafted me, and probably the only reason he had kept me close that first year.

  “All three? How?”

  Who-where-how. Then why you think it matters. That was the ideal format. “The General of Flesh was cornered by Green Skirmishers in the woods west of Dragon Tail River. A dozen infantrymen have come forward claiming the honor but…”

  “...the head ended up with Saber Oak,” my father finished for me.

  I nodded and bit my tongue. If they let you get to the part where you were providing your own opinions on the matter, you could slowly work your way into an advisory role, rather than that of a mere messenger. But you couldn't force it.

  “He’ll receive a commendation from the Emperor," said Uncle. "But no one will believe he was there when it happened, much less killed the rebel himself!"

  "Continue," my father bade. It seemed I was still just the messenger, Uncle still the adviser. Even after all these years.

  “The General of Earth was killed by his own men, who were themselves put to death for their dishonor. A commander called Brave Rooster beneath the Tiger claimed the head.”

  “Hmm, Brave Rooster,” my father mused.

  “Another nobody without a Mandate,” Uncle waved his hand in the air.

  I swallowed hard. My own Mandate had yet to manifest, despite the increased intensity of my physical training these past few months.

  My father was nodding then turned his attention back to me. “The General of Heaven?”

  I clenched my jaw and continued. “Found dead just north of here. Either he was thrown from his horse, bitten by a snake, or some pestilence caught up with him. The goatherd who found him surmised he had died months ago by the state of him, perhaps shortly after the last battle. The head was claimed by-”

  “It won’t matter,” said my father. “Finding a corpse in a field doesn’t make you a Hero of the Times. Seems they’ve all been hunting a ghost. Is that all?”

  “Almost,” I said, turning the scroll. “The Marshal is returning to the Eastern Capital to deliver the news, in person, to the Emperor. He invites all clan leaders, commanders, and Imperial Protectors of the Provinces to come to the capital.”

  The Commandant’s eyes flashed. “You’re sure?”

  “Um, yes. Why? Is that important?”

  A smile began to crack through my father’s iron visage. “It means,” said my father, “The Emperor’s lost the Mandate of Heaven.”

  Uncle looked to my father and his eyes went wide. After a moment, he began to chuckle, then threw back his head and roared to the hot, sweating troops, “Break camp, boys! We’re going to the capital!”

  ***

  Every missive, every report, every shred of information still passed through my hands as it entered into our camp, yet still, as we began the long journey toward the capital, slowed even further by the massive retinue we brought with us, I read nothing to explain what my father meant by the Emperor ‘losing’ his Mandate of Heaven.

  There was however another scrap of paper tucked in among the stack of unread reports.

  ***WHAT AN ACHIEVEMENT!***

  TITLE: KEEPING THE WORMS IN LINE!

  DESCRIPTION: You've played a small, and I mean very small, role in quelling a rebellion. In fact, you might not have even really helped. You could have actually been detrimental to your side of the conflict. But you were there! And that counts for something, right?

  I burned my latest 'achievement' in the nearest brazier, along with the other sensitive information.

  But as I sat back at my desk, I found myself considering the prankster's words. Despite the tone of the note, I had played a role in the quelling of a rebellion. I had given nearly six years to the effort, and I had been on the winning side. I allowed myself some small measure of pride at having just won a war. Few in history could claim the same. Even though I might have been more impactful, I was sure that in the future, with a higher rank and more authority, I could play a larger role in the grand stage under Heaven. In fact, I felt as if there was still only one thing holding me back and that was my Mandate. Despite being the son of an important man, and despite my struggle to rise during the last five years, including my most recent promotion, a Knight was still technically only in the upper half of the commoner's class. If a Mandate could hold an Emperor back, what chance did a lowly commoner have.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  One day, as we made camp on the edge of Imperial lands, I decided to bring the question to Swaying Willow.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the kindly, older minister. He was as bored as I was, camping and riding with nothing new to read, and it appeared I had awakened him from a late afternoon nap when I had gone to his tent. “People don’t lose their Mandates.”

  “Never?” I asked as he rubbed sleep from his face.

  “Perhaps they grow weaker as they age, depending upon the Mandate. Martial men like your Uncle and Father will always have their Mandates so long as they can perform the motions.” His own hands shook as he put a teakettle of tarnished, ornate bronze on. I helped him get it on the hook.

  “But if your Uncle were to, say, lose his right arm in battle," Willow went on, "There would be no spear-thrust for him to amplify. And your father’s Mandate relies upon a gesture. If he were to lose the use of his hands, or if his fine motor skills began to degrade..." He held up his own weathered hands. "His Mandate would be greatly diminished. Even less martial Mandates require quick wits. Which I’m ashamed to say, start slipping too when you get to be my age. Hoho!”

  He eventually poured me a cup and I took it with thanks.

  “But a young man? Around my age?”

  The minister’s eyes softened above his steaming tea. “It might take a few years, or in some cases two decades, even three for it to manifest, but if one is born to a noble bloodline, on an auspicious day according to the five traveling stars, all that’s left is to prove that one is worthy of the gift from heaven. Or so it is said.”

  Swaying Willow meant well, but once again he had missed the mark. “I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about…”

  Suddenly I thought better of it. In the wrong ears, my father’s words could sound like treason. To say that the Emperor didn’t have a Mandate was to imply that he didn’t deserve to be Emperor. And the Emperor, with a few very unlikely exceptions, was the highest rank that could exist.

  Swaying Willow nodded as if he understood what I was trying to say. He didn’t.

  “Once the gift of a star is bestowed,” the older man went on, seeming to revive with the tea, “Whatever form it took, it can only grow stronger, more refined, more focused. No matter how weak, or inept, or evil one proved to be after receiving the gift, they could not lose that Mandate from Heaven. In all my studies, I’ve never heard of someone missing their Mandate.”

  “I don’t think that I’ve…” I rubbed at my temples. Swaying Willow thought this was about my own shortcomings and he was trying to console me. Maybe encourage me? In any case, there was no sense in getting angry at him, even if he hadn't been particularly helpful. I sighed. “Thank you, Swaying Willow. For the tea.”

  “You’re welcome, Sparrow." Swaying Willow smiled. "For the tea.”

  As I left the old minister’s tent I couldn’t help but feel more confused. Swaying Willow missed the plot sometimes, but he was the closest thing I knew to an authority on Mandates. And he said that a Mandate couldn’t disappear, once manifested. So how could my father think that the Emperor had lost his?

  A few days later, as the gates to the eastern capital – the entranceway to the City of Lanterns that was home to the Emperor and his court – loomed on the horizon, I arrived at the only possible conclusion. But I had to be certain.

  “How old is the Emperor?” I asked in low voice, as I rode beside my father. Uncle had taken a scouting party to the far side of the sprawling city to make sure that no unlikely surprises awaited us. This was one of the rare moments I had my father to myself.

  He didn’t reply immediately. But when he did, it was the answer I had feared.

  “Two years older than you.” His voice was flat, controlled, matter-of-fact, as it always was, but in that pause I could tell that he had measured his response carefully.

  “And he has never shown a Mandate, has he?”

  The Commandant’s face was an iron mask. “No.”

  “But how is that even possible? There’s no bloodline more noble than his. The conditions of his birth were as auspicious as they can be, only second to those of the Great Ancestor, in fact. Was he not tested and tried in the usual ways? I don’t understand how he could…”

  I trailed off as I realized my father had turned off the road, and was leading both his horse and mine away from the column. He stopped, dismounted, and after leading his horse across empty ground for a few more paces, he bent to the earth.

  As far as anyone could tell, he was inspecting the conditions of a once-tilled field, now fallow, gauging the worth of the Ox clan soil. Any leader in any land might be interested in how much grain the Imperial capital could produce and how many soldiers it could support. But that was not what my father was interested in now.

  When I dismounted and followed, he handed me a clump of the soil. “Would you plant here?”

  Taken aback, I sifted the soil through my hand, then bent to inspect another handful. I thought of all the people starving across the land because of the unrest sown by the now dead rebel generals.

  “Only if I had no other choice,” I replied.

  “Why?”

  “Too much clay. Not enough compost.” I answered without hesitation.

  “And if you did?”

  “What? Sow anyway?”

  My father rose and nodded.

  I thought about it a moment, wondering where he was going with this. Like most leaders he understood the principles of agriculture, but he had only ever been interested in them insofar as they could feed his armies and how they impacted the relative worth of the various commanderies within his provinces.

  “It would be hard work on the farmers,” I said. “Oxen could do it, of course, but they aren’t cheap just now. And you’d be repairing the plow every few rows, so you’d need someone who can work wood or metal.”

  “And if nothing grows?”

  I swallowed. Now I understood, and I had played right into his hands. There was nothing I could say now to backtrack, but I had to give some answer to a direct question from my father and my sworn leader.

  “I would find a way. Someone once tilled these fields. Someone once found them useful.”

  My father took another handful, inspected it once more, then scattered it.

  “Sometimes there is no logic in these things,” he said, brushing his hands. “Sometimes, there are no answers in history or in philosophy. Sometimes, fate is simply cruel. If I named you my heir, then were to die and make you lord of the Silver Falcon clan without a Mandate from Heaven, our people would suffer. Our legacy would suffer. Our family would suffer.”

  “But what if-”

  The Commandant held up a hand. “You’ve been hunting, riding, studying, and training since you were a boy. You’ve been exposed to every manifestation of the Black Star’s essence. You’ve been at war five years. You’ve taken lovers, taken lives. You’ve been wounded in battle and courted death as closely as any man has.”

  I would swear he almost smiled at that, but when he went on, his smile faded.

  “Where else, Sparrow, can we search for your gift?”

  I had no answer for that, though I turned over every corner of my mind like so much depleted soil. Surely there was something we had missed.

  I thought too long and he answered for me. “If the warlords won’t wait any longer for an Emperor to prove the Mandate of Heaven, how long should our people wait for you?”

  Again, there was no answer to this question. Not one I wanted to give anyway.

  “Who will it be?” I asked, instead.

  The Commandant shrugged. “De, probably. Perhaps Bin if he proves sharper. When they’re old enough and assuming they’ve manifested, that is. Whoever it is, I expect you to support them.”

  I nodded, but felt as if my neck were made of lead. “When will you announce it?”

  “Two years, Sparrow. If they’ve given that much time to that posh brat in the palace, you’ve earned at least that much. Father to son, that is all I can give you.”

  I nodded again, automatically helping my father mount.

  “There is a place for you in the clan,” my father said once I placed his boot in the stirrup, “Mandate or no.”

  Sure, I stifled a snort, the front lines of the next battle.

  My half-brother De was young, still without a courtesy name but already cold and ambitious, just like the rest of us. He wouldn’t tolerate an older brother to survive, no matter what my father’s wishes. I had to prove my Mandate of Heaven, or my fate was sealed.

  “Two years?” I asked, confirming.

  “Two years,” my father nodded, and trotted his mount back to the head of the column, which had automatically pulled to a stop to wait for him.

  Two years. If the secret to my powerlessness got out, I’d be lucky to survive that long. I could picture the mission briefing now.

  ***SPARROW'S MISSION BRIEFING: FORAY INTO THE IMPERIAL CAPITAL***

  Primary Objective: Survive long enough to become heir to the Silver Falcon Plains.

  Secondary Objective: Actually put the Silver Falcon clan in a good position for the future.

  Bonus Objective: Don't mess up the Empire, while you're at it.

  Fail Condition: Sparrow dies.