Free Legion and the Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson Page A

asked.
    “No,” I said. “Have you?”
    “It was never the camera, was it?”
    I smiled, turning a page. “I searched his pockets right after he died. Something cut my fingers. Broken glass.”
    Tobias frowned. Then, after a moment’s thought, he smiled. “Shattered lightbulbs?”
    I nodded. “It wasn’t the camera, it was the flash . When Razon took pictures at the church, he used the flash even outside in the sunlight. Even when his subject was well lit, even when he was trying to capture something that happened during the day, such as Jesus’ appearance outside the tomb following his resurrection. That’s a mistake a good photographer wouldn’t make. And he was a good photographer, judging by the pictures hung in his apartment. He had a good eye for lighting.”
    I turned a page, then reached into my pocket and took something out, setting it on the table. A detachable flash, the one I’d taken off the camera just before the explosion. “I’m not sure if it’s something about the flash mechanism or the bulbs, but I do know he was swapping out the bulbs in order to stop the thing from working when he didn’t want it to.”
    “Beautiful,” Tobias said.
    “We’ll see,” I replied. “This flash doesn’t work; I’ve tried. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. You know how the cameras would work for Monica’s people for a while? Well, many camera flashes have multiple bulbs like this one. I suspect that only one of these had anything to do with the temporal effects. The special bulbs burned out quickly, after maybe ten shots.”
    I turned a few pages.
    “You’re changing, Stephen,” Tobias finally said. “You noticed this without Ivy. Without any of us. How long before you don’t need us any longer?”
    “I hope that never happens,” I said. “I don’t want to be that man.”
    “And yet you chase her .”
    “And yet I do,” I whispered.
    One step closer. I knew what train Sandra had taken. A ticket peeked out of her coat pocket. I could make out the numbers, just barely.
    She’d gone to New York. For ten years, I’d been hunting this answer—which was only a tiny fraction of a much larger hunt. The trail was a decade old, but it was something .
    For the first time in years, I was making progress. I closed the book and sat back, looking up at Sandra’s picture. She was beautiful. So very beautiful.
    Something rustled in the dark room. Neither Tobias nor I stirred as a short, balding man sat down at the desk’s empty chair. “My name is Arnaud,” he said. “I’m a physicist specializing in temporal mechanics, causality, and quantum theories. I believe you have a job for me?”
    I set the final book on the stack of those I’d read during the last month. “Yes, Arnaud,” I said. “I do.”

Acknowledgements
        A s always, my wonderful wife Emily gets a big thumbs-up for dealing with the sometimes erratic life of a professional writer. The incumbent Peter Ahlstrom did quite a bit of special work on this project. Another person of note is Moshe Feder, who gave me one of my very early reads on this book—and who discussed thoughts, possibilities, and conjectures regarding it from its earliest days.
    My agent, Joshua Bilmes, has been his usual awesome self. Other early readers include Brian T. Hill, Dominique Nolan, Kaylynn ZoBell, Ben Olsen, Danielle Olsen, Karen Ahlstrom, Dan Wells, Alan Layton, and Ethan Skarstedt.
    A special thanks to Subterranean Press for giving this work a place in print. Bill Schafer and Yanni Kuznia have been fantastic. I’m also very pleased that the print edition has another beautiful cover by Jon Foster, whose work also graced the original Mistborn hardcovers. The ebook features a cover design by Isaac Stewart. Thanks!

    Brandon Sanderson

For Jim Rustler, 
     whose Key Lemon pies always brought a smile to my face..

    
    Prologue

        D rawigurlurburnur ran his powerful, thick fingers across the canvas, inspecting one of the highest forms of