'How can you know the phrase about the outlander refers to the Guardians, and not to the land and its people? How can we even know the tale is true as told, and not altered over time as folk forget old words and make up new ones?'
Her smile troubled him because it hid so much. 'Some of us can know perfectly well what was meant, young man.'
'No one can know, unless they were there themselves!'
She looked away from him, as if hiding her gaze, and yet she
was simply beckoning to a servant to bring a new tray, with tea and sweet bean cakes. Hu! Seeing them, his mouth watered. He was so sick of porridge. But he kept his hands on his thighs, refusing to grab.
'Yet Harishil is not the only outlander. Here you are. What is your name, Shai?' She shook her head at his reaction. 'Surely you must realize that old woman in the woods, knowing your name, would have revealed it to me. What do you want? What is your desire?'
To kill you.
'Wealth? Sex? Land? Better food? Children and a wife? Power to rule others?'
'I want my brother back, and then I want to go home.' But it was a lie, because Hari had been eaten by a demon, and Shai could no longer imagine a life in Kartu Town.
'Harishil and the cloak are now one creature. A Guardian.'
'Hari only came to the Hundred a few years ago. He can't have worn that cloak always. Someone must have worn it before him. So if a cloak can pass from one person to another, then Hari can be released.'
'Then he will be dead.'
'Hari is already a ghost. The only difference is whether or not he is your slave.'
Her expression hardened. He drew back, suddenly afraid although she made no move or signal. The tightening of her eyes was threat enough. 'It is easy for you to pass judgment on what you do not understand. Harishil was given the gift of a second chance at living, a chance to repair and restore what had gone wrong in his life before. It is no simple thing to leave that opportunity behind. What of those who sacrificed to bring justice? Who gave everything, risked everything, to help others? Are they, having made one or two small mistakes as Guardians, meant to be destroyed by other Guardians too self-righteous to be merciful? Must I, who am responsible for the greatest act of justice known in the Hundred, stand passively as others judge me? As others call me corrupted? I will not give up my life-'
'You don't have a life to give up,' cried Shai. 'You're dead. All of you are ghosts. You just tell yourself you're alive. But it's a lie. Everything you do is a lie.'
She rose, and he saw in her an ancient power so twisted by fear it had become the opposite of what it was meant to be.
'Do you know to whom you are speaking? I am not to be spoken to with such disrespect.'
'No, I don't know who you are, or what is your name is, or why I should care.'
'I can have my soldiers kill you.'
'But you can't kill me yourself, because I'm veiled. That's how it is, isn't it? You can't kill me, and I can lie to you. How that must rankle.' What power words had! With each stab of sharp words, he felt her anger grow. 'Yet if you have me killed, then you have no hold over Hari. And you need him, don't you? Him, or someone like him, a cloak you can control and corrupt. That's what Bevard is, isn't it? And Yordenas and Radas. You discovered their weakness, and you corrupted them. But Hari isn't proving so easy to corrupt, is he? Part of him is weak, but the part that is my beloved brother is strong, and he's fighting you.'
He'd overreached; he felt her anger swallowed as the stillness that follows a cessation of blustery wind, and he tensed, waiting for a blow. She swept up the brush, paper, and inkstone and tucked them in a sleeve. She extricated the spear from beneath the pillow on which she'd been seated.
'You are correct,' she said softly, 'that Harishil can be released from the cloak if he proves unreliable. It has happened to others before him.'
'Five to kill one, isn't that right? Without Hari, you're still one short.'
'So he may have told you. So he may believe. But there are other ways. Maybe you will be next, Shai. What would you do, if you were to awaken as a Guardian? Were you to stand on the threshold between death and life, what would you choose?'
He rose, and the soldiers stiffened, raising their weapons, but he opened his hands to show himself unarmed. As he was, except with words. 'I would do what is right.'
Her smile twisted condescendingly. 'So do we all say, at first, thinking we know what is right, and that what is right is easily known. It is easy to pray in ignorance and innocence that peace return to the land' — an expression chased across her face, fleeting, frightened, and quickly controlled — 'but to have to live for generation after generation with what you have yourself called forth, and the burden and struggle it entails, to see corruption strike and be helpless against its rot, again and again and again, that is not so easy, is it? Not when you are the one who will be blamed.'
Skin prickling, uneasy and indeed in some manner revolted, Shai took a step away, and she flinched, as if his disgust actually hurt her.
'Who are you?' he asked.
She gestured to the soldiers. 'Take him back to his cell. There he will remain until I — or the gods — free him.'
'This is to be my new home?'
From the porch of Mai's house in the Barrens, Miravia surveyed the town of Astafero sprawled down the slope below them. Mai held her hand, enjoying Miravia's unadorned pleasure as her friend scanned the vista with its staggering mountain peaks in the west and the green-blue waters of the Olo'o Sea shimmering in the early morning light out of the east.
'It is a dry and dusty place, nothing special,' said Mai. 'I spent many lonely hours here. The market is small.'
She glanced through open doors into the audience chamber where Anji sat listening to Chief Deze give a report. Tuvi was standing behind Anji, holding Atani — at any gathering of senior Qin officers, the baby was passed from one soldier to the next — and there were other officers, most Qin but two local men were in attendance as well as the Naya Hall submarshal and her chief reeves, Etad and Miyara.
'Maybe it is not allowed to go to the market,' Miravia added, accustomed to disappointment, 'because you were attacked by red hounds from the empire.'
'That was months ago. Now the militia guards the roads, and the Hieros's spies watch everywhere else.'
'I should like to be a spy, only I suppose my looks would betray me. Like Eliar's betray him.' She sighed abruptly, releasing Mai's hand as she stared toward the mountains. 'What do you suppose has happened to-' She coughed, shoulders tense. 'There was another person who went south, wasn't there?'
Mai put an arm around her. 'Keshad? I hope he's a good spy. He's a precise accountant and a good merchant. But very emotional. He is deeply attached-'
'To a woman?' Miravia's voice was sharp as she stepped out of Mai's embrace and into the sun; the light flooded her flawless skin and brush-tip eyes.
'His sister. Like you and Eliar.' Mai forced a smile. She did not want to speak of Eliar, who had traded away his sister's happiness for a chance to play at spying. On such a glorious day, it was easier to signal to Chief Tuvi, who handed Atani over to Chief Deze, where the baby settled comfortably. Anji's gaze flicked to Tuvi as the chief nodded, and Anji's right hand shifted. It had taken her months to learn to see the small signals the Qin used among themselves.
Tuvi walked up. 'Mistress?'
'We want to go down into the market, Chief. It is likely to be safe, is it not?'
'Safe enough, Mistress.'
'Will the officers be wanting tea?'
Tuvi looked surprised, then gestured toward the chamber. 'Did you not already order Sheyshi in with the cups? For there she sits.'