Now Kesh understood. In the region of Olo’osson, long overseen by the town of Olossi, the Greater Houses had ruled until the battle two weeks ago, when a cabal of Olossi merchants and guildsman, a troop of outlander mercenaries, and that cursed reeve from the north had defeated the invading army and overthrown the Greater Houses. The Hieros was the most powerful temple official of any of the temples in Olo’osson. Joss represented the reeves, Anji the militia, and Master Calon the Olossi council. The four of them met now to decide what action they would take next.

So much for the vaunted council of Olossi, with its warring factions and voting members and raucous assemblies! So much for village elders and local authorities and temple priests. Here Kesh sat, witnessing the only council that mattered. He was here by accident, because he was a bit of flotsam that the Hieros wanted to sweep up, being the kind of person who didn’t forgive anyone who defeated her in even the smallest way. Yet as long as they didn’t kill him, he could find a way to exchange knowledge for coin or something even better: freedom and the right to be let go without interference. They hadn’t beaten him yet.

“When I make a plan,” Anji said, “I prefer to know as much about my enemy as possible. I have heard the Tale of the Guardians, but surely there is more you can tell me about the Guardians.”

“The gods formed the Guardians out of the land to serve justice. The gods sustained them as they went about this duty. Yet they vanished from the Hundred when my grandmother was a girl, so we had come to believe they were gone forever.”

“Anyone may claim to be a Guardian,” said Joss suddenly, “and maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t.”

The Hieros turned her proud gaze on the reeve, making him glance away before he had the courage to meet that stare. “ ‘You will know the Guardians when you meet them,’ ” she quoted. “Can you doubt it, Marshal Joss? Do you doubt it?”

He said nothing.

She said, “I do not doubt, nor should you. I have seen the truth with my own eyes. I have touched the truth in my heart. The envoy told me that there is war among the Guardians. Fear this, for even as he spoke the words, I knew them to be true in my heart and in my spirit. Where the Guardians war, the Hundred falls into darkness and chaos. The tide of that war has swept over us once. If we do not resist it, protect ourselves, and push back, we will drown.”

“What you’re saying, holy one,” said the captain, “is that in truth you know very little about the enemy we face.”

“Captain,” murmured the reeve warningly.

Master Calon fluttered a nervous gesture with a hand.

The Hieros smiled coldly. “That is indeed what I am saying. The Guardians withdrew from the affairs of ordinary men many rounds of years ago. We who are mortal were never privy to Guardian councils in any case. Now their wars have spilled over the land, but we are as ignorant of their plans and feuds and their network of influence—always hidden from us!—as are newly born infants just waking to the riot of life.”