For all the years he had walked on earth, he had never known of this place nor heard tale of it. With a shudder, he retreated back up the steps.

With her back to him, she said, “If you go back outside, they may see you and come up here to investigate.”

“Think you so?” he said, pleased by her words.

“Just to the west lie bitter springs. Mostly the Qin ride there to collect pitch. I hear them talk. They will bring a company of slaves to harvest the pitch and store it. The pit frightens them because the flame burns without fuel.”

“How long have you been hiding here?”

“Three days.”

“Why are you here?”

“I am waiting.”

It was like teasing splinters out of skin! “What are you waiting for?”

“What is a Guardian?”

With a sigh, he sank down a few steps from her and leaned against the wall. The smell made his eyes water, but he didn’t notice it as much. He brushed dust off his palms.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “what the Guardians truly are, or what they were meant to be. The gods awakened the first Guardians during a time of war, when every clan fought for itself and every clan did as it pleased. Without law, there is no order. The Guardians serve the law.”

“They are slaves, then. If they must serve.”

“If you serve only yourself, lass, then to whom are you really a slave? Even in the place you come from, you serve the customs of your tribe and do your work and marry and bear children and die in your time, all without considering yourself a slave.”

She was silent, her back a wall.

“The Guardians serve the law, and by serving the law they serve the land and the gods. Whereas in the days of chaos any person with power might dispense justice according to her whim, now the assizes courts were established in every city and town and the chief villages. The Guardians journeyed from one assizes to the next to the next. They stood over the court and heard witnesses and made judgments. They hold in their hearts Ushara’s gift: the second heart and the third eye, with which to see into the hearts of all. It is not so easy as you might think to seek truth within the hearts of women and men. At first, I thought I knew everything, but then I discovered that my own nature caused me to make assumptions and misread what I learned. I have become more cautious in passing judgment.”

“Who was the woman whose body I found on the grass?”

He nodded, although she did not turn to see him do so. There was so much to tell her. It was like running, and tripping over your own feet. “Yes, yes. You see, it is this way. Naturally, there is a risk. The powers the Guardians hold are also a temptation. Within the council of the Guardians, five—a majority—may judge one of their own who they feel has passed under the gate of shadow into corruption. They can strip the cloak from that Guardian and allow it to pass to another person, as it—the cloak—chooses. So you may possibly see the problem that confronts us. What if a Guardian succumbs to the shadows, and yet has the outward countenance of light? What if such a Guardian bides her time, out of fear, out of greed, out of anger, and in her turn corrupts one by one her fellow Guardians until four others walk at her behest? Five in all. Five, who can control the council and rid themselves of those Guardians who will not do as they demand. What is the handful who remain loyal to the gods meant to do?”