The tale came hard to his lips. He had not rehearsed it. To think of the long years in which, slowly and in secret, the corruption had eaten away at the council was too bitter to endure. It was “a knife in the heart,” as the tale said, a well-worn phrase but true enough when you felt the stab of pain. How blind might a trusting soul be! How foolish and naive!

“Ashaya was corrupted by promises and sweet words and reasonable explanations. She was corrupted by fear, since fear, beyond all things, brings with it the shadow. But in the end, she fled corruption. She knew if she passed on the burden of her cloak while still in the Hundred, that the others would find and control the newly awakened one. Instead, she walked out of the Hundred. And I waited for you—obviously, I did not know it would be you, Kirit—to return.”

“Because the cloak would bring me back.”

“By one means or another.”

“A cruel master,” she observed.

“Neh, neh. Not a master. It is our charge. Our responsibility. Our obligation.”

It was hard to meet those pale eyes because they did not look human, but her face was so young and vulnerable that he recognized the humanity in her, that which is capable of both compassion and malevolence.

“Where are the assizes courts?” She stumbled over the unfamiliar words.

“Typically you find them in the cities, towns, and chief villages. But an assizes can be held wherever a Guardian chooses to stand.”

She rose. “Then it is time to make a judgment.”

THE QIN SOLDIERS were using fronds to scoop scum from one of a series of bubbling pools sited just beyond the tracery of the outer wall. Their horses took no notice of Kirit as she walked toward the two men, holding her strung bow and an arrow in her right hand but her mirror in her left. As he feared.

The soldiers leaped up and, in turning, brought their bows to the ready with arrows already nocked.

“Demon!” spat one man.

The other’s face was a mask of fear. His arrow slipped out of his hand to the dust.

The envoy sensed their fear and consternation as much from their posture and expressions as from his second heart and third eye. And since neither looked at him, only at her, he could not see into their hearts.

“I remember your names. Eitai. Sayan.” She gestured to the man who had spat. “You did not harm me, Sayan. Go, if you wish. Or if you want to be judged for any other crimes you may have committed, I will hold up the mirror, for the mirror reveals the heart.”

“We are Qin,” said the first soldier scornfully. He marked her companion and dismissed the envoy, unarmed as he seemed to be, as no threat. “We do not dishonor ourselves by abandoning our comrades. How has Eitai harmed you?”

“He raped me.”

Eitai lunged for the fallen arrow and, rising, nocked it. “I paid! It was perfectly legal! Your master made the offer, and I accepted in good faith. How was I to know your demon’s ghost would return to haunt me!” He loosed. The arrow shot true, punching her so hard in the left shoulder she staggered back two steps. But she did not fall.