The only palace memoranda on the subject come from the early years of the empire. Without exception, they refer to the repair of temples by the imperial engineers, occurring at the same time as sections of deteriorated roads were being rebuilt and restored. Further, chronicles written in the era of the Lotus General and his successor, the Chrysanthemum Emperor, imply that venerables of the Heart Temple fought against the establishment of the empire. As well, there are fragmentary references to Heart Temples found in surviving chronicles from the Seven Golden Kingdoms era, while certain poets of dubious origin write that the first Heart Temple was raised during the age of the sorcerer-kings in order to combat the wicked nature of sorcerers, although this claim is impossible to prove or disprove and caters to the sensationalism of poetic imagination, rather than to the sober search for truth.

Therefore, one thing is clear: the Heart Temples existed before the establishment of the Tranquil Empire and, in one form or another, have knitted together the lives and society of our ancestors for many generations far into the past.

From The Official’s Handbook of the Empire as compiled by Luviara, theurgist, working at the behest of the Inner Chamber of the Heart Temple

36 THE CONUNDRUM SHE WRESTLED WITH

Elen set a hard pace, determined to focus on speed, to stay away from the haunt. Even if he was not a prince, he was a prince. It was the conundrum she wrestled with. Would the wardens kill their prince if they knew a haunt possessed his body? Did Luviara know a way to drive out the haunt, using theurgy? Was Elen willing to stand by and see it done? If it even could be done—and naturally the haunt had said it could not. Wasn’t Elen just as bad as the haunt, by saying nothing and letting him continue to use—to steal—the prince’s body?

Yet. Yet. Yet.

Gesavura’alalin had claimed he needed the prince only to get to the north, and that he would then depart the body, leaving it unharmed. She believed him, maybe for bad reasons and maybe for good ones and maybe for a tangle of both. Maybe she just liked being able to glance back and see him stroking the bark of trees and picking up stray pebbles to caress them between his fingers, to see him smile to himself if he felt her gaze on him; to see him see her. He did not avert his eyes as Kem did every time the lad came close to her. Kem wanted not to see her, as if seeing her wounded him. It was a habit he’d picked up from his mother when she fell into one of her weeks-long sulks, but Elen wasn’t about to remind him of that, and anyway, he wasn’t speaking to her.