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the palace supported by the temple and the temple supported by the palace, one unable to exist without the architecture of the other.
    “Sit here,” said Captain Sharahosh, perhaps the tenth and eleventh words he had spoken to them in their days together. He dismissed his soldiers but left the Qin riders waiting in the hot sun in the dusty courtyard as he vanished beyond a more humble gate.
    In the Hundred, of course, the temples of the seven gods were the pillars that supported the land, and the tales wove the land into a single cloth. Or so the priests of the seven gods would say. And they had to say so. They had to believe, just as the priests of Beltak had to believe. What were they, after all, if the gods meant nothing?
    Kesh had all along prayed at dawn and at night with the empire men while Eliar and the Qin soldiers had stood aside insilence. But he did not believe, and Beltak did not strike him down, and the priest accompanying the soldiers did not see into his heart and know he was lying.
    “Do you think they will kill us now?” Eliar muttered.
    “They could have killed us before, if they meant to kill us. Anyway, we are simply merchants, traveled to Sarida to turn a profit.”
    Eliar wiped sweat from his forehead. “You’re right.”
    “Right about what?”
    “Don’t you recall what you said when we were waiting in the courtyard in Sarida? It looked exactly like this one, didn’t it?”
    Would the cursed man never stop chattering about his own gods-rotted fears?
    “You said people will renounce the truth if it will give them an advantage to do so. And then they convince themselves that what they wish to be true is the truth.” He twisted his silver bracelets as though twisting his thoughts around and around. “Folk tell themselves what they want to hear. I traded my sister’s happiness for my own—or what I thought would be my own happiness. Now I’m ashamed.”
    The tone of his voice seared Keshad. If they could join together and find some way to free her from the unwanted marriage, then surely they would be allies, not enemies. “Eliar,” he began, but faltered, not knowing what to say or how to say it.
    Eliar brushed at his eyes with a hand.
    In the shadows off to the right, tucked away in an alcove unnoticed until now, a door opened. Captain Sharahosh beckoned, his face impassive. Kesh cast a glance toward the Qin soldiers. He had a crazy idea of calling to them for help. Surely if he invoked Captain Anji’s name and lineage—the nephew of your var!—they would sweep him and Eliar up and gallop away to safety.
    But these were not Anji’s men. These men belonged to someone else, perhaps to the var, who had according to Captain Anji’s account tried to have his nephew murdered over a year ago. That very plot had precipitated Anji’s journey to the Hundred.
    Over a year ago, the Sirniakan civil war had not quite yet begun, although surely it was then brewing. The Qin var, it seemed, had chosen to back Farazadihosh. But that being so, then why was a Qin company riding like allies beside troops loyal to Farujarihosh, the prince who had rebelled against and killed his cousin, wresting from him the imperial throne?
    “At once,” said the captain.
    They crossed under the lintel into darkness. A lamp flared. By its light, they descended a long flight of stone steps and, reaching the limit of the lamp’s illumination, halted. The lamp sputtered and died, and a second lamp bloomed ahead. They walked down a corridor, lamps flaring and dying at intervals. Blackness unrelieved by daylight dogged them before and behind. The walls were painted in an elaborate hunting scene, but Kesh glimpsed only snatches of color, of a white hare, a gold lion, a red deer, and a green bird, each transfixed by an arrow. They walked thus a full ten lamps of distance. Captain Sharahosh uttered no words, nor did he deem it necessary to defend himself against them or even once look back to make sure they were following.