“Jealous of a statue?” he asked, and picked her up. “A man likes something softer and warmer than marble—no matter how beautiful.”

She let him carry her up the stairs of the dais and through the half-hidden door beyond. He took her through the halls and into a room built around a serene pool. The afternoon light reflected off the water from hidden skylights, giving the walls a dappled appearance.

“I remember that this was always my favorite room,” she said, as he laid her on one of the thick mats that covered the ground.

The Guardian buried his face under her hair, between her neck and shoulder, and inhaled. “I love your scent,” he growled.

“Wait,” she said, pulling away from him.

He let her go, though his hands clenched, and he grimaced.

“I have to tell you,” she said. “I have to tell Jes.”

“Jes is listening,” rumbled the Guardian, rolling until he was on his belly, his face hidden in his arms. “That is the best we can do right now.”

Hennea sat up and rubbed his back, then pulled her hand back because it was distracting to touch him and feel him shaking with passion under her fingers—and she needed him to understand just what she was before he made such a commitment to her.

“There were six of us in the days of Colossae. Raven, Eagle, Owl, Cormorant, Lark, and Falcon. We kept the world safe by the balance of our powers.”

She folded her legs and made herself small as she organized her newfound memories and composed a story that would make sense to Jes without losing itself in useless details.

“Colossae was my city, and I loved her. I loved the wizards who lived in her. They asked me for power, and I gave it to them.”

The Guardian turned onto his side so he could watch her. His body was relaxing slowly from the tension of passion.

“The only thing I loved more than my city was my Consort. We were created for each other. There was balance between us: Eagle for Raven, Owl for Cormorant, and Lark for Hunter. Then my wizards, using the power I gave them, killed my Eagle.”

“How?” The Guardian’s breathing had picked up, but not from passion.

“Like the Path took the Order from its bearer, the greedy wizards stole the Eagle’s power. They died in the doing, but it killed my beloved, too.”

He turned his gaze to the pool of water, his face neutral, she could not read what he thought.

“The power we held was immortal, Jes, but we learned that we were not immune to the Stalker’s gift. We lived, the six of us, to keep the greater gods in check. Our world is old and brittle; if the power of the Weaver and the Stalker were loosed upon it now, it would shatter like an old, dry pot. We maintained the balance that kept the gods bound.”

“One of you died.” It was Jes who spoke now, though she could feel the Guardian’s presence in the chill that raised goose bumps on her arms.

She nodded. “When the war god was murdered, the Elder gods stirred. People died all over the world. The old god’s power is involuntary, like the dread that always hangs about the Guardian whether he wills it or not: the Weaver creates, and the Stalker destroys, they have no choice. It’s what they are. They came to us, those of us who still lived, and asked us to help them restore the balance.”

“To sacrifice Colossae.”

“The bindings that kept the Elder gods in check were failing, day by day, because there was no balanced outlet for their power. We had two problems to fix. We needed to create a new binding and a new balance. Colossae’s sacrifice was necessary to create the binding—as long as she stands frozen, so will the gods be bound.”

“But one of the gods was dead, so there could be no balance.”

“That’s right.” It sounded like a story, Hennea thought, except she could remember it as if it had happened yesterday. “The Lark suggested the Weaver create a new Eagle.”

Even so many years later the rage she’d felt at that—as if her beloved were no more than a broken bowl that could be replaced with a potter’s wheel and kiln—was hot in her breast.

“Why didn’t he?”

“He couldn’t,” she said. “The immortal power of the Eagle was still here, hosted in the mind of a child born the day my beloved died and held to sleep by the Lark. My beloved would not release his power, and not even the Weaver or the Stalker could force him to do so.”

“I was so angry with them all.” She remembered holding her grief and guilt and hiding them behind her anger. “It was my fault,” she whispered. “And it was for me to correct though we would all pay the price for my folly.”

“What did you do?”

“The Orders were created before the wizards left Colossae, Jes. I made them. I took the powers of my fellow gods and tore them from their bodies as my beloved’s power had been torn from him. Because I was the goddess of magic, I could take them cleanly, pure power with nothing of the soul clinging to them. But I could not take them without killing the gods.”

She closed her eyes and remembered how it was, working magic with a pale and shuddering Hinnum, who aided her in doing what must be done. “They sacrificed themselves because five gods could not hold the bindings and keep the Elder gods confined, but if I took our power and divided it and bound it to mortals, then the balance would be served.”

“So Colossae died to confine the powers of the Elder gods, and the Orders were created to keep them confined.”

“Yes,” whispered Hennea.

Silence grew until Jes looked at her instead of the pool. “You didn’t stop us for this.”

She shook her head, but she couldn’t bear telling him yet, so she shared the lesser of the evils she was responsible for. “I was supposed to die, too, Jes. Hinnum helped me divide my power and create the Ravens, leaving only what I needed to direct the spells that sacrificed Colossae. I think that my survival is why the Shadowed is able to draw power from the Stalker. My survival left a hole in the bindings.”

Jes sat up abruptly and gathered her into his arms, but she had the feeling his attention was on his own internal dialogue. “No,” the Guardian said after a moment. “It wasn’t your life. You were the Raven, and had the Raven survived, it would have destroyed the balance. A Raven survived, Hennea, but not the Raven.”

She considered his words carefully, but could find no flaw in his argument. “All right,” she whispered. “All right. But something went wrong.”

“Hennea?” he asked, his lips against her ear. “Why is the Eagle Order different?”

“My fault,” she said, glad he’d found the worst of her crimes before she’d had to confess. “It is my fault, and I beg your forgiveness.”

Jes held still behind her, but he didn’t push her away when she leaned against him. “When my sisters and brothers died, their spirits and body fell away, leaving only their power behind. When the wizards murdered the Eagle, they ripped his power and spirit from his body together. I could have divided his power into such small sparks it would have been no more than a glint in the eye that gave a person just an extra mote of courage or strength. And they would never have felt the remnant that was Him, and not just his power. I could have given him into the care of the warrior born, let loose his gifts on the field of battle. But this was my beloved.”

“So what did you do?”

Surely he knew, she thought, but she owed it to him to confess her guilt in full.

“I divided his power until his rage at his murder was small enough it did not instantly overwhelm the mortal who would hold it, then I gave him to the only people who could know what it was they held. The only people who might comfort him.”

“Empaths like Jes,” said the Guardian.

She nodded, awaiting his judgment. He pulled her into his lap and rocked a little as he thought.

“If,” whispered the Guardian “if you had given me a warrior to bind to, blood would have flowed like rivers until there were none more to kill. I remember generations of being only rage, incapable of coherent thought. Without Jes to love me, that is all I would ever be.”