Chapter 34This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
—Dalai Lama
8500 BCE
Site of modern-day Karahan Tepe
I, Amanta, high priestess of the Followers of Illyana, am soon to be their last high priestess. As my mother told me, as her mother had told her, our priestess ancestry dates back five thousand generations to the revered and divine Nanshe, who first touched the object and first communed with the voice. I am the great-granddaughter of the fifteenth Nanshe, the great mother. I am granddaughter of the seventh Ki, the great huntress.
Today I celebrate my thirtieth sun cycle. Like my mother and her mother before her, I decided on my own not to marry until later in
