“None of them understood directions as well as Tarisai.”
Directions. I shuddered, wondering how many hidden commands and tests I had already missed. I swallowed hard. “So?” I asked Dayo. “Do you want me to leave?”
He wagged his head. “Never! Can she really stay, Auntie Mbali?” When the priestess nodded, Dayo cried out and tackled me in a hug. “Do you love me now, Tarisai of Swana?”
“Of course not. Stop it.” I snorted, pushing him off. But both of us giggled, breathless with our newfound power. If a member of the Emperor’s Council couldn’t command us, who could?
“Her mind must still connect with your Ray,” Mbali reminded Dayo. “You may not offer Tarisai your hand in councilhood until it does. But give her time. If she succeeds in this and other trials, you may anoint her.”
Anoint her: The words set off warning bells in my head. My happiness cooled.
Dayo bounced up and down after Mbali left. “It’ll be easy, Tarisai. All you have to do is solve puzzles, and learn weapons, and science, and god-studies, and statecraft, and when you finally love me …” From beneath his tunic, he pulled a gold-encrusted vial dangling from a chain around his neck. “Oil from a pelican’s wing,” he said reverently. “If you accept my hand, I’ll anoint you with it. Then you’ll be one of my Eleven. Forever.”
My blood ran hot. The room wheeled as The Lady’s voice broke over me like searing oil:
When he anoints you as his own.
“No,” I rasped. “No!”
Dayo’s face wrinkled in confusion. “Tarisai? What’s wrong? I didn’t mean to …”
His words drowned in the shadows looming around me, voices that invaded my thoughts no matter how tightly I plugged my ears. When you meet this boy in the portrait—when he anoints you as his own—I command you to kill—kill—kill—
“I won’t,” I rasped, swiping at phantom fairies only I could see. “I won’t. You can’t make me.”
“If that’s what you want,” said Dayo, sounding crestfallen. “I can’t force you to join.”
“I didn’t mean you,” I told him. “I meant—” My body broke out in cold sweat as the air hung with the scent of jasmine, filling my nostrils until I gagged. With one last strangled You can’t make me, Mother …, my vision rainbowed, and the room disappeared.
In a dreamworld the color of Swanian grasslands, Melu hovered above me. His spirit rode where his imprisoned body could not go, coursing through riverbanks, seeping into the bedrock of An-Ileyoba Palace. His pleading voice reverberated through the walls: It is a shame you must hurt the boy. But an ehru may not resist a master’s wish. Give in. Give in, daughter, and we will both be free.
“I have no master,” I snarled.
The apparition gave a ghostly sigh, long and grim. Yes, you do.
I AWOKE WITH A LURCH, EXPECTING TO BE blinded by Melu’s cobalt blue wings. But the ehru wasn’t there.
Instead, a pair of lamp-like hazel eyes blinked down at me. Kirah’s red veil wrapped around her hair and neck, nestling her tan, moon-shaped face. Her soothing chant had coaxed me from my nightmare.
“Oh, good.” She laughed. “You’re awake. The way you were twisting and turning, Mama would have said you had a demon. I almost tried a spirit-binding song, and I’m not very good at those.”
At the word demon I shuddered and curled my knees up to my chest. I was still in the enormous hall. We were the only ones present, and it was nighttime. Sconces flickered patterns on the muraled walls. I was lying on Dayo’s sleeping platform, cushioned with panther-fur blankets. Kirah sat on the edge, feet dangling over the side.
“You’ve been out for hours. The prince insisted on giving you his pallet. You’re famous with the other children, you know. The ‘Prince’s Favorite.’” She paused. “Around here, that’s not the safest thing to be.”
“I’m thirsty.” My throat was dry. She handed me a chalice from the floor. I sniffed at the liquid—it was mango juice, pulpy and cool. I sipped, vaguely glad it wasn’t apple. Then slippery white rocks attacked my face.
“Ice,” Kirah informed me. “Weird, right? I hear it keeps meat from going bad. Oluwan imports blocks from places like Nontes and Biraslov—cold realms up north.”
I sucked down the liquid, enjoying the curious chill in my throat. “Where’s everyone else?”
“They’re off solving a puzzle. In the middle of the night! I guess that’s how things are here. We were all sleeping, then we heard drums, and the testmakers made an announcement. They’ve staged a kidnapping of Prince Ekundayo. Whoever finds him gets a chance with Dayo’s Ray. But you didn’t wake up, so I stayed to see if you were all right.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But you’re missing the test.”
She shrugged. “There’ll be others. And it’s not proper to leave the sick unattended. Mama says, ‘A caravan mustn’t travel faster than its slowest camel.’ Besides,” she added with a sheepish smile, “I’m nervous about trying the Ray.”
“You should be,” I snorted. “I never want to try that again.”
Her gaze grew sharp. “Then the rumors are true? The prince really tried the Ray right after meeting you?”
I wrinkled my nose. “It gave me a headache.”
“It’ll feel good after you love him,” Kirah said fervently. “After you’re anointed, you can’t live without the Ray. Even my singing can’t cure council sickness.” She took in my blank expression, then dimpled again. “I forgot you were raised under a rock. When you’re anointed, the Ray binds your body to the council. So if you ever get separated—or abandon the council—you get sick. Sweating, fever. Eventually you go mad.” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “That’s why no council has ever committed treason. And that’s why the Emperor’s Eleven are always together, touching and kissing like that. If they stay apart for long, they get the sickness.”
I shuddered, remembering my feverish sleepwalking through Bhekina House. Did I miss The Lady because I was her daughter, or because I was her ehru?
Maybe all love was a bit like council sickness.
“It’s a great honor to try the Ray,” said Kirah. “If you succeed at uniting minds with the prince, you’re sure to be one of his Eleven. Well. Unless you’re him.” She pointed at a shadow across the room.
I realized with a jolt that we weren’t alone after all.
A tall, broad-backed figure leaned against a pillar, so still that I had mistaken him for a piece of furniture. He faced away from us, hunched, as if in a vain attempt to look smaller.
“What’s a man doing in here?” I whispered.
“He’s not a man.” Kirah snorted through her nose. “He’s just big. I heard he’s only thirteen, a year older than me. Some boys get their grown‑up legs early. It happened to my brothers; their voices got all cracked and funny …” She shot a glance at the hunched boy, then shivered. “I’d feel sorry for him, if he didn’t scare me so much.”