Most murals portrayed a story, usually a battle or a coronation. The Imperial Library ceiling, now heavily faded, portrayed two overlapping gold discs, bordered by a multicomplexioned circle of linking hands.
“Who painted that?” I asked the chief librarian, trying to remember where I’d seen the image before. “Do you know what it means?”
The heavily robed man frowned, scratching his graying head. “I’m afraid not, Anointed Honor. The mural was commissioned by Aiyetoro, back when the Imperial Library was first being built. Most of the relevant documents vanished over centuries ago.”
“Aiyetoro?” I echoed. I remembered then where I had seen the symbol of discs and linking hands: tanned faintly into the border of Aiyetoro’s drum. “She built the Imperial Library?”
The librarian frowned more deeply, nodding. “Yes. Making knowledge accessible to the public was very important to Aiyetoro Kunleo. Too important, in my frank opinion. Knowledge, after all, is dangerous in the hands of the wrong people.”
“Like an empress who isn’t supposed to exist?”
“Beg pardon, Anointed Honor?”
“Never mind.” From somewhere in the vast building, I heard a familiar ring of voices that filled me with longing and dread. They were here: my anointed siblings, chattering and laughing. I prayed they wouldn’t see me as I followed the chief librarian, who ushered me to a private study.
The cramped room was lamplit and strewn with lion pelts. In the center, a mahogany kneeling desk curved around a large red seat cushion.
“His Anointed Honor, the High Lord Judge, has been so considerate as to assist you in gathering sources,” said the librarian, gesturing to the books and papers piled on the desk. “He sends his regrets that he cannot join you. Complications regarding the Unity Edict’s enforcement have kept him … occupied.” The librarian bowed smartly and instructed my attendants to wait outside my study door, and fetch more dusty tomes if I needed them. Then he left me alone.
With a sigh, I knelt behind the cold desk on the stiff tasseled cushion. The stacks of books and records had been neatly labeled. I peered at the note on the first pile: Treason laws, Enoba era to present. Books lay beneath with binding so thick, it had been fortified with leather string. The next pile was shorter, but the label made me uneasy: Disorders of the mind. Case studies: madness and acts of violence. Case studies: delusions of grandeur, belief in self as god; belief in descent from royal blood. The last stack was made entirely of scrolls and letters—and labeled with four words:
Lady X: exile years.
I tore into that pile, devouring the scrolls, hungry to fill in the gaps of my mother’s story. But even after hours, it felt even more piecemeal than before. The documents were varied: half-burnt letters, spy logs, pages from decades-old diaries. One sheet appeared to be a portrait of The Lady above a manifesto in Songul, the prevalent tongue of Songland. The paper was water-damaged, and my Songul was remedial, but I recognized the Arit words divine right and liberator. When my stomach gurgled for lunch, the palm oil lamp wicks now half their original length, I had more questions than when I began.
Council sickness made my vision blur. I had not seen Sanjeet for hours, and nausea threatened to blossom into a headache. But when someone cleared their throat behind the study’s woven door, the pain between my temples mysteriously faded.
“Come in,” I said, and my spirits rose when a round, cheery face peered around the frame.
“Heard a rumor you were hiding in here,” Kirah announced, teetering beneath the weight of several books as she burst through the door flap. She wore a gauzy priestess’s kaftan, and looked well rested. Reuniting with Dayo and our council siblings had agreed with her. She dumped the books into a pile, dusted off her hands, and collapsed beside me at the desk. “Thought you could use some reinforcements.”
“Thaddace gave me more than enough,” I groaned, and then noticed the titles on Kirah’s stack. Arit Imperial Policies: the Aiyetoro Era. Genealogy of the Kunleos. The Peace Age: A Treatise on the Preservation of the Oluwan Economy Under the Reign of Aiyetoro. “Oh.”
“I heard about your First Ruling. Maybe proving The Lady’s lineage will delay the trial. I know you weren’t close with her, but …” Her expression grew stormy. “No one should have to kill their own mother. Am’s Story, it’s so cruel. How could the emperor …” She trailed off. On the theater of her face, I watched Kirah’s anger battle