don’t Blessids ever let women lead the caravans? They do just as much work as the men.’ Or, ‘Why do Blessids wash their hands after trading with other realms? Those people are no dirtier than we are.’ And Mama cries and says, ‘Where did my Kirah go? Who is this sneering girl who spits on her home, who questions her elders? Does the world love you better than your family? Does it swaddle you at night, and fill your belly with goat’s milk? Where is my Kirah?’
“And I say, ‘I’m here, Mama’—but I’m not.” Kirah bit back a sob. “I’m far away, Tarisai. From all of them. And the more I learn, the farther I feel. I don’t know where home is anymore.”
I took her hand in mine. We sat in silence, watching the clouds fade to purple, and the torches flickering for miles across the city, like golden prayers in the dark.
I was not an Anointed One, and so my sleeping mat was far away from Dayo’s platform and the pallets encircling it. But every night—after the candidate-minders had retired to bed, leaving the Hall of Dreams unattended—I embraced my popular role as Dream Giver to the Prince’s Council.
“I want steamy dreams this time,” said Mayazatyl, propping herself up on her pallet with one hand. She grinned at me, wrinkling the red bar tattooed across her nose. “Can you manage that?” Mayazatyl was Dayo’s council sister from the rainforest realm of Quetzala. She was a prodigy of architecture and weapon design … and equally skilled at amassing love notes from tormented candidates.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. But I’m not putting in anyone we know.”
She winked. “Once Dayo completes his council and they send us to Yorua Keep, we’ll be locked in that castle a long time, you know. When you finally let Dayo anoint you, you’ll have to be less of a prude.”
I looked away, wincing at finally. I was still cursed by The Lady, and until I found a way to break it—to protect Dayo—there would be no anointing. “Go to sleep, Maya.”
She hastened her slumber by chewing kuso-kuso leaves, and when her chest rose in snores, I touched the top of her silky black hair. I gave her a silly, made‑up memory of a handsome warrior stumbling upon her bathing. She subdued him with a crossbow she had designed herself, then seduced him as she nursed his wound. Mayazatyl snuggled into the pallet, sighing contentedly.
To Kirah, I gave dreams of her mama and baba, who kissed her cheeks and stroked her hair, and said they weren’t angry about her leaving them. For Kameron, Dayo’s rugged council brother from Mewe, I fabricated a pack of hunting dogs, nipping cheerfully at his ankles as he tracked a boar in the forest. Dreams of blooming roses were for Thérèse from Nontes. Adoring crowds were for Ai Ling from Moreyao, and handsome swains for Theo from Sparti. To Umansa, a blind weaver boy from Nyamba, I gave new patterns for his tapestries, swirling them around him in a brilliant prism. Finally, to hard-faced Emeronya from Biraslov, I gave flurries of sweet-tasting snow and a wizened woman who wrapped her in wool, humming a dissonant lullaby.
Dayo’s sleeping platform was empty. I stared at the satin pillows and panther coverlets, remembering my first day in the Children’s Palace, when Dayo had let me sleep there. For weeks afterward, he had insisted I share the platform with him, and I had pressed my head against his, feeding dreams into his brow.
Sighing, I made my way through the maze of mats to a window alcove in the corner: the same place I had found him hiding years before. The curtain was drawn, and a shadow sprawled on the broad sill behind it.
“It’s weird how often you go back here,” I told the shadow, poking it through the curtain. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall off the ledge?”
The damask screen pushed back an inch. I passed inside, climbing onto the cushioned ledge. The window was unglazed, and so we were exposed on one side to balmy night air.
Dayo didn’t look up when I sat across from him. His hair stuck out in locs. The laces of his nightshirt lay undone, exposing his collarbone as he cupped an object in his hands.
“You shouldn’t have that out, you know,” I whispered. “It’s dangerous.”
The mask was slightly smaller than his palm, and carved to resemble a young lion. A word in the tongue of old Oluwan was engraved on its