own past beyond five years ago, when she first came to the Children’s Palace? What in Am’s name had Thaddace been thinking?
I could refuse to accept. But the Emperor’s Council had deliberated for months, and my rejection would start the process all over again. After getting their hopes up for Yorua Keep, my council would have to return to the Children’s Palace—and even then, the results might be the same.
So I rose from my stool, clasped my hands to hide their shaking, and rasped, “I accept my title as High Judge Apparent.” Then I bent my head for the heavy gold circlet.
“You’ll have to take off the flowers first, Anointed Honor,” murmured the secretary.
I had forgotten Ye Eun’s lily-of-the-valley crown. As I removed them and the delegate crowned me, the Redemptor girl’s trusting, inquisitive features flashed in my mind. As High Lady Judge, I could influence the terms of the Redemptor Treaty. If I could help children like Ye Eun … maybe being High Lady Judge wouldn’t be that bad.
The rest of the ceremony passed in a blur. A smug Mayazatyl was appointed future High Lady of Castles, head of defense and civil engineering. Ai Ling, Hallowed with formidable powers of persuasion, was appointed future High Lady Ambassador, in charge of interrealm trade. Umansa, who could read vague fortunes in the stars, would be High Lord Treasurer, and Zathulu, with his bookish head for facts, would be a competent High Lord Archdean. Thérèse, our Hallowed green thumb, was destined to be High Lady of Harvests; and Kameron, who had routinely snuck dubious animal rescues into the Children’s Palace, happily accepted his future as High Lord of Husbandry. Mysterious Emeronya would regulate sorcery as High Lady Magus, and as future High Lord Laureate, bleeding-heart poet Theo would curate the art and music of all twelve realms.
When all of us were crowned, I allowed myself to relax. Our exhausting journey of diplomacy was almost over. Dayo would conduct the Peace Ritual with the continent ambassadors. Then our council would whisk away via lodestone to Yorua Keep, with nothing to do but study scrolls, play house, and throw sumptuous parties for decades to come.
Priests swept the four corners of the temple, ritually cleansing the chamber. Dayo, the eleven Arit ambassadors, and a royal emissary from Songland came to stand at the altar. A child choir of acolytes sprinkled myrrh around the marble platform and harmonized in rounds:
Sharp and cold the world received you
Warm with blood it sends you home
Back to earth, to holy black
Dark to dark:
Beginning and beginning.
On the altar rested a gourd flask and an ancient oval shield, which had once belonged to Enoba the Perfect. In one year, the thirteen continent rulers would travel to the capital and spill their blood into the shield’s basin, renewing humankind’s vow with the Underworld to uphold the Redemptor Treaty. In today’s ceremony, the Peace Ritual, Dayo, the ambassadors, and the emissary would spill water instead of blood, a good-faith promise that their realms would participate in the official renewal.
“To beginnings,” cheered the ambassadors as one by one they spilled water into the shield, sealing their commitment. First to approach were the ambassadors from the center realms—Djbanti, Nyamba, and Swana—then those from the north—Mewe, Nontes, and Biraslov. Ambassadors from the south, Blessid Valley, Quetzala, and Sparti, and from the east, Moreyao and Dhyrma, were next in line. Then came the emissary from Songland.
He was a bent old man in a sweeping, high-waisted robe who grimaced as he poured into the shield. “To beginnings,” he wheezed. “Songland shall participate in the Treaty Renewal. May it bring peace to our world. And may the parents of the lost children be comforted.”
The onlookers squirmed uncomfortably. The last words had not been scripted into the ritual, though no one dared chastise the emissary.
We all knew that Redemptors had once been born at equal rates throughout the continent. It was horrible that Redemptor children were now born exclusively in Songland, but for the most part, the continent rulers accepted this phenomenon as fate.
Why had Ye Eun thought I could change that?
Songland had tried to boycott the Treaty several times. But the Underworld would not be pacified unless every realm participated in the Treaty ritual. Whenever Songland resisted, the continent crawled with deadly plagues and monsters until at last Songland complied, grimly sending three hundred Redemptors into the Breach each year.
Dayo was last to pour water, representing both Oluwan and the empire of Aritsar. Then one of the choir children gave