more than ever, but I managed a peek at the horizon, and my heart raced with wonder.
The skyline swelled with golden domes and ghostly white high-rises. Mist shrouded the towering city walls, and the Olorun River curved around the city like a steaming blue serpent. When the roads grew too crowded for our mule-and-box, we switched to a tasseled palanquin. I peered, breathless, through the gauzy curtains as runners carried us through the gates and into the city.
Streets and lofty skyways bustled with merchants and pack mules, jeering children and haughty scholars, storytelling priests and streetside hair braiders. Hawkers sold everything from kola nuts to kaftans, caged sprites to mewling hyena cubs. Obsidian tributes to Enoba the Perfect glittered in every square.
The oldest and most wealthy Oluwan families, Kathleen told me, were known as bluebloods: blue, because their skin was so black, it shone like precious cobalt. But as the Arit empire had grown, so too had Oluwan City. Now it sported every complexion under the sun, every tongue, every spice and fabric. Curry, lavender, and cayenne pepper mixed curiously in the air. Tartan wool from the north, silk from the south, and traditional wax-dyed cloth from the center realms hung side by side on clotheslines. Music and dialects from ten thousand miles apart melted together in one deafening din.
“Don’t let her see the Watching Wall,” Kathleen barked as we passed deeper into the city. Woo In obeyed her, seizing my protesting limbs and planting a hand over my eyes. I still managed to peek through his fingers … but I didn’t understand what I saw.
A wall several stories high cut through the city. Murals of crowned figures stared imposingly from the plaster, one of whom I recognized: Enoba Kunleo, the handsome, broad-nosed hero of whom statues were sculpted all over Oluwan. Painted close around him were other men and women, dressed almost as grandly as the emperor. On impulse I counted them: eleven.
Why did that number strike a chord in my memory? The number hung over my head, like a cloud threatening thunder.
Woo In didn’t let go until the streets grew quieter and the houses grander. Among the sound of trickling fountains and satiny murmurs, plump Oluwan bluebloods glided out of villas into palanquins. I noticed with curiosity that Bhekina House had been modeled after Oluwan mansions. White walls and red roofs sparkled proudly in the morning sun.
“This is Ileyoba,” Kathleen murmured, both reverent and wary. “District of the emperor and all who can afford to live near him.” On a green terraced hill, the domes of a sprawling palace rose to the sky. “And that,” Kathleen said, “is An-Ileyoba, where the emperor lives. That’s your last stop, little demon.”
“Why?” I asked, but by then I did not expect an answer. At the palace gates, our palanquin was checked for weapons. Black flags ten stories tall spilled over the sandstone walls of An-Ileyoba. The flags were emblazoned with the imperial Kunleo seal: a swirling gold sun encircled by eleven moons.
“Business?” grunted a guard.
Kathleen pointed at me. “She’s one of the candidates.”
We descended from the palanquin, and the guard waved us into a vast, noisy chamber with yellow suns chiseled into the marble floor. Children from every Arit realm filled the room in various states of undress. Some scrubbed in tubs and were inspected for lice. Others ran drills with wooden spears, or recited poems from scrolls, or plucked frantic scales on instruments. Some even preened before hand mirrors, smiling and simpering, “An honor to meet you, Your Imperial Highness.” Most of them wore black tunics, pinned at the shoulders with polished sun-and-moon clasps. Palace servants in brocaded wrappers supervised the children’s preparations, and once each boy or girl was deemed suitable—for what I didn’t know—guards ushered them into a line, which wound dizzyingly around a stone spiral staircase.
“Age,” a clerk with a large book and quill droned, looking up at me from a low kneeling desk.
“Eleven,” Kathleen replied. “Same age as His Imperial Highness. Her name is Tarisai, and she hails from Swana.”
The clerk peered up at me suspiciously. “Are you sure? She might have a Swanian name, but she looks Oluwani.”
Kathleen prodded me in the back, and I yelped and berated her. My Swanian accent convinced the clerk. He nodded to a gaggle of palace servants, who seized me. I fought back, clinging to Woo In’s hand, but he whispered, “You are on your own now, Lady’s Daughter. We can’t stay.”