am disappointed in you, Lady. Your vain little games have gone too far. You should not play at usurping a crown prince of the empire.’
“‘Usurping?’ stammered The Lady. ‘No. I just—I thought we could be partners.’
“Olugbade laughed quietly. ‘You? Partners with a Raybearer?’
“‘But I have the Ray too,’ she blurted.
“The dining hall went completely silent.
“The Lady gulped, clutching her linen wrapper to keep her hands from shaking. ‘I stole pelican oil from the temple. I anointed my friends because you needed a council, and because … I’m good at ruling people, brother. You’ve had trouble with the Ray. But I haven’t. We could join forces. We could rule as Kunleos. Together.’
“Olugbade’s pupils dilated, and muscles tensed beneath his gold-encrusted tunic. ‘The priests were right,’ he whispered. ‘I should never have kept a girl as a pet. Spoiled her. Let her play at statecraft, humored her …’ He stopped, fists shaking, staring at The Lady with cold determination. ‘You will leave Oluwan by tomorrow morning. You and your traitor friends.’
“The Lady trembled, eyes pooling with disbelief. ‘Leave the realm? But where will we go?’
“‘Out,’ Olugbade snarled in a rare loss of temper, upending the banquet table. The children whom The Lady had anointed flocked to her protection.
“The Lady reached for a child who still lingered behind the table. ‘Come with me, Mbali,’ she said. ‘I can anoint you too. You’re better than this place. Leave him.’
“Young Mbali gazed at The Lady with tortured indecision. ‘I want to help Aritsar,’ she whispered at last. ‘But … I can do better work here, with the prince. Still …’ She glanced nervously back at Olugbade. I believe you, she mouthed at The Lady. You have the Ray too. Then she turned away, going to stand by Olugbade’s side.
“The Lady’s lower lip trembled. ‘You will regret choosing him over me.’
“‘Guards,’ roared Olugbade.
“The Lady and her friends fled from the banquet hall, and were never seen by the palace again. Where The Lady went, or how she survived all these years, is a tale too long for one night. Suffice it to say: The world is not kind to a girl it wishes dead. Years of cruelty soured her own kindness. Her heart calcified to a self-preserving stone. And soon, Arits would trade tales of a strange new cult traveling across the empire: a bandit ring of abandoned, Hallowed children, led by a nameless child queen.
“Eventually, Olugbade’s fear of intimacy lightened. He successfully anointed a council of his own, and in every courtier home, the tale of The Lady was silenced or forgotten.
“But every night, ever since that banquet at the Children’s Palace, the emperor has paced the An-Ileyoba halls, blind and deaf to any who try to comfort him.
“‘She was nothing,’ he repeats, long into the night. ‘Nothing. There is only one.’ He grips the lion mask that hangs around his neck. ‘There is only one.’”
THE POOL RIPPLED, AND OLUGBADE’S TWISTED face disappeared into its depths. I collapsed to my knees, as though only Melu’s voice had kept me upright. The sun had dipped below the horizon, and the living constellations of tutsu provided the only light.
“My mother is a Raybearer.” I said the words, but did not believe them. Craving normalcy, I looked up at Sanjeet. “There are no female Raybearers.” I expected him to nod in agreement. Instead he was frozen, staring at me in wonder.
“I knew it,” he said.
“What in Am’s name is that supposed to mean?”
“I wasn’t sure for a while,” he said, his gaze distant. “That spark, that … heat I saw around you when we first met … it disappeared when you made yourself forget your past. Still, the spark came back, sometimes. When you were very happy, or very angry. I had doubts, but never quite stopped believing …” He laughed, shaking his head. “I was right.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You glow like Dayo,” he said. “The heat that draws people, that makes them want to trust him, follow him … I felt it the first day I met you.”
I staggered to my feet, shaking my head. “That’s treason. Stop it. Believing in folktales won’t do us any—”
“The fire in the Children’s Palace,” he interrupted, pacing. “I thought I was going crazy, or that my eyes were playing tricks on me. You didn’t have a single burn, not one. But it makes sense now,” he said. “You’re immune to fire. You were born that way, just like Dayo was born immune to poison.”