Grand Vizier Jeneba began the interrogation anew, and Karina cut in, “Not that this hasn’t been a thoroughly traumatizing day, but I am going to bed now. Someone please alert me when we have a breakthrough on the whole ‘who keeps trying to kill me’ front.”

“With all due respect, Your Highness, it is rather early to turn in. There is still work to be done tonight,” said the grand vizier. Karina knew the woman was right, but the condescending tone with which she spoke made Karina determined to defy her.

“I have almost died twice in twenty-four hours. You can take your respect to the dung heap, for that is how much worth it has to me at the moment.”

With that, Karina stormed off and did not stop storming until she reached her bedroom. She unstrapped Baba’s oud from her back and placed it gently atop its stand. And then she placed her head in her hands and screamed in frustration.

Three times now she had looked death in the face. First on the night of Baba and Hanane’s deaths, then again during her mother’s assassination, and now today on the crumbling ruins of the Widow’s Fingers. Three times her life had been on the line, and she had been powerless to do anything.

No longer. Even without The Tome of the Dearly Departed, she was going to find a way to complete the Rite of Resurrection. This time, she was the one aiming for death, and she would be sure not to miss.

Karina had read over the Rite of Resurrection until the words had imprinted into her mind, but she had not had time to read the other entries in the book. She turned to the small collection of tomes and scrolls given to her by her tutors, most of which had never been read before that moment. Her neck ached as she flipped frantically from page to page; perhaps she had brushed off Farid’s concerns of a concussion far too soon. But Karina didn’t have time for healing, not when someone had tried to kill her for the second time in as many days, not when the Kestrel rotted further with every second that passed.

Whoever had tried to kill her today had better hope they succeeded the next time, because she was going to murder them with her bare hands if their paths ever crossed again.

Karina was three-quarters of the way through an essay on divination as a source of healing when Aminata approached.

“You should rest,” said the maid. The signal for the end of the First Challenge had just sounded; dawn was here, which meant she’d spent her entire night reading.

“Later,” Karina said through gritted teeth. Not a single book she owned mentioned nkra. Why was forbidden magical knowledge so damned hard to find?

She began the next entry—“The Many Uses of Ivory as a Nullifier”—when Aminata wrenched the book from her hands. Karina dove for the tome, but Aminata was taller and merely raised it out of her reach.

“I’ll have your head for this,” Karina roared.

“No, you won’t,” Aminata snapped with just as much force.

Most of the time, Aminata was a docile person who did what was asked of her without complaint. But in moments like these, a different side of her came forward, one that hid a steely resolve that would have scared even the fiercest Sentinel.

Defeated, Karina looked down at her hands, where she swore she could see the remains of the stallion’s blood even though she had washed them several times. Her eyes suddenly burned, but she would have let the bush walkers take her before she let a single tear fall. Aminata placed the book on the table and approached her slowly, displaying her Water Alignment emblem in a gesture of peace.

“The world won’t end just because you take some time to care for yourself.”

Karina nodded, the fight drained out of her. Without the frantic energy that had sustained her search for the meaning of nkra, all that remained was the memory of the accident—the bone-shaking slam of the carriage crashing into the bridge wall, the sharp pain in her neck as the ground became the sky, the horrible shrieks of the bush walkers as they dove for her throat. In her confusion, the bush walkers had morphed into the assassin from the Kestrel’s garden, and now images of both threats tearing into her would not stop running through her head.

Aminata was right. The world would last a single morning without her. And if it didn’t, well, that was hardly her problem.

So Karina sat still as her maid twisted her hair for bed. The smell of shea butter and argan oil wafted through the air as Aminata separated Karina’s coils into two-strand twists.

“Are you going to address the elephant in the room, or shall I?” asked Aminata.

“My rooms are quite large, but I don’t think an elephant would fit.”

“Very funny. You really weren’t going to tell me you were getting married as the Solstasia prize?”

Karina’s eyes flew open. Just like that, her problems had returned.

“I only found out yesterday.” Technically, that wasn’t a lie.

“And you aren’t opposed to this?”

“What does it matter if I am? I’m not in the best position to question my mother’s decisions.”

“As if that has ever stopped you.” Aminata shook her head and applied more pomade to the next twist. “Does this mean the Second Challenge is going to be the Champions catching the moon for you, as you requested during the comet viewing?”

Karina grimaced. Of course word of that had spread.

She’d always assumed that she’d marry whoever the Kestrel thought was the most politically strategic match for Ziran. When you were royalty, it was best to keep love and marriage as far away from each other as possible, as the latter was often just a means to an end.

Aminata continued, “And what if the Fire Champion, that Dedele girl, wins? Will you still marry her?”

Karina shrugged. “I wouldn’t be the first queen to have a wife.”

“True, but the others wanted wives, and you’ve never showed any interest in one.”

“I’d take a kind wife over a horrible husband.”

Aminata had a point—the Rite of Resurrection had specified the heart of a king, and in those days, only men had been allowed to rule. Because of Kennoua’s ridiculous obsession with patriarchal succession, she needed to ensure that one of the boys won—she didn’t want to risk seeing if using the heart of someone of a different gender would still activate the magic. She’d need to keep an eye on Dedele, the remaining female Champion, in case she got too close to the prize. Ugh, as if she didn’t already have enough to do.

This was the last thought Karina had as her head hit the pillow. Not even a minute later, she was gone, pulled into the kind of deep slumber only life-threatening terror could summon.

“You’re never going to get anywhere fighting like that, baby bird.”

Karina glowered into the dust as Hanane towered over her and laughed. They were in the Kestrel’s garden amidst a host of weeping pines, and the early morning sun cast a hazy glow over the elder princess’s freckled face and gleaming silver hair, several shades lighter than Karina’s own.

“That’s not fair, you cheated!” cried Karina. Hanane always did this when they played wakama, their favorite sport. Karina’s sister was bigger and taller and had no qualms about using dirty tricks, which was why she had won every match they’d ever played.

“Life is full of cheaters,” said Hanane as Karina picked her staff off the ground and lunged clumsily. “If you’re playing fair, you’re not playing to win.”

In one motion, Hanane hooked her ankle around Karina’s and swept her off her feet. Karina went tumbling down, but her sister caught her before she hit the ground and began to tickle her mercilessly. Karina’s annoyance gave way to roaring laughter even as her sides began to hurt because she could never stay mad at her sister, her conniving, mischievious sunbeam of a sister and—

Oh. She was dreaming.

Karina probably should have woken herself up then, but she let herself live in the dream for a just a moment longer. She and Hanane lounged among the orchids and dipped their toes into pools filled with white lilies. Hanane babbled on and on, and in the way people in dreams sometimes do, their family appeared around them out of thin air. If Karina had not known it was a dream before, she would have known now—not because Baba and Hanane were alive or because Farid looked relaxed for once, but because her mother was smiling and laughing, her silver hair bouncing freely down her back.

Music began to play—from where and by whom, Karina did not know. Her family danced, and they tossed her between them effortlessly in time to this melody they all seemed to know except her. She wished it would never end, her bouncing from the safety of one pair of arms to the next. But then she whirled back to Hanane, who held on far too tightly. Her warm brown eyes were full of laughter as she tossed Karina into the air.