With practice, I could make Sanjeet’s memories disappear for an hour, sometimes a day. But the violent images always returned by nightfall, seeping into Sanjeet’s sunless thoughts.

Sometimes, brighter memories stole through. I saw visions of a young, happier Sanjeet: dancing in time with the bells on his amah’s feet. Balancing with his amah on the back of an elephant as it lumbered through the dusty Dhyrmish streets. His amah taking him to visit the lame in the slums, bandaging sores and resetting bones, encouraging Sanjeet to use his Hallow to diagnose their ailments. His amah letting Sanjeet use his hands to heal … until his father forced them to kill again.

One night, Sanjeet had asked me a different question. “Can you give someone memories?”

I had crossed my arms, unnerved. “You mean make things up? Create memories that never happened? I wouldn’t do that.”

“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncharacteristically shy. “It’s just … you see my story all the time. And I’ve never seen yours.”

I stared, taken aback. “No one’s ever asked me for mine before.” I fidgeted. “Demons aren’t supposed to have nice stories.”

Sanjeet’s thick eyebrows crinkled with laughter. “Trust me, sunshine girl. You’re no demon. I’ve seen too many real monsters to be mistaken.”

I swallowed hard, suppressing The Lady’s voice in my head. I command you to kill … kill—No. That story isn’t mine anymore, I thought fiercely. It’s unwritten.

I took Sanjeet’s broad, russet hand and held it to my cheek. Carefully, I showed him the orchard at Bhekina House, boughs red with sun-kissed mangoes. I showed him my overbearing tutors, hovering as I solved puzzles. I showed him the elephants outside my Bhekina House window, bush sprites teasing their large, silly ears. I showed him Woo In and Kathleen, bickering over my head as we crossed the deserts and mountains into Oluwan.

I did not show him ehrus, or mothers, or wishes.

The more I shared my story, the longer Sanjeet’s unhappy memories stayed away. Some days, he didn’t ask me to erase his stories. He just asked for more of mine.

“I’ll run out of memories to show you,” I warned him, and he shrugged.

“Then I guess we’ll have to make more, sunshine girl.”

After weapons training was over, a palace courier sprinted into the courtyard and bowed curtly, handing a message to one of the drill masters. The master glanced over it, then gestured, stone-faced, at Sanjeet. “It’s for you.” The master hesitated. “Maybe read it in private, son.”

When we returned to the Children’s Palace for our next barrage of lessons and testing, Sanjeet was nowhere to be found. His face remained on my mind as I solved the day’s allotted riddles and logic puzzles. Thanks to Bhekina House, the tasks had never been difficult, and rarely required my full attention.

“What do you think happened to Sanjeet?” I whispered to Kirah as drums pounded through the Children’s Palace. We were returning to the Hall of Dreams, lining up for the afternoon catechism.

She shook her head, looking worried. “He wasn’t at lunch. Jeet would never leave Dayo unattended this long—not unless something bad happened.”

Before we could speculate more, a pair of griot priests with oiled beards entered the Hall. They took their usual place on the dais, and we candidates stood on our mats, Kirah leaving me to take her place by Dayo’s side. Drums beat out the introduction for the day’s catechism: T-dak-a, t-dak-a. Gun, bow-bow-bow. Hear the sacred story of creation. I struggled to keep my thoughts off Sanjeet as the griots performed, pausing for the traditional call-and-response.

“Queen Earth and King Water are lovers,” sang one priest as the other kept time on an hourglass-shaped talking drum. “Their children are many. Trees. Rivers. Creatures that creep, ke-du, ke-du, and swim, shwe, shwe. They are weak and dumb of speech. But are Earth and Water lonely? Tell me.” No, we chorused around the room, they have a friend. “Aheh!” the priest continued. “The Pelican glides from star to star, shaking stories from its wings—whoom, whoom, to fill a thousand worlds. The Pelican is older than Earth and Water, older even than the sun. It does not always have wings and a bill. Sometimes it has hooves and a tail, or paws and a mane, or no body at all. Who is the Pelican?” Am the Storyteller. “Yes, Am, called Was, called Will Be. Watch, now: The Pelican moves through time like wind, with as many names as it has feathers. What name shall you call it? Choose wisely, for names have power.

“High above Earth and Water floats Empress Sky. She gazes below and teems—gnatche, gnatche, with jealousy. Before Earth gave her heart to Water, she was Sky’s beloved sister. Now Sky is lonely in her airy realm, and bitter. What does she do? Tell me.” She challenges King Water. “Yes, to a duel. The heavens howl—hawawa, hawawa, and oceans churn, bushe, bushe. The war of Empress Sky and King Water rages for seven thousand years. Earth feels neglected by both husband and sister. See her take on a new lover: the handsome Warlord Fire.

“The children of Earth and Fire multiply throughout the realm, fierce and strong. Volcanoes! Dragons! Rubies and mountains of coal. Water realizes the children are not his own. He abandons Earth in anger, and her lakes dry up, hasse, hasse. Her fields turn to desert. See Earth begin to die. Who shall come to aid her?” The Pelican. “Yes, the Pelican hovers over Earth. See it pierce its own breast to nourish her! Shaa, shaa—watch the Pelican’s blood fall, filling the parched places. And what now? New children are born. Fashioned from the clay of Earth, and brought to life by the blood of the Pelican.” Humankind. “Yes, the first living people. Water reconciles with Earth, promising to raise her new children as his own. Are the children strong?” Yes, and clever. “Aheh. But Fire is jealous. He is angered by Earth’s union with Water and her friendship with the Pelican. So he curses humankind with thirteen ways to die. Once gods, they are mortals now, weak as beasts. What shall they do? Who will lead them? Tell me.” The Raybearer! “Aheh! See the Pelican steal Rays from the sun, blessing the first emperor with wisdom and compassion. ‘You must choose eleven brothers and sisters,’ it tells the emperor, shaking oil from its wings. ‘For every brow you anoint, you will gain immunity to one of the thirteen deaths. Choose well, Emperor—for to the world, you will be as a god, but to your council, you will yet be a mortal man.’ Aheh, aheh.” It is done.

The myth was ancient—except for the Raybearer part, which had been added only five hundred years ago, when the Kunleos formed the empire. After finishing the story, the priests made us recite the thirteen causes of mortal death. Poison, contagion, gluttony, we chanted. Burning, drowning, suffocation. Bleeding, beast mauling, disaster. Organ-death, witches’ hexes. Battery, old age. Raybearers were blessed with only one immunity at birth. But after anointing a full council of eleven, only old age could kill them—unless, of course, one of their council members turned traitor.

“Hear the duties of the future emperor’s sacred council,” intoned the male priest after the lesson. My fingers drummed the side of my thigh: I had been made to hear these words hundreds of times before. “The Eleven must wield their titles of power fairly and without bias. The Eleven must serve the emperor first, then the empire, and then their realms of origin. Outside the council, they must form no attachments. Inside the council, no attachment may outweigh their loyalty to the future emperor. Carnal relations are prohibited, except with the future emperor.” Titters rippled across the room. Involuntarily, I remembered the hollow of a russet back, glistening with sweat and clay. I shook my head to clear it, grateful, for the first time that afternoon, that Sanjeet was absent.

“Hear the duties of the future emperor,” the priest continued, bowing to Dayo. “His Highness is not permitted to marry. Instead, His Highness must anoint and protect a trusted council, through which he shall serve the empire. His Highness must select his council sisters with special care”—the priest leered over the female candidates—“for they will birth all future Raybearers.”

I grimaced. The priest made us sound more like a harem than a sacred council. I raised my hand and blurted, “What happens when there’s an empress?”

Several lines wrinkled the priest’s protruding brow. “As I have said: Arit emperors do not marry. Such a union would interfere with the balance of council power—”

“No,” I cut in. “I meant, what about when the Raybearer’s a girl?”

The priest inhaled, summoning patience, then smiled. “There are no female Raybearers, child. Am has always chosen a man. That does not mean, of course, that female council members have no value. After all, you might bear a Raybearer.” He winked at me. “The empire would be forever in your debt.”

BEFORE I COULD RESPOND, MY CHEST BEGAN to burn.