Someone had heaped coals over my heart. The heat came from inside, a dragon, a demon throbbing to get out. I gasped, clutching at my heart and sweating, glancing around and hoping no one noticed.

The moment the priest looked away, I ran from the Hall of Dreams, sandals pounding the stone until I reached the banquet chamber. Pitchers of water and cordial from our last meal still rested on the long, low tables. I seized one and poured out the water, careful to keep the ice in the pitcher. Then I lay on the floor and dumped the cubes onto my chest. The cold stung viciously; I gritted my teeth to keep from howling.

This had happened before. The surges of heat had tripled in frequency once I moved to the Children’s Palace. They had first begun at Bhekina House, when I was prone to tantrums. Now the burning in my chest was unpredictable, though it often flared during catechism. Sometimes I woke from dreams I didn’t understand, from memories that seeped from the Children’s Palace floor, with the ghosts of girls who had features eerily similar to my own.

I shivered, willing away tears as I stared at the muraled ceiling. Did these attacks have something to do with The Lady? With the ugly truth of who—of what—I was?

Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside, and I sat up, cubes spilling into my lap. A face appeared in the banquet chamber doorway.

“Am’s Story, Tar,” exclaimed Kirah. “Did it happen again?”

I nodded sheepishly. She came to help me up, brushing ice chips from my tunic. “You should talk to the healers. Maybe they can—”

“There’s nothing they can do,” I said shortly, avoiding her gaze. The last thing I needed were palace physicians, poking around in my half-ehru insides.

Kirah pressed her lips together. “Well, you can’t keep missing catechism,” she warned. “The testmakers will start to talk. Next time, try to wait until sunset. I could sing to you then.”

It was our ritual: Every dusk, we stole away from the tests and prying eyes of the Children’s Palace, away to the An-Ileyoba rooftops, where we watched the sky turn shades of fire.

I only shrugged, and Kirah sighed as we left the banquet chamber. Before we could escape, one more trial awaited us: the daily Prince’s Court.

No place made me feel more distant from Dayo than the Children’s Palace throne room. I stood, invisible among the other candidates in the chamber of mirrored ceiling tiles and wax-dyed tapestry. A platform of twelve wooden thrones rose before the candidates. As Dayo, Kirah, and the other Anointed Ones took their elevated seats, I scanned the room for Sanjeet, but the towering pillar of his head and shoulders did not appear.

“By the power of Ray within me,” Dayo began, tapping a plain wooden scepter on the ground, “I declare this court in session. Approach the throne.” He smiled over the crowd, pulling uncertainly at the rings on his fingers. The Children’s Palace acted as a microcosm of An-Ileyoba’s true court, preparing Dayo to make decisions as emperor.

After a murmuring pause, a Djbanti candidate named Zyong’o stepped forward. “I have a complaint, Your Imperial Highness.” Dayo nodded, and Zyong’o bowed, then crossed his arms. “When Djbanti are paired with candidates from Dhyrma, we always lose the timed logic puzzles. They slow us down. I think”—he continued over enraged objections from the Dhyrmish candidates—“I think every member on a team should be from the same realm. Why mix figs with mangoes? Why should we Djbanti, hunters and scholars, be dragged down by empty-headed merchants?”

Dayo winced at the now-unruly crowd. Djbanti and Dhyrmish candidates stood at opposite sides of the throne room, yelling and cursing each other, while Swanian candidates jeered at them both. “Silence?” Dayo said. “Order?” He sounded like a nervous farm boy, tossing seed to quell chickens. Surprisingly, the crowd quieted, though venomous looks still volleyed across the room.

“I am grieved by your complaint, Zyong’o,” Dayo said, choosing each word with care. “I am sure it’s hard to feel that your strengths are compromised. But I doubt your problems are the other candidates’ fault. I’m sure Dhyrmish people are just as smart as anyone.”

I shook my head in admiration of Dayo’s patience. I would have snapped at Zyong’o to either work with his Dhyrmish teammates, or take his haughty rear end all the way back to Djbanti.

Imperial testmakers, the passive men and women who administered most of the candidate trials, stood in crimson robes along the wall. Brightening with an idea, Dayo gestured for a testmaker to approach.

“Lady Adesanya,” he addressed her, “you help keep track of test results, don’t you? Please share how Dhyrmish candidates perform compared to others.”

The testmaker nodded, producing a thick tome from beneath her arm and opening it to the middle. “According to my records,” she droned, “on average, candidates from Dhyrma consistently underperform behind their peers in logic, weapons, and science. They show equal capabilities, however, in god-studies, griotcraft, and statecraft.”

Dayo’s face went slack, and Zyong’o smirked and shrugged as though to say, What did I tell you?

The room erupted again. Djbanti candidates crowed with triumph as Dhyrmish candidates seethed, some barking that the records were rigged, while others left the room in anger and shame. Despite his good intentions, Dayo had made the problem infinitely worse.

Heat fluttered in my chest again, though this time it was invigorating, coursing through my limbs as the wheels in my head began to turn. Like the mortars and pestles of village women pounding cassava into fufu, the levers in my mind began to beat, binding sounds and facts and images.

People from Dhyrma were not stupid. Zyong’o was wrong. But Lady Adesanya had no reason to lie.

Pound, pound.

The Dhyrmish candidates failed at logic, but excelled in statecraft. That made no sense. Something was off: a rent in the pattern.

Pound, pound.

I closed my eyes. The Bhekina House tutors had shaped my brain to see puzzles everywhere. Every person, every place was a series of riddles, stories within stories, a system so plainly connected that to see the entire mural, I need only step back … and look. My eyes flew open.

“Silence,” Dayo was saying again, yelling over the crowd in desperation. “The Council of Eleven reflects all realms and social classes. When the Eleven fall, so does the Arit empire. We aren’t just being tested on our skills. We’re supposed to learn how to work together.”

It was the sleeping mats. It had to be.

Candidates from Swana and Djbanti were likely to have names later in the Arit alphabet, while Dhyrmish names occurred earlier. The sleeping mats were arranged by name. Candidates with names that came earlier slept farthest from the doors in the Hall of Dreams, making them last to reach the banquet hall. Running on virtually no food, those candidates would be exhausted for every trial administered before lunch: logic, weapons, and science. God-studies, griotcraft, and statecraft occurred after lunch and dinner—so in those trials, they performed well. The solution was so simple, it almost felt silly. I felt guilty for not noticing earlier. Dayo always invited me to eat with his Anointed Ones, and so I had never been affected.

Dayo cleared his throat, squirming beneath the unsatisfied glowers of the crowd. “I will not grant the request for unmixed teams.”

I smiled, and my shoulders relaxed. Good. Dayo knew better than to humor the Djbanti candidate’s prejudices.

“However,” he continued, “I decree that from this day forward, Dhyrmish candidates will receive additional tutoring in their failing subjects. The special treatment will continue until performance rises.”

Wrong. My pulse quickened. Dayo’s ruling would only make the Dhyrmish candidates more exhausted than they already were. It wouldn’t solve the problem at all. But as I opened my mouth to challenge his ruling … heat slammed my chest again.

It was worse than during the griots’ lesson. A poker seared beneath my ribs, burning for release. I struggled for breath with dawning horror.

Of course. The pounding, the puzzle-solving … it wasn’t a gift.

It was a trick. My intelligence was just another part of my ehru curse: a ploy to make me doubt Dayo’s right to rule. A way to bring me closer to betraying him. To hurting him.