“I can walk through fire.” I swallowed hard, trying to believe it. “I’m not normal, Dayo. I’m not natural, or safe, or good. But I can protect you.” I held out my hand, shaking. I can choose. I can write my own story. “All you have to do is trust me.”

Dayo swallowed, nodded, and leaned against me. I pulled him up and onto my back, hiding my face in what was left of my tunic. Then I charged the doors.

Dayo screamed, but my body took the brunt of the heat, shielding him from the inferno. We collapsed on the other side, rolling, then I seized his hand again and we lurched down the inky corridor. Gasping, coughing, retching, we stumbled at last through the Children’s Palace antechamber, where frenzied courtiers swarmed to claim us.

“His Imperial Highness—his skin, oh gods—the Storyteller will never forgive us—”

A low, throbbing voice chanted through the hubbub, and the voices gasped as the disfiguring burns across Dayo’s skin began to smooth and heal. The melodic chanting continued as Kirah and Sanjeet parted the crowd, Kirah’s hand outstretched as she sang, tears streaming down her face. Dayo’s marred skin knit itself together, leaving nothing but a raised pale scar along his jaw and collarbone.

“Don’t leave us again,” she said, touching his cheek. Then she turned and seized me into a hug. Sanjeet scooped up all three of us, crushing the air from our lungs, and we laughed until the army of fretting attendants broke us apart.

“Wait,” Dayo croaked, before the healers could whisk us away to the infirmary. “There’s something I have to do. Something … I have to ask.” He turned to me and grinned that impossibly bright smile.

I squirmed, feeling awkward as everyone stared at us. “You almost died, Dayo,” I muttered. “Go with the healers. Anything else can wait.”

“No, it can’t.” Dayo drew a chain from beneath his ruined shirt, and on the end dangled a gold-encrusted vial. “Do you love me now, Tarisai of Swana?”

My heart raced. “Dayo,” I whispered.

“Your mind connected with the Ray,” he said. “You passed the test. You heard me … saved me.” Shakily, he knelt on the marble floor and uncorked the vial of pelican oil. He smiled and said the scripted words so many emperors had before him: “Shall you be moon to the morning star? Are you willing, Tarisai of Swana? Do you accept my hand in councilhood?”

The room burst into excited murmurs. I blocked them out.

Say yes, screamed every cell in my body. Rule the world. Have a family. Think of Dayo. Think of Kirah, and Sanjeet, and the castle by the sea.

But I couldn’t. The Lady’s wish had been clear: The moment he anointed me, I would become a monster. My cursed hands … they would fly around his neck, here, in front of everyone, and they would never let go. I was not normal, try as I might. I was broken. And The Lady’s words were carved into my mind, a permanent scar, unless—

Unless they weren’t.

Slowly, my gaze found Sanjeet, who watched me anxiously among the whispering throng of candidates. I remembered how he had looked when we first met: haunted. Hunched with nightmares and shadows, the Prince’s Bear. But now his back was straight, and his brow was grim but clear. I had helped him. I had healed the scars on his mind. I had made him forget his story. Why couldn’t I do the same for myself?

Inhaling deeply, I dug my fingers into my temples and laid waste to my own memories.

I was an invader, kicking down the doors of my mind’s palace, and setting flame to every room. First I burned Kathleen and Woo In, letting their faces and voices smolder into hazy smoke. My mind fought back, desperate to fill in the new gaps. Who had brought me to Oluwan? A man and a woman. Or … had it been two women? I didn’t know. What had they talked about? The Lady—Hallows—a mission … The words turned rapidly to mush, like fallen mangoes decaying in dry season. I knew nothing of my journey to Oluwan, and the people who had brought me were ghosts. My head swam, but ruthlessly I pressed on.

Next room.

Now the flames engulfed Bhekina House, and Melu’s savannah, and the memory of Mother’s first two wishes. My body began to swelter and shake. Distantly, I heard Dayo and the other children murmur in concern. Someone brought a stool and I sat, Dayo kneeling before me worriedly.

“Just a moment,” I croaked. “I just—need a moment.”

Most of my memories were located in just a few areas of my mind, but Melu was all over, a virus in every vein, bending me to The Lady’s will. His spirit was living, reaching with difficulty from his savannah to speak into my mind.

Stop, he bellowed.

“No,” I rasped.

Stop! No good can come of this. You are half-ehru, and your destiny is—

NO, my mind roared back at him, and with a wave of snickering flames, Melu’s face and voice turned to ash. I knew him no more.

The last room was the hardest. I held my head between my knees, rocking and whimpering with the pain.

“We need a healer,” Dayo cried, and Kirah began to sing a soothing chant, but I covered my ears. Now was not the time for distractions.

The Lady’s face resisted the flames, as though she were encased in adamant. I threw embers and blazing torches, I sent rivers of fire; still she smiled, unscathed. Give up, the smile said. Your mind protects me with the same ferocity with which it defends your own name.

But I’m not you, I whispered back.

Are you sure?

My brow beaded with sweat. My name is my own. My name is my own. My—name. My—own—

And at last, the shield of adamant shattered.

Gone was the glow of her brilliant black eyes. Gone was the jasmine scent of her arms around me. Gone was the music of her throaty voice, the chant of me and mine.

And concealed in impenetrable smoke were those lethal words, spoken over me like an incantation: I command you to kill him.

I opened my eyes. The whole room stared at me, eerily still, as though turned to stone. What had I just been thinking about? I had been anxious about … something. I had been unhappy. Was it the fire? Bad people … Someone I knew had tried to kill Dayo. I had been so worried. Terrified. I couldn’t bear to lose the prince, because … because …

I stared down at the scarred face below mine, the mop of black locs, the gangly features I’d come to know as well as my own. I love him. My feelings were certain, like the sun rising over the palace turrets, or the grasslands rolling beneath the Swanian sky.

I left the stool, knelt, and touched my brow to his. “I am willing,” I said. “I accept your hand in councilhood.”

Tears glistened on Dayo’s cheeks. The smell of sea salt and burnt feathers filled the air as he drew a star on my forehead with pelican oil. Then he produced a small knife and made a shallow cut in his hand, then mine. “Now you’re mine,” he breathed, pressing our palms so the blood ran together, and heat burned through me.

I froze. Something bad was supposed to happen now. Something horrible I couldn’t remember …

But nothing did.

Dayo stood and pulled me up into an embrace, and I shivered with relief. His touch was more than a comfort. I needed to be near him, now; needed Kirah, and Kameron, and Umansa, and all my other council siblings. My body ached for their warmth, with the same fervor that it longed for food and water. Council sickness: the permanent hunger of Anointed Ones.

Sanjeet knelt for his anointing afterward. “I never needed a sacred title to protect you, brother,” he told Dayo, and smiled at the new cut in his palm. “But to stay by your side, I’ll take whatever name you give me.”

Then Dayo presented us to the crowd of courtiers and candidates, and they sank to the floor in respect.

I blinked. “They shouldn’t be bowing. Not to me.”

“Of course they should,” Dayo replied, linking his fingers through mine. “Anointed Honor.”

THE WORLD OUTSIDE WAS CHANTING MY name, but all I wanted was a nap.

“Thank you for visiting Ebujo, Anointed Honor. Look, it’s you!”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. How long had the child been kneeling there? From my gilded stool in the temple, I squinted down at a gap-toothed boy. “What did you say?”

Beside me, my council siblings smiled as commoners approached their stools. How my siblings managed to stay in such a good mood—accepting gifts and congratulations, kissing every infant thrust at their faces—I had no idea. We had barely eaten for hours, and had traveled nonstop for a year. After Dayo anointed our last council member, kindhearted Zathulu of Djbanti, we had taken a goodwill tour of the empire. We had crossed sand, snow, and savannah, and been greeted in each city by the people we would one day rule. Our journey had culminated here, in the holy city of Ebujo, where all council members received their official titles.

Platforms drawn by tamed lions with braided manes had paraded us through the streets. The cheers and drumming drowned out even my own thoughts.