“I just wish we knew more about her,” I told Kirah. It was two weeks before my First Ruling. We had left the library for the Imperial Theatre Garden, where we meditated daily. “When Aiyetoro died, all her journals—her letters, the books her council wrote about her—were lost in a fire. The record keepers say it was an accident. I bet it wasn’t.”

“Stop it,” Kirah scolded. She knelt across from me on a prayer mat, eyes serenely closed. “No conspiracy talk during meditation, remember? You’ll only get distracted.”

I sighed, squirming on my own mat. Several yards away, Kirah’s attendants sat with mine, gossiping as they watched the stage far below. The Imperial Theatre Garden was sculpted into the side of Palace Hill. Designed by master architects from Quetzala, the garden was composed of shelves of vine-covered terraces descending steeply to a stone platform. Audiences picnicked on the terraces, and when a performer stood on triangles cut into the stage, their voices echoed throughout the garden.

“The mantra,” Kirah coaxed.

“I have a purpose,” I intoned reluctantly. “There is music deep inside me—”

“A song,” she corrected.

“A song,” I muttered. “I learned the song at birth. I draw it from within … Kirah, is this really helping?”

“Better than nothing. You’ve got to find your bellysong somehow.” She hummed and crossed her legs, touching the pendant on her chest. “And if you never slow down and think, how will you ever know what your greatest good is?”

Greatest good. Best desire. The phrases had plagued me every day since we left Melu’s pool. Hours of meditation had not made the words clearer. What greater good could I possibly have than protecting Dayo? Out of all the things I loved—all the things I had ever cared about—his life was the purest. But if protecting Dayo was my bellysong—my purpose—how could I fulfill it while The Lady still controlled me?

I flopped onto the grass. “Why did Melu think I could do this? He’s the wise immortal one. Why doesn’t he just find his purpose and free us both?”

Kirah laughed and gave up on her meditation. “Maybe alagbato purposes don’t work that way,” she mused. “And alagbatos aren’t immortal, not really. In Blessid Valley, we called our alagbatos juniyas. They all died thousands of years ago, when the rivers dried up and left a desert.”

I squinted up at the cloudless sky, considering this. “Maybe Melu’s purpose is to inhabit Swana,” I murmured. “Swana’s crops were fertile once, and that stopped once The Lady enslaved him. I guess as long as he’s confined to that tiny grassland, he can’t do what he was made for.” I sighed and sat up, hugging Aiyetoro’s drum to my chest. The more I learned about Aiyetoro, the less comfortable I was with leaving the drum unattended. So I had brought the hourglass-shaped gourd to the garden, leaning it against my thigh as we meditated.

Kirah peered at the inscription emblazoned on the instrument. “‘The truth will never die, as long griots keep beating their drums,’” she murmured. “What an odd thing to write. Can’t you take its memories?”

“I’ve tried.” I pulled the heavy instrument onto my lap and ran my fingers across the goatskin tension cords. “Most of the memories are from spiders and beetles, and whatever else crawled across it in storage. I tried to take more of its story, but—” I shook my head. “It’s just so old. Using my Hallow, I’ve never seen further than a few decades. I’d have to go back two hundred years to reach Aiyetoro.” I didn’t mention that sometimes, when I slept with the drum beside me, I dreamed as someone else. My body belonged to a woman with long, slender fingers and a low alto voice, beating the drum as she swayed side to side.

“Maybe it would help if you played it,” Kirah suggested.

I shivered. “Isn’t it bad luck to play another person’s drum? Especially one belonging to a griot?”

Kirah shrugged, biting back what I knew she was thinking. No worse luck than being born half-ehru, destined to murder a prince and forced to sentence your own mother to death. At this point, my luck could only improve.

I slipped the drum’s beating stick from where it had been tucked beneath the tension cords, then squeezed the drum against my rib cage. “Sorry,” I told the gourd, then held my breath and struck.

The sound was surprisingly muted. Talking drums were known for their resonance, and were used to communicate across miles. Why did this one sound flat? Then again, it was two hundred years old. It was a miracle it hadn’t fallen apart after I dragged it across Aritsar. I tapped again, using my Hallow this time, and several dozen spiders scuttled across my consciousness. I shuddered, withdrawing from the drum’s memory.

“Still nothing,” I told Kirah.

“You’ve only played one note,” she pointed out.

“Easy for you to say,” I retorted. “You’re not risking the wrath of a malevolent griot spirit.” I made a face and squeezed the cords for different pitches. Facetiously, I began to beat out the military sequence for retreat, which could also mean the effort is going nowhere. But instead of finishing the phrase, which ended on three high notes, the drum made a low bong, followed by a throaty gun godo. I frowned, trying the phrase again. This time, all the notes came out wrong. “Tuning must be damaged,” I said.

But as I continued to play, Kirah grew very still. My mouth went dry. No matter how many phrases I tried, the drum made the same sequence of pitches, over and over. Bong, gun, godo godo gun.

I released the gourd, letting it tumble to the grass as a chill rushed up my spine.

Kirah croaked, “You don’t think …”

My palms were sweating. “I think it’s talking to us. It’s happened before. Aiyetoro’s drum saved me in the Bush.”

I racked my brain for the drum phrases Mbali had taught us as children. The first bong-gun matched the pitches for eternity, which could also mean always. The last half, godo-godo-gun, sounded like the all clear, come now phrase miners used in quarries. “Always come here?” I guessed.

Kirah shook her head. “It’s the wrong pitch for a command. And the note goes down at the end, so it’s talking about the past. Not come here … more like, I was here. I was inside.”

I frowned. In drum language, I could just as easily be she, or they or it. “Always … it … was inside,” I said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

After a pause, I took up the drum again, half-hoping our ears had been playing tricks on us. But again the drum intoned: It was always inside. It was always inside. Bong, gun, godo godo gun.

“We should stop,” I said, glancing down at the garden stage. “We’ll distract the warriors.”

We sat on the terrace farthest from the stage, shielded from view by ferns that needed trimming. From our hiding spot, I could still make out the scene below.

During festivals, griots performed in the Theatre Garden, declaiming praise poems about the emperor and his council. This afternoon, however, the lower terraces were crowded with Imperial Guard warriors. Nearly naked and glistening with sweat, they drilled in groups as Sanjeet barked orders from the stage.

“Hyena Cohort, shields up!” His voice was hoarse and joyless. “Hold. Shoulders square. Hold your position, I said. Lion Cohort, charge. Again. Again.”

Repeatedly, a group rushed forward as the other stood its ground. A wall of shields braced against the onslaught of shoulders and spears. The men and women were training, I realized, to contain riots.

Anointed Honor Wagundu, Olugbade’s High Lord General, observed the drills with stern approval. Then a gangly young man rushed onstage, bobbing apologies for being late.

Kirah stiffened. “Tar—”

I dove behind the terrace’s hanging ferns, blocking my view. My vision blurred and reddened, but before kill, kill began to pulse through my veins, I fumbled with the neckline of my wrapper and seized the sunstone.

The murderous lust still burned in my throat, but my mind cleared. “Hold my arms,” I whispered to Kirah. “I need to see how bad it gets.” She complied, and I steeled my jaw and peered through the curtain of ferns.

It was the first time I had seen Dayo since leaving him in the keep, still bleeding from my knife wound.

I drank him in, blessing his legs for standing, his side for being whole. From this distance, I couldn’t tell if his torso had a scar. But he looked healthy, albeit awkward, shifting from foot to foot as he nodded at the warriors. My heart brimmed with sympathy. Dayo had always shrunk from violence. But he was required to watch the Imperial Guard with Sanjeet and help design their drills. His face looked wan and sleepless. After a day of studying with his council, he probably spent his nights helping Olugbade prepare for the Treaty Renewal, which was two days after my First Ruling.

“Get strong,” I murmured, gripping the sunstone until it cut into my palm. “Stay safe from me.”