“Maybe I should come too.”
“No; the healer said you should rest. Besides, you’re already the ‘Prince’s Favorite.’ Give the rest of us a chance, huh?” She winked, then jerked her head over at the Dhyrmish boy. “And don’t worry about the Bear. We’ve chained him to the bedpost.”
Alarmed, I squinted at the boy’s gloomy corner of the room. Something silver glinted in the sconce light—a chain of metal links, wrapped around the pillar and ending in a cuff on the boy’s burly arm. “It was a joke,” said Kirah, looking sheepish. “The other kids started it. He’s the ‘Prince’s Bear,’ and bears are baited, so . . .”
My brow knit. “Doesn’t seem to very funny to him.”
“He could have stopped us if he wanted to. Besides, Mama says Dhyrmish people are like rabid dogs. I’m not going near him.” She refilled my goblet from a pitcher—Mama says sick children ought to drink lots—patted my arm, then hurried from the room.
I watched the figure in the far corner, unnerved by how still he was. He hadn’t budged even when the bedroom doors slammed behind Kirah. But I lay quietly, afraid of spooking him.
Then pressure weighed on my bladder. I winced; I hadn’t relieved myself for hours. Come to think of it, I was hungry too. I wriggled from the pile of panther skins and stood. The pressure intensified. After a fruitless glance around the room, I cleared my throat.
“E-excuse me,” I said. “Do you ever . . . I mean . . . Do you know where they keep the chamber pots?” My face heated. The figure tensed, as though surprised I had addressed him. “Never mind,” I mumbled. “I’ll just—”
“The pots are kept in the corner.”
I froze in surprise. The boy had not moved, but his voice filled the room, soft and implausibly deep.
“Put it back when you’re done. Servants take them away in the morning.”
“Oh. Thank you.” I crept to a corner and retrieved a brightly painted clay pot. I paused again. “Are the privy screens outside?”
The boy made a growling sound, almost a laugh. “Privacy is illegal here, new girl. Council members aren’t allowed to have secrets. Most candidates relieve themselves in the morning or late at night, when the gender screen is still drawn.” His Dhyrmish accent slid in a musical scale. Plosive consonants skipped across the boy’s tongue, like stones on a pond. He added, “Don’t worry. I won’t look.”
I did the deed as quickly as possible, stashing the pot in one of the window alcoves. My stomach gurgled. I remembered the feast I had seen in the dining hall earlier, and asked, “Where can I find food?”
“I wouldn’t know,” the boy replied. “I missed dinner hours ago.”
“My servants tied me up like you once,” I blurted awkwardly. “They were afraid I would steal their memories while they slept. I always give memories back after I take them. But they didn’t trust me.”
For the first time, the Dhyrmish boy turned.
Due to his size, I had expected him to look older, but a startlingly young face flickered in the candlelight, with a heavy jawline, reddish-brown skin, and steeply slanted eyebrows. His ears stuck out, as though he’d yet to grow into them, though the idea of him growing more was hard to imagine. “Stealing memories,” he said. “That’s your Hallow?”
I nodded. “Like this.” Feeling a strange urge to impress him, I placed a hand on Dayo’s dais. The marble groaned as my mind invaded its pores. The stone remembered a boy who had slept there decades ago. Over and over, he had rasped into the blankets: The Lady . . . The Lady . . . The Lady.
I snatched my hand from the dais as if it had burned me.
The Dhyrmish boy raised an eyebrow. “Something wrong?”
“Emperor Olugbade slept here before Dayo,” I explained. “When the emperor was young, he had bad dreams. I think Dayo gets bad dreams here too.”
“You see all that?” asked the Dhyrmish boy. “Just by touching things?”
“People leave stories everywhere. It’s easier to take them from living things. Trees, soil. Objects and dead things don’t have very clear memories.”
The boy ran a hand through large, soft curls. “When you take memories, could you take them for good?” The chain on his arm rattled. “Could you make someone’s memories disappear forever?”
“No!” I said. “I mean, I don’t know. I’ve never tried that before.” To my surprise, the boy looked disappointed. “My name’s Tarisai of Swana,” I said. “What’s yours?”
“Sanjeet of Dhyrma.” He tensed when I came near, hiding his shackled arm. “Aren’t you afraid of me?”
“Should I be?”
“You heard the Blessid girl,” he said dryly. “I’m the ‘Prince’s Bear!”
I looked down, sheepish that he had overheard us. “Kirah said you were able to connect with Dayo’s Ray. That means you love him. So you can’t be all bad.”
“Bears are dangerous, even if they don’t want to be.” He stared hard at his calloused hands. “It’s in their blood.”
I remembered what Nawusi had said about me: Murder is in that child’s blood.
“Nobody has to hurt people if they don’t want to,” I snapped. “Nobody. They can’t make us.”
“Of course they can,” Sanjeet said evenly. “If we’re anointed, we serve at the pleasure of Prince Ekundayo. It’s the council vow: We shine as moonlight; we reflect the morning star.”
I frowned. “Why would anyone want to be moonlight? It’s white and cold. I’d much rather be sunshine.”
For the first time, Sanjeet’s lips twitched in a smile. His eyes, I noticed, were the color of long-steeped almond tea. Curiosity crept into his gaze, and I returned it.
“Kirah says you’ve lived here for ages. Can you find us food? Can’t you break that chain on your arm?”
“If I could,” he said dourly, “then I wouldn’t be here, sunshine girl. I’m not that strong.” He gestured to the shadowy ground. “The candidates tossed the key down there.”
Thinking quickly, I dropped to my knees and pressed my ear to the floor. Memories echoed across the stone. Children’s feet. The clink of a key skipping across the floor’s surface and stopping beneath a sleeping mat. I groped in the dark until my fingers closed around something metal.
“Got it.”
I rose and took Sanjeet’s arm. He stiffened beneath my touch, then relaxed, watching me closely as I unlocked the iron cuff.
“Come on,” I said, feeling suddenly shy. I turned and headed for the door. “I saw a room with dining tables. There might be food left.”
He followed, hunching his towering shoulders. He looked uncomfortable with the space he consumed, as if his presence were a greedy imposition.
“So if you’re not that strong,” I asked, “what is your Hallow?”
Sanjeet stared down at me through long, thick lashes. “Now would be a good time for me to lie.”
“Why?”
“Because friends can’t be afraid of each other,” he said bluntly. “And I want to be your friend.”
I assessed him. “I don’t think you’d be very good at lying.”
“I’m not.” He smiled. “And you’d find out my Hallow anyway; there are no secrets in the Children’s Palace.” He sighed, scanned my body, and rattled off a list in a monotone. “You twisted your ankle months ago. It healed stiffly, so you’re easy to trip. There’s a knot between your neck and your left shoulder. Your reflexes will be slower on that side. When you blink, your right eye closes faster. It causes a blind spot . . .” He trailed off, shifting his feet. “I see weakness. Bones, muscles, ruptures. They sing to me, tell me all their secrets. That’s why Father put me in death matches. With my Hallow, I never lost a fight.” His face hardened, and then grew soft. “Amah . . . my mother made me come here. She thought if I joined the council, I could help people. Become a doctor, or a priest. I’d like that.”
“Then why did you say no when Dayo offered to anoint you?”
He swallowed. “Because if I join, I can never see Amah a
gain.” His expression grew hunted. “She would be stuck with Father forever.”
Before we left the chamber, I looked back at the serene rows of sleeping mats, dappled with sconce light. Had Mbali slept here once too, like Olugbade? And Thaddace, and Nawusi? In this room, how many future rulers had dreamed away their childhood?
“Friends for life,” I murmured, remembering Dayo’s promise. I glanced again at Sanjeet. “Do you really think that will happen? If we’re anointed, do you think we’ll—love each other?”
“Of course, sunshine girl.” Sanjeet stared quietly at the window, where the moon glowed through whispering curtains. “We won’t have any choice.”
CHAPTER 7
At Bhekina House, there had been no rhythm to waiting.
No pulse made the hours pass faster, like the thrum of rain on a mud-thatch roof. Questions trickled into the ground: Will I be touched today? Will I be loved today? Will Mother come? Why . . . why doesn’t she come?
But at the Children’s Palace, there was no time for questions. Routine oiled the wheels of every hour, so that before I could blink, years had passed. My body had changed. Muscles curved where timid limbs used to be, and my wide, love-starved eyes had grown hooded, hiding their hunger. I learned to drawl with an Oluwani accent, rehearsing my smiles and frowns in the mirrored palace ceilings. I donned masks until they felt like my face. The Lady’s voice grew faint in my mind. I burrowed into the love of my friends—the love of Dayo, Kirah, and Sanjeet—and I almost forgot that I was made to be a killer.
My fifteenth birthday dawned with the pounding of drums, echoing through the cavernous Hall of Dreams: pa-pa-gun-gao, gun-gao. Like all Dayo’s candidates, I had learned to interpret the countless drum pitches. By the fifth gun-gao—wake for prayers—I had disentangled from my mosquito net, ripped the sleeping scarf from my neatly twisted hair, and stood erect on my mat. I waited, hands clasped over my black tunic and Swanian candidate sash, with dozens of other candidates on the girls’ side of the hall.
Servants with leatherbound books pushed the partition screen aside and took their stations, accounting for children on mats, ensuring that none were missing. Then the drumming stopped, and Mbali swept through the carved double doors, joining a yawning Dayo on his dais.
“Good morning, candidates,” she cried, and we bowed in response, touching our brows and hearts.
“Good morning, Anointed Honor” we replied.
“Why do you rise? Why did you not die in your sleep?”
“Because the Storyteller has granted me to live another day.”
“Why did the Storyteller allow you to live?”
“So that I can serve the prince, the Chosen Raybearer of Aritsar, and aspire to be one of his anointed.”
“Why must you serve the prince?”
“Because I love him more than life itself.”
Mbali smiled over us, as she always did, with a mysterious blend of serenity and deep-seated sadness. “Very good, children.”
Then the drums sounded again, releasing us for breakfast. Dayo exited first, of course, followed by his Anointed Ones. It was the least favorite part of my day.
My pain at Dayo’s growing council festered like an ulcer. As individuals, I liked them; but I envied their intimacy. After Sanjeet, Kirah had been first to connect with Dayo’s Ray. Joyfully, she had accepted his hand in councilhood, and so every other candidate from the Blessid Valley had been expelled from the Children’s Palace. I danced with Kirah at her celebration feast, grinning to suppress my tears. I knew that I could not be anointed, and now, if I ever left the Children’s Palace, I could not take Kirah with me.
Other council members followed soon after: a stern girl from Biraslov, a blind boy from Nyamba, a girl from Quetzala with a wicked sense of humor—until candidates had been anointed from all of the realms except Djbanti, Swana, and Dhyrma.
Sanjeet, even after four more years as Dayo’s protective shadow, still refused to be anointed. The remaining Dhyrmish candidates vied for his spot, though they feared Sanjeet almost as much as the Swana candidates resented me.
I could hardly blame them for hating me. I refused to join the council, and yet Dayo rarely left my side. Even now, he grinned from the hall doors, gesturing for Sanjeet and me to join his Anointed Ones for breakfast.
Hot-faced, I slunk past the other candidates, feeling dozens of jealous eyes bore into me. They would be released for breakfast by the location of their sleeping mats. The last to reach the banquet chamber had the skimpiest pick of food, and shortest time in which to eat it before the day’s tests began.
As I neared the door, I squared my shoulders, preparing myself for the question Dayo asked, without fail, every dawn.
“Do you love me now, Tarisai of Swana?” And as always, I closed my heart to the warmth of his smile.
“Of course not,” I snorted, gesturing back at the Hall. “Not when you’ve got every child prodigy from Swana plotting to murder me.”
He raised an eyebrow, half playful, half serious. “We could send them all home tomorrow, you know. All you have to do is say yes.” I had once towered over Dayo, but now he dwarfed me. He might have been imposing, if not for that gangly frame, and those relentlessly naive black eyes. Dayo’s dense, coily hair was flattened on one side from sleep. He probably wouldn’t even notice until halfway through breakfast.
“I’m not ready to try the Ray again,” I muttered. “You know that.”
“The only thing I know,” he said, “is that you belong.”
The words stuck like darts as I followed his council to breakfast, and they continued to burn as we marched to the northern palace courtyard for weapon drills and wrestling. I beat out my anger with poles and practice spears.
Every day, I had waited for a reason to fulfill The Lady’s command. I had tried to believe that Dayo was a monster in disguise, like me. A demon destined to hurt Aritsar, to be a nightmare of an emperor. Why else, I had reasoned, would The Lady want me to hurt him?
But in the four years I had passed by Dayo’s side, I had seen no monster. Only a boy with a big, fragile heart, and hope that could fill an ocean.
I had refused to try Dayo’s Ray test again, assuming that The Lady would come retrieve me, impatient with my inaction. But as months bled into years, I could come to only one conclusion: The Lady had forgotten me entirely.
Years ago, this reality would have hurt me. But I had different ambitions now, grander dreams than earning The Lady’s love. I wanted to help Aritsar, like Kirah and the other Anointed Ones. I wanted to join the faces of heroes on the Watching Wall. I longed to deserve the way that Dayo looked at me each morning.
But I was half-ehru. And as far as I could tell, there was no rewriting that cursed story.
Crack. The blunt end of Kirah’s practice spear connected with my gut, and I gasped, doubling over.
“You’re distracted,” she observed. Sweat beaded on her brow beneath her prayer scarf, trickling down her face as she dimpled.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, brandishing my practice spear to try the defense again.
“Let me guess.” Kirah gestured with her head across the courtyard. “You’ve developed a sudden . . . appetite for wrestling?”
I glanced past her, and my heart gave an involuntary spasm. Kirah nudged my shoulder and I shoved her back, grinning sheepishly.
“Are you going to finish the set or not?” I demanded, knocking my spear into hers. But my gaze still drifted to the other side of the courtyard.
Sanjeet was assisting the drill masters, training candidates in a lethal grappling maneuver. Impossibly, he had grown even taller in four years. Stubble shadowed his jaw, and he stood erect now, no longer hunched with shame. Dust caked the hollow of his back, earth the same rich copper as his skin. He hooked ankles with a stocky candidate, forcing both of them to the ground. Sanjeet let his opponent scramble on top of him, and then thrust a club-like thigh over the boy’s shoulder. Before the boy could escape, Sanjeet had seized his own ankle, tr
apping the boy’s neck and arm in a chokehold. It was over in seconds: His opponent gasped, tapping Sanjeet’s forearm, and Sanjeet released him.
“That wasn’t fair,” puffed the burly candidate, who was also from Dhyrma. “His Hallow exposed my weak spots. He should have told me where they were. Evened the odds.”
The muscles in Sanjeet’s back rippled as he stood, staring down at his opponent with passive, tea-colored eyes. “If you don’t know your own weaknesses,” he said, “it will take less than a Hallow to kill you in battle.”
The candidate snorted. “What do you know of battle? Back home, you were only a slum brat. I’m the son of a lord.”
“When an assassin comes at you in the night,” Sanjeet retorted, “will you be calling your parents?”
The candidate bristled.
“I don’t know anything about battle either,” Dayo said, stepping into the ring to break the tension. “You’d better throw me too, Jeet. I have more to learn than Kamal.” He smiled at the Dhyrmish candidate, who bowed sullenly and left the ring. Dayo spread his narrow feet, hunching into an awkward fighting stance. “Ready when you are, Bear.”
The corners of Sanjeet’s mouth lifted. “Your worst weakness, little brother,” he said, sweeping the prince’s leg and depositing him firmly on the ground, “is seeing the good in everyone.” He smiled, helping the prince up. “And I’d rather have your weakness than my Hallow.”
As he dusted himself off and left the ring, Sanjeet’s gaze locked on mine. I looked away, flushing to the tips of my sandals.
Most of the candidates still feared the Prince’s Bear. He rarely talked to anyone except Dayo, whom he shadowed like a grim archangel. But when the others had gone to sleep, I would hear the gender partition screen shift aside. Footsteps padded to my sleeping mat, and a pair of pleading eyes would burn down on mine.
“Please,” Sanjeet rasped. “Take them. Make the memories disappear.”
Every night since the first, we had stolen away to the old playroom, ghosts of colorful carved animals looming around us in the dark. I touched his face, feeling his pulse race as I pressed each temple. Gruesome images barraged us both.
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