The guards drew swords. Panic sweat made them reek. Kyrie would defend her mountain to the death. If even half the griot tales were true, Council was no match for her. She could burn them all right now and who would hear their screams?

“Zizi,” Djola hissed a boyhood name in the emperor’s ear. “I beg you, speak to her.”

Kyrie bowed low, spreading her arms like wings. The flames overhead winked out.

“Give me a reason to bring your stool back.” Azizi huffed and speared a hunk of goat. “I’d trust whatever gate conjure you’d offer.”

“Every gate requires sacrifice. I conjure with the willing. No transgressor blood or stolen spirits like in Holy City.” Kyrie spat at rogue sparks dancing on her fingertips. “The bushes, trees, rocks, and haints that power my gates do so willingly, for Mount Eidhou, for—”

“For love?” High priest Ernold interrupted her for the third time and sucked his teeth, disgusted.

“You prefer a spirit slave to a lover?” Kyrie glanced at scowling faces.

Azizi slammed his hand on the table. “Whatever it takes!”

“On this path, you’ll destroy what you do love.” She nodded at Djola and Grain, then bowed deeply to Azizi again. “I take my leave. I hope Council uses wisdom to guide you away from deadly illusion to a true solution.”

Azizi trembled as he waved her away. Guards covered her eyes and led her out.

High priest Ernold grumbled. “We should lock her up.”

“You fools would have done that long ago if you could,” Grain shouted. “Have you looked outside? We need Kyrie’s conjure book. Who else knows as much as she does?”

Yari, the famed griot of griots, knew more than Kyrie perhaps. But Yari avoided the stone-wood table. Djola bit his tongue before blurting this. Books and Bones grumbled about jumba jabba. The others joined in. Azizi whistled them silent. “Kyrie never stays away long.”

Kyrie was bosom close to chief cook Lilot and to Urzula, Azizi’s pirate queen wife. While the men dithered, Kyrie would lose her escort in the cook’s maze. She’d find a way out, fade into the trees behind the citadel, and abandon Djola to the cowards and fools on Council.

9

Emperor Azizi

“Djola, sit down with us.” Azizi slapped his good friend’s back. “Where did you get that basket—Anawanama, ancestor weave. It’s beautiful.”

“A warning from Chief Nuar.” Djola set the basket in front of Azizi. “He thinks we’ve betrayed the living, the dead, and the unborn.”

“That bad?” Azizi laughed.

Djola bristled. “Did you see the storm this afternoon, raising blisters on elephant skin and choking trees?”

“Chief Nuar’s your half-brother, isn’t he?” Azizi rattled the bones. “Nuar was always so colorful and exaggerated, like a carnival player.” Azizi set the basket at Djola’s plate. “Sit, please, and give calm council.”