“By the time you leave this courtyard,” Zuri interrupted, “you will not have a single gold coin to your names. Your warriors may fight, but they will lose. Your lands will be razed, redistributed among the people, and your mills and quarries stripped of your names.” His eyes gleamed. “Consider this day a gift from my parents and brothers.”

Gakuru snarled. “You will soon join them.” He raised the knife to throw it . . . and then froze, blade clattering to the ground. Around him, the other warlords dropped their weapons as well, arms frozen in the air. Their mouths gaped like fish, blinded by light that had flashed from my mask, shining through the cloth of my adinkra gown.

“Stop,” I hissed. But I hadn’t even needed to speak aloud. Like an instinct, my Ray had seized their okanoba as a viper took its prey, squeezing their wills into submission.

“Witch,” Gakuru gasped. “Witch!”

“Run,” I told Zuri and my entourage, who still hovered nervously by the dais. “It’s not safe here. Get out, all of you. Barricade yourself somewhere in the fortress.”

My attendants fled from the courtyard, and though my guards hesitated, they jogged after my handmaidens when I commanded them a second time.

“I’m not leaving you,” Zuri said, taking my hand. He beamed at me, glowing with the lurid power of his ibaje . . . and we vanished together.

Stomach sloshing, I reappeared next to Zuri on the fortress’s highest turret, which offered a grim view of the battle unfolding below.

“You planned this from the beginning,” I panted. “You didn’t expect me to convince the nobles at all. You were using my Pinnacle to distract the warlords.” I stared at him, puzzled by the revelation. “Except for just now, when I used it by accident. You didn’t need me to control their okanoba.”

“But I do. Now more than ever.” He spoke fervently, wind whipping his locs as he gestured at the carnage below. “You’re the only chance those peasants have to survive.”

I followed his gaze, stiffening with horror as I realized how unequal the battle was. Armored warriors, faces painted with the colors of their liege warlords, swarmed the peasants like ants. The commoners outnumbered them, but even armed with the few weapons Zuri had managed to smuggle them, they were vastly unskilled and slowly but surely dropping beneath the merciless clubs of the warriors.

“How in Am’s name do you expect me to stop this?” I snapped at Zuri. “You sent innocent, untrained people into battle! All of them could die!”

“Or none of them.” Against all reason, Zuri was smiling, gently gripping my shoulders. “We’re almost there, Idajo. The warriors will only fight for as long as their warlords are alive.”

He pointed to the center of the fray, where Gakuru and his peers cut down peasants left and right. The warlords were easy to make out: their skin gleamed with the power of okanoba—a merciless, malevolent blue.