Then I blew the ash up at Melu.

He inclined his head, slanted eyes gleaming with fire. “It is done,” he intoned, and the hall erupted with shocked cries.

Did she really say anyone? But what does that mean? She couldn’t have meant it.

Melu cocked his head at me. “You do realize, daughter,” he said, “that in a world where the Ray chooses those most worthy, heirs do not exist. No bloodlines. No royal families.”

“I know,” I murmured. And since Melu knew a great deal that no one ever told him, I wondered if he knew my stance on future motherhood. I picked at my nails. After my wish to Melu, a quiet, hazy corner of possibility twinkled in my mind. Without the Ray, a child wouldn’t be my legacy: the small, frightened receptacle of all my life’s ambitions. A child—should I ever choose to have one—would be just that.

A child.

For just a moment, I let the thought waft around me like a riddle, twisting this way and that, before I plucked it from the air, locking it away in the box of my heart. It would keep there just fine—if I ever wished to open it again.

Melu raised a sparkling eyebrow, then shrugged and went on. “The masks of oba and obabirin, of course, will retain their power. But due to the wording of your wish, even those will not necessarily choose a man and a woman. The next Raybearers truly could be . . . anyone.”

I nodded, exchanging a smile with Dayo. “I know.”

“But how will you find them?”

I grinned up at Melu. “I seem to recall knowing an alagbato who is very good at finding things. And even if you weren’t . . .” I touched the rainbow lioness on my chest. “These masks tend to make their way to the people meant to have them.”

Melu’s features shaded with gravity. “There is one more aspect of your wish you have not considered,” he said. “If the Ray is bound only to those best suited to lead the empire in peace, that could change at any moment. Suppose a ruler becomes unworthy? The Ray would leave them, entering into another host. The former Raybearer would lose all their power—including their immunities to death.”

I inhaled sharply. “Then let the Ray leave.”

More excited whispers.

Melu asked. “And what if the old council cannot love the new Raybearer?”

After a long pause, I replied, “They don’t need to love the Raybearer. They just need to love the story that the Raybearer represents.” My heart twinged, thinking of Zuri. “The story of peace. Of justice at any price.”

The hall plunged into echoing rumbles, voices raised in eager discussion. I chewed my lip, feeling vaguely as though I’d tossed a honeycomb onto a mound of ravenous ants. How long, I wondered, would it take me to sort this one out?

But before the hall could descend into disorder, one voice rose over the others, chanting in her sharp strident voice: Min Ja of Songland. Danai joined her, followed by Uriyah, Kwasi, and all the rest of my vassal rulers, voices lifted in song.