Dayo had named me Empress of Aritsar exactly two weeks ago. Until then, the world had believed that only one Raybearer—always male—existed per generation. The Ray was a blood gift, passed down from Aritsar’s first emperor, Enoba the Perfect. Its power granted emperors near immortality, and allowed them to form a council of bonded minds, uniting the sprawling mega-continent of Aritsar.

But Enoba had lied about the gift in his veins. He had never been meant to rule alone, for two Rays existed per generation—one for a boy and one for a girl. That Ray now swelled in my veins, upsetting five hundred years of Arit tradition. My sex alone had made me plenty of enemies, but if that hadn’t been enough . . . with one impulsive vow, I had placed the entire empire in grave danger.

For eras, demons called abiku had plagued our continent, causing drought and disease, and stealing souls down to the Underworld. Enoba achieved peace through a treaty, sating the abiku by sending children into the sulfurous Oruku Breach—three hundred living Redemptors, or sacrifices, per year. I had voided that treaty, offering myself instead as a final Redemptor. The abiku had accepted on one mysterious condition: Before I descended to the Underworld, I had to anoint the rulers of all twelve Arit realms, forming a council of my own.

They had given me two years. If in that time I failed to anoint a council and cast myself into the Oruku Breach . . . the abiku would raze the continent. No one would be safe then, not even the priests in their lofty temples, or the bluebloods in their gilded fortresses.

Enraged, the nobles had plied me with tests. If my Ray was fraudulent, my promise to the abiku could be voided, and the old treaty reinstated. But before hundreds of gaping courtiers, I had walked across hot coals, chugged goblets of pelican oil, and submerged my face in gourds of holy water—all tasks, legend had it, highly lethal to any but a Raybearer.

The strongest proof of my legitimacy, however, shimmered in lurid patterns on both my forearms: a living map of the Underworld, marking me as a Redemptor. The abiku would not have accepted my treaty, relinquishing an eternity of child sacrifices, for anything less valuable than a Raybearer. To win my soul, the abiku had made a promise—and a deal made by immortals, once sealed in blood, could not be broken.

Dayo had begged me not to provoke the nobles further. “Just for a while,” he had pleaded. “I want them to love you, Tar. To see you as I do.” Out of guilt for making him worry, I had promised to keep my head down. And I would. Really.

Right after I broke an imperial traitor out of prison.

The late morning sun glowed through An-Ileyoba’s unglazed windows, casting arch-shaped halos on the rainbow floor tiles as I swept through the palace with Kirah and Mbali. A song wafted from the courtyards outside. Courtier children chanted with morbid glee, watching as Imperial Guard warriors erected an executioner’s platform.