Murmurs across the hall. I took the vial with reluctant hands, staring at him in confusion.

I just realized something, I Ray-spoke. If I anoint you and Min Ja, I’ll have a council of thirteen. How is that even possible? Raybearers gain an immunity for every anointing. There are only twelve deaths—besides old age—and no one can be immune to that.

Dayo grinned. Maybe you’ll become immortal.

Don’t joke like that, I said, giddy with terror. If there’s any job I don’t want forever, it’s this one.

In response, he leaned in and kissed my cheek, sending a pulse of courage down the bond. I guess we’re about to find out.

My heart hammered in my chest. But when he began to kneel, I stopped him. Stay standing, I Ray-spoke.

Why?

I bit my lip. One reason was that every noble in this room already suspected me to be a usurping witch, controlling Dayo like a puppet master. But the other reason—the one I told him—was more important.

Because the time for kneeling is over, I told him. The original Raybearers were always meant to be equals, Dayo. It’s time we stand shoulder to shoulder.

He nodded, features shining.

Now I hesitated. What in Am’s name was I supposed to say? The traditional proposal of Raybearers was Shall you be moon to the morning star—but that didn’t seem right. Not anymore. I waited, summoning that warm, mysterious spirit from the cave in Sagimsan Mountain, letting the right words fall quietly, lastingly, into place. My eyes shut, and I seemed to float above my body, watching the scene from above, and then I was everywhere at once, enveloped with a formless Someone I had met only once before.

When I spoke, my voice was not my own, though I felt more myself than ever. A force had borrowed my lungs, filling the hall with tritoned harmonies that rang from the dais echo-stones.

“More stars fill the sky than any soul could count,” said the interloper. “Each brighter and hotter than the last. Yet there is somehow room for all of them. So, Ekundayo of Oluwan: Will you shine beside Tarisai of Swana? Do you accept her hand in councilhood?”

If Dayo feared the spirit possessing me, he did not show it. Instead, his broad, guileless features creased in a peaceful smile, and tears filled his pure dark eyes. “I will,” he said, “and I do.”

Then the foreign spirit glowed, washing us both in a wave of ancient joy—and it was gone. I stood on the dais, myself again, human and trembling.

Half the hall had fallen, prostrate on their faces. The rest were on their knees, brushing their chins in the sign of the Storyteller.

Thank you, I thought to no one.

In response, a low rumble shook the dais, like a grunt of laughter . . . or the throaty call of a pelican.

“Well,” Dayo asked, “aren’t you going to offer me your Ray?”

I straightened my stance to focus. I used Dayo’s Ray all the time, slipping into the minds of my council siblings. It was easy, like gliding into a coursing river, letting its strong current move me along. But this time, I would be the river, trying to join Dayo’s stream to mine.