I scoffed, then gaped, waiting for the others to leap to my defense. But instead, my family fidgeted where they stood, avoiding my eyes—even Kirah.

“You all agree with her,” I breathed. “You’ve been talking about me behind my back. And you think Mayazatyl’s right.”

“No. It’s not like that,” Kirah said, coming to put a placating hand on my arm. Then she traded a glance with the others. “Well—not exactly. It’s just—”

“It’s just you offered yourself to the abiku,” Emeronya blurted. She glared at her orb, trying to conceal a trembling lower lip. “You came back from Sagimsan, and called off the Treaty, and swore you’d go to hell. All without asking what any of us thought. Without thinking how we would feel if you d-died—” She broke off, not trusting her voice to continue. I saw her grief mirrored in the rest of my siblings’ faces . . . even in Sanjeet’s. Even Dayo’s.

“For the last time,” I said. “I’m not going to stay in the Underworld.”

“You can’t promise that,” Theo said, plucking despondently at his lyre. “And Tar . . . ever since you came back from Sagimsan, you’ve been different. Distant. Angry.”

My confusion drained away, replaced by a throbbing sadness. “You’re my only friends,” I said. “You’re all I care about.”

“We used to be,” Zathulu said. “But you’ve changed, Tar. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. We’re just . . . still getting used to the new Tarisai. The one who upsets laws, and plans prison heists, and runs off to Songland to unearth old injustices—”

“Old injustices?” I cut in, slowly repeating after him. “Like the two hundred children who were sacrificed last year, and the thousands of children before that?”

My siblings paused uncomfortably.

“No one’s saying the empire’s perfect,” Mayazatyl said then, crossing her arms. “But you disappeared for months. And now that you’re back, all you care about is changing things. New treaties! New councils! We support you as empress, Tar, but did you stop and think that some of us—well—love Aritsar just the way it is?”

Kirah’s grip on my arm tightened. “Don’t misunderstand, Tar,” she said gently. “We know you had to change the Treaty. More than anything, we just want you ba—” She bit her lip. “Want you to be happy.”

But I had caught what she almost said.

We just want you back.

I tried to unhear it. Tried to tell myself I was misunderstanding, that I was being unfair. I could fix this. I could give my best friends what they wanted. But when I scanned their guilty faces, realization seared me, like the sun on a parched savannah, the truth a lethal ember among rushes.

My family missed the love-starved girl from Swana. The one who worshipped her friends, and whose anger could be cooled with a kiss. They missed the tree in its gilded pot. The girl so afraid of herself, and so grateful for a family, the world could burn to ash, and she would smile and call it paradise.