Alarmed at the unrest, our Imperial Guard escort fell in place around us. But barely anyone had noticed our arrival. Instead, the crowd fixated on a wiry man standing above the arch, teetering on a ledge in the mountain. His hair was tied up in a bulky bun, and his face was concealed by a green, scaly mask made of leather trimmed by jagged rows of animal teeth. Wide bands of green leather decorated his chiseled arms.

From the hubbub below, I caught an excitedly whispered name: the Crocodile.

He was beating a talking drum, leading the crowd in song:

My sister’s bones, they have no ears
Ah-ah—but is my sister deaf?
Bones will turn to dust,
But Malaki lives forever.

My mother’s skin is mottled clay,
Ah-ah—but is my mother dead?
Skin may turn to ash,
But Malaki lives forever.

Energy crackled from the ground, rising through my sandals and making the hair on my calves tingle. Perhaps this man was a sorcerer of the Pale Arts: His song was an incantation.

My gaze traveled slowly to the lurid steam rising from the mountain.

Skin may turn to ash,
But Malaki lives forever.

No, I realized with cold dread. Not an incantation: The song was a summoning.

Dayo sensed it the same moment I did. “Stop,” he cried, hailing the man in the mask by waving his arms. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

The stranger continued to direct his rabble choir, though he cocked his head toward us and seemed to start with surprise. Then his shoulders shook—he was laughing. A chill crept up my spine. I couldn’t shake the feeling that, though Dayo and I had hidden our imperial seal rings, and a long-sleeved linen tunic hid my Redemptor marks . . . this stranger knew exactly who we were.

“He’s doing this on purpose,” I growled.

A crimson glow emanated from the forge’s mouth . . . and then a smoldering hand the size of a boulder punched through the top of the mountain.

She burst forth in a mushrooming cloud of ash and fire sprites: a giant of smooth, obsidian rock. The force blew back my hair, and bluebloods scrambled for cover while all around me, the rabble ululated in rapture. The creature rose until her legs straddled the mountain’s ruined peak, thighs gleaming like marble pillars. Plumes of smoke burst from her scalp, and wings like black sails filled the sky, plunging the day into hazy night. With an agonized roar, the alagbato beheld the forge with bright white coals for eyes.

In that moment, a thought occurred to me and my mouth ran dry:

I may never have seen my father in his truest form.

If he wished to—if my mother had not enslaved him—could Melu of Swana have grown to the size of a mountain? What power had my mother harnessed when she slapped a cuff on that guardian’s arm?

Over the arch, the masked man called the Crocodile crowed with triumph. “She has heard your cries,” he bellowed at the jubilant crowd below. “See what your suffering has wrought! If you cannot profit from the fruits of your labor, no one should! We give their wealth to Malaki!”