Ai Ling shrugged. “Who’s to say? We don’t know why the nobles tried to kill you either. But they did.”

Sanjeet’s arms around me stiffened. I turned to look at him, then followed his gaze to Umansa’s tapestry of Malaki. He looked suddenly sick.

“It’s Olojari,” he said. “It has to be. The nobles lost wealth when Tar relinquished the mine. They’re afraid she’ll take more away from them.”

Dayo frowned doubtfully. “Are the nobles really that greedy? After all, it’s not like they’ll be poor without Kunleo property. Their own estates are massive.”

“But she’s given the peasants power,” Captain Bunmi observed, sharing an understanding look with Sanjeet. Out of everyone in the room, only Bunmi and Sanjeet had been raised as poor commoners. “With profits from the mine, the Olojari villagers could buy property of their own, instead of leasing land from the gentry. It might take years, decades even, but at the end of the day, peasants outnumber the gentry. Once enough commoners prosper . . . blood status will be all the nobility have left.”

I nodded slowly. “And so they want me to disappear.”

Sanjeet growled, and bumps prickled my skin. “I will disappear them first.”

“Don’t talk like that,” I scolded him. “You’re not a killer, Jeet.”

“And you are not a sacrifice,” he barked. Immediately he regretted it, and that expressionless wall rose around his features while he struggled for control of his anger. He left the divan and paced, linking his fingers behind his head. Words brewed behind his cold brown eyes.

The panther cub scrambled off my lap as I rose and went to him, wrapping my arms around his back. “Say it,” I told him.

He did not move. “Say what?”

“The thing you can’t sugarcoat.” I spoke into his shirt. Hesighed—a cavernous, shuddering sound—and turned to stare at me. “I think . . .” He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “You should take a step back from court life. Just for a while, until we can be sure the palace is secure. I think—if you relinquish your duties as empress—”

I stumbled back, blinking up at him. “What?”

“Just for a while, sunshine girl.” His voice was tortured. Pleading. “You aren’t safe here. You’ve been a target from day one, and—for Am’s sake, Tar! You don’t always have to be the hero.”

In his eyes, I saw the same wistful longing from Kirah’s face, and Mayazatyl’s, and Kameron’s and all the rest.

We just want you back.

“No,” I rasped.

“Tar. Please.”

“No!” I snarled. I marched to one of the salon windows and thrust aside the gauzy curtain, pointing down at the moonlit Watching Wall. “You’re giving them what they want,” I breathed. “What all of them want: every emperor and lord and priest who’s ever ruled this palace. They wanted me to turn invisible. To run and hide. But I won’t. Not like the others.” Memories seeped into my body from the floor. The whispers of girls with dark skin and strident, fluting voices. Girls with mirror-black eyes and proud, broad noses; girls who laughed and teased and glowed with a Ray they could not suppress. I had dreamed about them once, as a candidate in the Children’s Palace. Even then, I had loved them, before knowing who they were.