When at last we were handed our sandals, completing the Rising, a throng of courtiers turned their eyes on me, bowing and simpering with smiles that set my teeth on edge.

“We would like to give you a gift, Your Imperial Majesty,” said a girl about my age. I recognized her from a flock of courtiers who smirked and tittered whenever I passed in the hallways. Her glowing, cobalt-black skin, set off by an ashoke wrapper, betrayed her to be a blueblood—one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Oluwan.

That’s Lady Adebimpe, of House Oyega, Ai Ling told me through the Ray. One of the most influential families at court.

The lady curtsied, batting a palm-frond fan. “Our gift is long overdue, Lady Empress. You must forgive us for the delay.”

I smiled at her tightly. “And does your gift include another arrow in the emperor’s back? An arrow meant for me?”

Adebimpe’s posse of courtiers froze, looking instantly uncomfortable, but the face of the lady herself betrayed nothing.

“Of course not, Lady Empress,” she gasped, still bowed before me, lifting her eyes to mine with limpid innocence. “I was devastated to hear of what happened. We all were, weren’t we?” Her followers oozed assent. “Your guards should have been more careful.”

Whatever mischief she had planned, I wanted it now, out in the open. She couldn’t kill me with witnesses, and better a public humiliation than a dagger at night. “Then what,” I asked, “is your gift?”

“Why, Lady Empress . . .” Adebimpe rose and gestured with a flourish. “An akorin, of course. You should have had one weeks ago.”

I blinked in surprise, but it was true. By tradition, noble Arit families provided Raybearers with an akorin: a personal griot, tasked with immortalizing the Raybearer’s deeds in song. Upon Olugbade’s death, the court nobles had offered Dayo their most talented sons for griots, renowned scholars and skilled warriors, young lords, and even minor princes.

I, however, had received no one. I was the daughter of an exile, after all—a walking sacrifice at best. I had no connections or lands to offer them, and I would probably be dead within two years. I had assumed they wouldn’t bother. But now—

“Your akorin, Lady Empress,” Adebimpe sneered.

The courtiers stepped aside to reveal a squat, dazed-looking child. She looked no older than twelve. Beaded cornrows swung at her shoulders, and mottled stripes of skin, like bruises that had never healed, stretched from her ear to her hairline. She clutched a bundle to her chest.

The girl gulped and froze . . . but she squared herself, steadily meeting my gaze. “My n-name”—she grimaced, reddening—“is Ad-Adukeh, Your Imperial M-Majesty. I s-swear my drum t-to your s-service.”

The nobles snickered behind their palm fans, and my council siblings stiffened, recognizing Adebimpe’s gift for what it was: an insult.

Imperial akorins were grown men in sweeping emerald kaftans, trained at the knee of the empire’s most skilled griots, and seasoned with decades at the Imperial Academy.