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“O Khan of all Khans, Prince Chimkin, Prince Temur, men of the Khan’s court and army!” I began as firmly as I could. “This tooth once belonged to the dragon Prince Suren killed. Suren wore it around his neck until the moment he died in battle.”

The men were silent now.

I was not acting in the effort to control my sorrow. But then I recited my well-rehearsed lines, much as Marco had said his. “On the night before he died, Prince Suren stayed in my tent, as he often did, to protect me. That night, he tried to persuade me not to fight in the battle. ‘It’s too risky for you,’ he said.”

This much was true.

“Suren did not expect to die in battle. So he did not speak to me of his dying wish. But I knew him well. I watched how he lived, and what he held dear.”

All eyes were on me. Chimkin and Temur especially were staring up at me. At last, I had found my voice.

“This, I believe, would have been Suren’s last wish: that we Mongols, who have achieved a greater empire than any in history, find a way forward without war. That we find a peaceful way to our God-given destiny of expanding our empire to the ends of the earth. That I, his cousin, help convey this vision, the wise vision of our Great Khan.”

The Khan’s eyebrows met in a slight frown. The men, half drunk and eager for war stories, murmured angrily. It seemed they had expected me to ask for revenge. The former Emmajin might have done so.

I thought of the Tara amulet tucked in my waist sash.

With both hands now, I held up the leather thong with the dragon tooth, and the men watched. I loved that tooth, but it was time to pass it on. Temur would need the strength and goodness of his brother, Suren.

I gestured for Temur to join me on the tabletop. Without a word, I dropped the thong over his head, around his neck. He immediately grasped the dragon’s tooth, his eyes brimming.

“Prince Suren, your brother, loved this Latin, this storyteller, as a brother. He would have wanted harmony between the Mongols and Marco Polo’s homeland.”

The silence was deafening. No one, man or woman, publicly gave advice to the Great Khan. My only hope was that the Khan had not already finalized the orders to his cousin khans to invade Marco’s homeland.

Temur regarded me with suspicion. It would take more than a memento from his brother to convince him of the importance of harmony. Still, I hoped, with that thong around his neck and my words seared into his memory, Temur could not in good conscience join any army that planned to invade Christendom.

My uncle was another matter. He was a careful, thoughtful man, well educated and prudent, not one to take orders from a girl. His eyes were wary. From a young age, as the Khan’s favorite son, Chimkin had been pressured to live up to the highest expectations, obey the Khan’s every wish, and achieve great victories for the empire. Now he had lost his eldest son, a loss greater even than mine. But his future lay in pacifying the West.

From inside my waist sash, I pulled out the feather from the golden eagle I had shot down in Xanadu. I had kept it all these months. Now it had a purpose.

I stepped off the table and faced my uncle Chimkin. I held the eagle feather with my right hand and put my left hand under my right elbow—the Mongol way of offering a treasure or good wish. Eagles’ feathers are great portents in Mongolia.

“This feather is for you,” I said to Suren’s father. “It is a lasting symbol of Suren’s strength and his far-sighted vision. He stood for the future, a realization of the Great Khan’s desire for the peaceful unification of all nations.”

It was, in Marco’s words, an embellishment. But Chimkin’s eyes misted over when he took the feather from me.

Then I turned to the Khan, my head bowed.

The Khan, no fool, would never let himself be manipulated. But from what Chabi had told me, I knew that his heart was no longer in military conquest but in the new vision of wise rule. My proposal was consistent with that. I needed to do something bold.

Without a word, I reached