Page 12 of Black Salt Queen

Imeria

The last time Imeria Kulaw arrived in Mariit alone, she was ten years old. Her jaw had dropped to the ground when she’d first laid eyes on the kingdom’s capital city and the towering buildings with their sloping, red-tiled roofs and saber-like spires puncturing the heavens. The capital had been unreachable back then, looming above the rest of Maynara in a nebulous haze. In the provinces, people whispered of the magic permeating Mariit. It glowed brighter there than in the countryside, spilling through the twisting roots of the giant balete tree that dwelled in the capital’s sacred center, leaking through the cracks in the cobblestones and the canals, which crawled across the city like veins.

Imeria never cared much for these myths. Even when she was a child, she had seen past Mariit’s sparkling veneer. It was as ugly a city as any, bloated with half-civilized laborers who squabbled over whatever crumbs the noble families left behind. Its canals did not stream gold with power, but rather ran rust-colored from the highland runoff. And the Gatdulas, its sovereigns, were not the gods’ mighty descendants, as so many Maynarans proclaimed.

Imeria’s father tried to free the island from its ignorance. But when he was alive, he lacked the power to make himself heard. He’d died when Imeria was a girl. What she knew of him, she’d learned from her mother’s stories and from the damning testaments of recent history. He was more myth than memory, yet her thoughts wandered to him more and more as she aged.

“Datu Kulaw! They told me they saw your sails approaching.”

Imeria turned at the sound of a deep voice. Vikal, the captain of her family guard, had come on deck. He was an imposing man, with trunk-like biceps and a boxy face, who came from a long line of warriors who had served the Kulaws for generations. He had been teaching her son, Luntok, to fight since he’d been old enough to walk. Vikal loved Luntok?—of this, Imeria was certain. Unlike with dozens of other individuals under Imeria’s command, she’d never had to buy Vikal’s loyalty.

“You have no idea how good it is to see you, Vikal,” she said. He was one of the few souls in Maynara whom she greeted with a smile.

“My lady.” Vikal bent low at the waist, planting a chaste kiss on her knuckles. “You must be tired from your journey.”

“Exhausted.” It took several days to sail to the capital from her ancestral lands in the south. She would have arrived earlier had they not hit choppy waters crossing the Untulu Sea.

Same as the dirt-streaked provincials Imeria saw milling around the docks, the most important members of Maynaran society flocked to the capital for the week. This included the other highborn datus, who no doubt had been counting the days until their next opportunity to eat Imeria alive. Every one of them relished the feast days; for Imeria, they were a bloodbath of a subtler, more sinister kind.

“Where would you like me to put this, my lady?” another voice called. A young man emerged from belowdecks, hauling behind him a heavy mahogany trunk packed with Imeria’s finest clothes. He was younger than Luntok and sturdily built, unlike most serving boys his age.

Vikal blinked in surprise. For the past few months, he had been giving this young man sword lessons at Imeria’s instruction. She had failed to tell Vikal she would bring him, along with a dozen other battle-trained serving boys, to Mariit. He cleared his throat. “I see you brought, uh, reinforcements.”

Imeria cut him a sharp look. “The town house was horribly understaffed last year, as you recall,” she said airily. “And I need not tell you, Vikal, that beyond the south, well-trained servants are impossible to find.”

He gave her a tactful nod, then rushed to the serving boy’s aid. “Let me help you with that, son,” he said, heaving the other end of the trunk in his arms.

Imeria followed them off the deck and onto the wharf, where the carriage was waiting. Vikal helped the boy hoist the trunk onto the roof of the carriage. She saw Vikal making calculations. Imeria had brought twice as many trunks as the previous year.

“Traveling light, are we?” he said, amused.

His remark brought a dry grin to her face. She knew what he was thinking. Imeria had arrived in the capital armed to the teeth, and she had been awfully clever about it. The Royal Maynaran Guard would not blink at Luntok’s impressive collection of weapons; he was competing in the feast-day tournament, after all. Imeria spared no expense on additional arms?—convincing replicas of antique swords with engraved blades and ivory hilts, each too precious to appear useful. If the guards troubled her, Imeria need only say the swords were part of her generous tribute to the queen.

Hara Duja.Imeria looked up at Mariit’s skyline. The sloping, tiered roofs of the palace peeked out over the outer walls. Her stomach twisted when she remembered the first time she had met the queen. That had been three decades earlier. Duja, only a princess back then, had not allowed Imeria to kneel too long.

Rise,Duja had said in that soft, gravelly voice of hers. She’d given Imeria a shy smile as she pulled her to her feet.Don’t trouble yourself,she’d added, noticing how Imeria’s eyes had widened in apprehension.There will be no need for that with me.

Duja had not smiled at Imeria that way in years. She did not acknowledge Imeria if she could help it. The Kulaws’ disgraceful legacy aside, Imeria could trace much of the court’s hatred of her back to the queen.

Imeria remembered a time when she’d hungered for any opportunity to see Duja again?—to beg for her forgiveness. That was when Imeria had been a desperate girl, with a broken heart and without the slightest care for her own dignity. So there she stood, twenty-two years later, a bitter woman plotting the Gatdula queen’s demise.

“Do you believe this year istheyear, then?” Vikal asked, lowering his voice to a cautious whisper. He helped Imeria into the carriage and climbed into the seat across from her.

“I believe in preparedness,” Imeria said blithely.

She glanced over Vikal’s shoulder. The driver had finished strapping the last of the trunks to the top of the carriage. He took a seat at the front bench with the serving boy at his side. For months now, Imeria had been making promises to the battle-starved servants under her employ. Like Imeria, they harbored their own hatred for the Gatdulas. Vikal had warned her more than once about their growing impatience. How much longer could she count on their loyalty?

If Imeria was going to act, it must be soon. But for her schemes to come to fruition, she needed every star in the universe to align.

The carriage wheels groaned beneath the weight of Imeria’s trunks as they pulled away from the dock. She looked at the empty seat beside Vikal. Maybe the key to the Kulaws’ success was closer than they realized.

“Luntok didn’t accompany you?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. She had sent an earlier ship to the capital?—kitchen staff and scullery maids to prepare the town house for their sojourn. Luntok insisted on departing with them.

Her son spent half the year in Mariit, far longer than any future datu had a right to. His frequent stays in the capital did not go unnoticed. Imeria, along with the rest of the court, knew precisely whom to blame.

Vikal cleared his throat. “Luntok was occupied this afternoon. He didn’t say where he was going, but, well...”

“That Laya Gatdula.” Imeria let out a dry laugh. The princess was pompous and impulsive and vain. It didn’t help that she was beautiful the way a limestone statue was beautiful?—high-nosed, untouchable.

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