Page 21 of Black Salt Queen

At fifteen, when Laya decided she wanted to have sex, Luntok was the only boy she respected well enough to invite into her bed. By then, she already saw him not as the traitor’s grandson, but as the forbidden treat she’d never have to share with anyone else. They were older now, and they sought more from each other than passing thrills. For once, Laya was ready to admit that things between them had changed. Luntok’s challenges were starting to feel less like a game and more like an actual danger.

But that morning, she didn’t have time to press him. She stood, still as a statue, as Luntok hopped down from the balustrade. He landed with a quiet thud in the bushes below her window. By some miracle, no guards were passing through. He disappeared into the gardens undetected.

Laya slammed the window to the balcony shut. She sagged against the cool glass pane as a wave of nausea crashed over her. First, her mother. Then, Luntok. Who else was keeping secrets from her?

She turned to her wardrobe and started to get dressed. The unsettled feeling hung over her like a cloud as she washed her face in the water basin and brushed the knots out of her long, crow-black tresses. The queen’s furtiveness was nothing new. Hara Duja would place all her faith in that string of crusty, old advisers before she even thought about trusting Laya. But this was Luntok, the man who loved her unabashedly, who would give up his sword arm for a chance to be with her. Laya had thought she could read him as easily as she could read any of her cow-eyed worshippers. What if she had been wrong?

Laya tried to push her doubts aside as she made her way to the terrace. Her father was waiting, a pipe sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he sliced a sweet bun in half. Eti sat across from him, legs swinging underneath the table. She didn’t look up as Laya sat down, her eyes glued to the gold pellet floating above her palm. Eti’s goal for the next year was to pull from that pellet a metal filament no thicker than a strand of hair?—an act, Laya knew, that required intense concentration.

“If it isn’t my Buaya-Laya,” her father greeted. “What would you like for breakfast? A tall glass of water, perhaps?” His eyes twinkled, and he smiled at her knowingly.

Unlike her sisters, Laya had inherited his sharp, clever chin. She regretted that she didn’t inherit his smile as well. Her father had such a broad smile, which captivated everyone to whom it was directed. It was the smile of an inveigler, not a king.

“Water. Yes, we can start with that,” she said as a servant set a glass and place setting in front of her.

“You disappeared early last night.” He watched as she finished the water in a single gulp.

“Too much wine,” she said, holding out her cup for the servant to refill.

“I suppose none of the boys you had fawning over you had anything to do with it.”

“Father,”she chided, the questions that had been plaguing her momentarily forgotten.

He chuckled, sending a cloud of pipe smoke over his shoulder. “You were always destined to break hearts, Laya. I pray to the gods you will spare mine.”

She smiled into her lap. Her father was the only member of her family who didn’t find her horrible.

“And what of your admirers, then?” she teased.

During the feast days, all the noblewomen flocked to the king, young and old, married and unmarried alike. Like Laya, they adored his colorful stories and booming laugh. It amazed her that her mother never got jealous. Maybe she was proud that the king could command such rapt attention. Laya surely was.

“You’re very kind to think so highly of your father, but I’m afraid I’m too old for admirers.” When he smiled at her, a burst of warmth spread inside her chest.

“Oh, Father,” she said, “I could never think lowly of you.”

The king and queen were nothing alike. At times, she wondered how they came to fall in love. They were born under different moons?—her father, who laughed at the worst jokes if only to make the teller feel at ease; and her mother, who offered her thin, tight-lipped smiles only sparingly. As Laya grew older, she came to understand. Her mother was the firm, solid ground in which her father planted his roots. And for her mother, he was the tree that stretched high into the heavens. His branches swayed in the wind but didn’t break.

Hara Duja needed someone who could enrapture and enchant, who bent to the court and its many demands?—at least, on the surface. With his winning smile and his cleverness, her father could do all these things. Once, her mother remarked that he was more powerful than the rest of their family combined. Laya laughed then, but as she grew older, she realized it had never been a joke.

The king opened his mouth, surely to wave aside Laya’s compliments, when something beyond her head caught his attention. “Ah, there you are, Dr. Sauros. Come, join us.”

Laya turned. Her jaw dropped open. A man unlike anyone Laya had ever seen hung back at the entrance of the terrace. He wore ill-fitting Maynaran clothes?—a shirt buttoned all the way to the throat and trousers that tapered off laughably above his knees?—but he was not Maynaran. She could tell by the way he held himself, a stiff posture unknown to this island, and his western-style spectacles, which pinched his abnormally high-bridged nose.

When he opened his mouth, a peculiar nasal accent came out. If Laya had not been so stunned by the foreigner’s presence, she might have laughed aloud. “Thank you, uh, Your Majesty,” the man said.

He took a few tentative steps toward the table where Laya and her family were seated. Behind his spectacles, his eyes darted from side to side, overwhelmed by the sight of the Gatdulas. But when his gaze fell on Laya, his expression steadied. The spectacles magnified his eyes, which were round and bright and full of questions. Up close, he appeared curious, not overwhelmed. She scowled in return. He continued to stare brazenly at Laya, not as though she were a gift from the gods, but like she was some stubborn equation. If the king had not invited him over, she would have had the guards escort him out. Who did he think he was if not some common foreigner?

Laya didn’t know this man, but she decided in that moment that she hated him.

“It’s probably time for you to meet my daughters,” Hari Aki said jovially. He gestured to them. “This here is Dayang Laya. And fiddling over there with her metals is my youngest, Dayang Eti.”

Eti jerked to attention at the sound of her name. Her eyes settled on the stranger, blinking as if she had just noticed his presence. “Father, who is this?” she piped up.

Laya frowned at the king. “Yes, Father. Whoisthis?”

The king chortled, unperturbed by their questions. “Don’t you see, darlings? I thought I’d surprise you.” He rose and clapped the strange man on both shoulders. “This here is Dr. Ariel Sauros. He’s one of the finest scholars on this side of the Untulu Sea. I’ve invited him to stay with us a while at the palace as our honored guest.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with us,” Laya said.

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