Page 28 of Black Salt Queen

The cheers grew louder, drowning out the beating drums. Imeria’s gaze swept over the crowd. The awe and admiration on their faces?—she couldn’t be imagining that.

The warriors clambered onto the platform. They swarmed Luntok, clapping him on the back, mussing his hair as they congratulated him on his first win. Pride swelled in Imeria’s chest as she watched him. Finally, they saw what Imeria saw. Finally, they saw Luntok the way he was supposed to be seen. They gazed at him the same way Luntok gazed at his precious Laya?—as if he were the key to their salvation. As if he were greater than the cosmos itself. As if he were a deity.

After the fight, Imeria saw Luntok for no longer than a minute. Vikal whisked him away with a handful of the other Kulaw warriors to celebrate. She smiled as she watched them drag Luntok deep into the alleyways of Mariit. Luntok deserved to relish this victory. She planned to congratulate him when he came home?—hopefully in one piece and not too inebriated. Imeria had more important matters to address that evening.

Datu Gulod arrived at the Kulaws’ town house early. One of the servants showed him to the small receiving room at the front of the house, where Imeria was reading. He swooped over and offered her the bouquet in his hands.

“You really have no sense of subtlety, do you?” she asked. She set her book down and accepted the flowers. They were lovely?—like everything that passed through Gulod’s greedy fingers?—lush, bloodred lilies the size of dinner plates. Imeria handed them to her maid, who was waiting at her side. “Give them some water, please. We wouldn’t want their beauty to fade.”

“Your beauty hasn’t faded, has it, Imeria?” Without waiting for an invitation, Gulod took a seat across from her on the divan and studied her openly. “You look exactly as you did when I was a boy.”

“I’m notthatmuch older than you,” she said, annoyed. “And since when are we on a first name basis?”

“You may call me Namok, if you wish,” Gulod said, grinning. “I like to be familiar with the women I’m courting.”

Imeria rolled her eyes. “Please. We aren’t courting.”

“What else would you call this little dance?” Gulod leaned back on the divan and crossed one leg over the opposite knee. He had changed into more extravagant clothes since she saw him at the tournament and was dressed in fine silks the shade of Xitai pears.

“A farce,” she said curtly.

He chuckled. “It’s a courtship of a sort. Call it whatever you like.”

“I didn’t think you were interested in wives, Namok.” Imeria gave him a wry smile, although his choice of words caught her by surprise.

“No wives,” he said, shaking his head. “But I would like to present myself as a partner for whatever endeavor it is you’re planning.”

Gulod’s frankness made Imeria take pause. “And what makes you think I’m planning something?” she asked in a level tone.

Before he could answer, Imeria’s maid returned to the receiving room with a bottle of palm wine. She poured them each a glass and asked, “Will you be requiring anything else, my lady?”

“That will be all.” Imeria took a sip of the wine, staring at Gulod over the rim of her glass. They sat in tactful silence until the maid retreated into the kitchens.

“Precioso,” he said, “is a peculiar drug. Did you know the industrialists out west force their workers to take it? I’ve heard that some of those slaves stay at the assembly line for five days straight without sleep.”

“Horrible, isn’t it?” she replied tonelessly. Imeria knew all about precioso and its horrifying uses. She’d heard how barons in the west used it to bring their subjects to heel. They pumped their colonies full of it until the people living there fell victim to precioso’s addictive effects. It was an ingenious way to hollow out a native population, swifter and more lucrative than the plagues of yore. The westerners would simply count the days until the natives were too weak, too dependent on precioso, to fight back. And then, they’d shove the drug further down their throats.

Precioso not only enriched the westerners who trafficked it through every far-flung port. It also numbed fatigue so their victims could work long, arduous hours without once stopping to rest. Around the world, precioso kept thousands of workers chained to their overlords’ factories, mines, and farmlands. It was a dreadful practice?—enslavement by any other name. But that’s not why she had asked Gulod to procure it for her.

“I’ve also heard rumors of a certain... resurgence. The return of a power long vanquished from the earth,” he said. His eyes shot up to meet hers. “The Kulaws were once wielders of mind and flesh?—the only enemies the Gatdulas truly feared.”

“Once,” she said in a soft voice. “Before Thu-ki fell and my ancestors bent the knee.”

For her entire life, Imeria dreamed of Thu-ki, her family’s fallen kingdom once carved into the southern tip of Maynara, and their magnificent powers now lost to history. She filled her son’s head with these dreams, convinced him that one day, soon, his birthright would be within reach.

Gulod clicked his tongue. “Ah, but your father seemed to think that the power hadn’t disappeared. That the Kulaws would rise again.”

“Yes, well, the power would have been useful to them then.” Imeria forced herself not to cower beneath Gulod’s unwavering gaze.

These days, few people dared speak of her father’s foolish rebellion against the Gatdulas. Without their ancestral power in his veins, the late Datu Kulaw hadn’t stood a chance. Imeria was told her father had been killed in a decisive battle that soiled the family legacy. She was a child of ten back then, but she hadn’t forgotten what the rebellion had meant.

Neither had Datu Gulod. He took a long sip of his wine as he appraised her. “That brings me back to precioso. I’ve been wondering, What interest could a highborn lady possibly have in a dirty western drug? Forgive me if I’m wrong, Imeria, but I have my theories.”

“You wouldn’t have come all the way here unless you planned to share them.”

Gulod was no half-wit. The theories he was hinting at danced dangerously close to the truth. If he guessed correctly, how could she know whether she could trust him?

“I’ve heard rumors concerning you,” he said. “They say you’re more than some sour-faced noblewoman. Why else would Hara Duja cast you out of the palace?—you, her once-treasured companion? There had to be a reason she came to hate you so. She’s afraid.”

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