Page 45 of Black Salt Queen

“Please,” the queen said weakly, “I didn’t wish for you to cry.”

“If not my pain, what did you wish for?” she bit back. She felt like a child again, sobbing against the tiled floor.

“I’d hoped?—” Duja’s voice hitched. She cleared her throat. “I’d hoped we might put the grief between our families behind us.”

Imeria let out a watery laugh. “And who are you to offer me peace? I’ve respected your desires and kept my distance. It’syourdaughters who have subjectedmyson to humiliation time and time again.”

The queen didn’t try to argue. “I know, Imeria, and that is my failure.” Guilt clouded her features. In a quieter voice, she added, “One of my many failures as a mother.”

Imeria swallowed. In Duja’s words, she heard echoes of her own shame. She understood, intimately, the struggles of parenting a child with a frightening will of their own. Despite her rage, the tension in her shoulders slackened. “No, Duja,” she murmured. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

Their eyes met. Years of unsaid questions flooded the air, filling the space beneath the vaulted ceiling. For the first time in two decades, the queen stood within arm’s reach. One touch, and Duja’s mind would be hers to wield. And yet, Imeria, who had come to the palace with a head full of schemes, found herself wavering where she stood.

The queen’s gaze swept across the empty throne room. “The last time we were both here, we were scarcely more than children. We gave little thought to the years ahead. And motherhood was but a distant dream.”

A wave of nostalgia coursed through Imeria’s unwilling body. “Those days are long over. I try not to dwell on them,” she lied.

The queen was not one to think rosily about the past. Yet to Imeria’s surprise, Duja closed the distance between them. Her next words dripped with such bald-faced sincerity Imeria willed herself not to pull away. “I owe you more than one apology, I think.”

She set her jaw. “If you’re talking about that accursed day, I’m afraid you’re twenty-two years too late.”

But Duja didn’t shrink back. She stared back at Imeria, pity flickering in her expression. “I never wanted to hurt you, Imeria. I was merely afraid.”

They spoke not of the tournament, but of another battle. A battle that took place twenty-two years before. A battle that refused to end.

At long last, the accusation tore from her lips. “How could you fear me?” Imeria asked. “I protected you. I am the reason you defeated him. Without me, he might have?—”

Imeria broke off midsentence. She knew Duja feared her powers. Feared the threat they might pose to her own. She remembered the heat of the fires that shot out of the crown prince’s fingers, the cruel echo of his laughter, the way his eyes glowed red. The eastern wing crumbled to ash before him, yet he did not stop. Would not stop. He turned to Duja. He would have hurt her too if Imeria hadn’t reached for her power, clawed deep into the rotten crevices of his mind, and stole his will from him.

She did this, knowing it would unveil her as the monster she was. But she took the risk and wielded her power anyway. Back then, Duja was the air in Imeria’s lungs, the sun in her sky. Imeria would have risked everything to help Duja. To save her.

“I know,” Duja said hoarsely. “I shouldn’t have been so harsh with you. But you have to understand?—I had lost so much so quickly. I was afraid.”

Imeria had watched Duja mourn her mother from afar and was not without sympathy. But as she grew older, she realized Duja acted with a cold rationale that was rooted beyond fear. “If you had asked me to leave the capital, I might have understood,” Imeria whispered. “But you didn’t just send me away. You made me marryhim.”

Anguish flashed in Duja’s eyes before she tore her gaze away. “You forget how the memory of the rebellion was so fresh in those days. Few would have married the traitor’s daughter if not at my bidding,” she said breathlessly. “I didn’t want to cast you off on your own, Imeria. I wanted you to marry a good man.”

Imeria didn’t want to think of her late husband, whohadbeen a good man. For a time, he almost made her feel whole again after Duja had ripped her from her life. He was kind and just and sweet, but not sweet enough to make Imeria swallow her bitterness. “That’s not why you wanted me to marry him,” she spat. “You thought he was barren.”

Her late husband, Luntok’s father, had had two wives before he married Imeria and no children of his own. Duja could present as many arguments as she liked, but Imeria knew the truth. Duja feared the resurgence of the Kulaws’ power. She did not want Imeria to pass it on to her own kin.

Duja’s lips flattened into a line. She did not deny it. “I thought it would be better this way,” she said simply.

Imeria’s mouth hung open in disbelief.Better?She wanted to rip the hair from Duja’s head. Slash the gold from her collar.

Run her fingers over the tender skin where her shoulder met her neck.

It didn’t have to be this way.

“I married him because I wanted to please you,” she said as she wept. “I’d have done whatever you asked. I...”

She had been in love with her, but gods be blessed, Duja didn’t let her say it.

“I know. I never should have doubted your devotion. I truly am sorry.” A shade of sorrow passed over Duja’s face?—something akin to regret.

Something Imeria could use.

“If you truly regret what happened, Duja, perhaps you might consider this,” she said, wiping her cheeks on her sleeve. Her tears stained the silk, but she didn’t care.

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