Page 64 of Black Salt Queen

Twenty-Four

Eti

Stabbing pain rocked up from the soles of Eti’s feet to her knobby knees. She had never walked so many steps in her life. The panic that flooded her veins as they’d fled the previous night had dimmed to a soft but constant pitch. Eti was anxious, exhausted, and, once she allowed herself a moment to let it all sink in, absolutely miserable. The crowds didn’t help. She was trailing behind Ariel as they walked alongside the market canal. The shirt he’d found for her was scratchy and hastily stitched together, but she needed to blend in.

Although the morning was young, the sun still pale and low on the horizon, it appeared as though half of Mariit had clustered around the canal. Their chatter rang in Eti’s ears. Their elbows rammed into her sides as they brushed past. The bustling market was a far cry from the peace of the palace courtyard. Eti kept her eyes to the ground and tried to shut the rest of the world out.

Part of her longed to return to the warehouse where she and Ariel had spent the night. It wasn’t much, but it felt safe enough, dusty stacks of inventory shielding them from view, a wall between them and the rest of Mariit. But they couldn’t stay there. The warehouse belonged to someone, Ariel warned?—and that someone would not be happy to discover that Eti had broken their padlock.

Eti had broken a great deal of locks lately: the padlock on the warehouse door and, before that, the lock on the servants’ entrance through which she and Ariel had escaped. Perhaps all she was good at was breaking things.

“Come along, Eti,” Ariel murmured, casting a concerned look at her over his shoulder. “Just a bit farther now.”

He’d offered her the same words of comfort as they’d fled the palace, when Eti couldn’t breathe through the panic rising in her throat. Any fear the Orfelian harbored he’d transformed into gentle protection. Eti hadn’t realized how much she needed that until the midnight feast, when the walls shielding her from hardship came crashing down.

The tears came before Eti could stop them. She froze where she stood, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle. “I can’t, Ariel. Everything that’s happened?—it’s all too much,” she whispered. If she rolled herself into a tiny ball, maybe she could slip between the cracks in the cobblestones and hide there until this all blew over.

“Hush, now. We’ll find a way out of this.” Ariel wrapped her in a brief hug. Outside the palace walls, he was the only ally Eti could count on. The Gatdula family had fallen, and it was just the pair of them against Imeria Kulaw. Who knew what other horrors awaited them at the palace? As the initial shock of the midnight feast began to fade, Eti’s new reality struck her with alarming force.

“What are we to do?” she asked, despondent. “My family’s in trouble, and I can do nothing to save them. I’m not like my sisters. I’m useless.”

Eti had grown up knowing she’d never be able to blast through her enemies like Laya or strike them down with a flash of steel like Bulan. She’d guessed what people whispered about her?—that she was a daft child, worthless apart from tinkering with her precious metals. She told herself she didn’t care. But suddenly her family needed her, and she had no choice but to abandon them.

The word continued to rattle in her mind.Useless, useless, useless.

“Listen. We’re going to save your family. But first, we must come up with a plan.” Ariel reached over to brush aside Eti’s hair, which hung limp and knotted from their late-night run through the city. “By the way, you’re not useless,” he added, and gave her a small, encouraging smile that was so like her father’s, Eti’s heart flooded with a tender ache.

They ended up walking the full length of the market canal. Along the way, they bartered one of Eti’s golden bangles in exchange for sweet rolls to quench their hunger and two sturdy pairs of shoes. During their venture, they eavesdropped as customers gossiped with the vendors floating along in their boats.

According to the gossip, dozens of servants had fled the midnight feast with tales of bloodshed and Imeria Kulaw’s infernal powers. By midday, news of the coup had swept through the city like wildfire. Fear hung in the air, mingling with the copper-pipe scent that wafted up from the canals. From frenzied arguments Ariel and Eti had overheard, bloody fights had broken out across the city. If anyone had died, it was too soon to say. Eti assumed the clashes were between the cowardly guardsmen, who’d capitulated to the Kulaws without hesitation, and the loyal people of Mariit, who would die for the Gatdulas if justice demanded. The violence, Eti was convinced, was the start of a cresting tide that would steer Maynara back to the light.

“More will rise, and together, they outnumber the Kulaws. Imeria won’t be able to hold the palace for long. Isn’t that right?” she muttered to Ariel in a short-lived spark of triumph.

But Ariel merely pressed his lips into a thin line and said, “We shall see, Eti.” He explained that more violence would likely follow. He wanted to make sure that Eti didn’t get caught up in the thick of it.

A small, naive part of Eti believed the coup had been nothing more than a minor fluke and that she’d be back in her mother’s arms by sundown. But another night would soon fall over Mariit, and Imeria Kulaw was still in charge of the palace. Eti knew she couldn’t fight for her family on her own, but surely their people would flock to their aid. Why, then, did the entire capital not rebel?

For this, Ariel offered no simple explanation. “People will always seek to save their own skin. What good is loyalty when your survival is at stake?” he said, his gaze clouding with a dark, unspoken thought. Eti wondered where he crawled to in his mind during those rare but worrying moments when his expression became guarded. Distant. By then, the feeling of dread hovering over the canal had escalated to disquieting heights. He told Eti they needed to leave the market as soon as possible. The farther they got, the better.

They walked as far as the dockside districts on the outskirts of Mariit, where they knocked on half a dozen doors before finding a boardinghouse with an available room. The boardinghouse keeper, an old woman with gray hair and kind eyes, ushered them inside without question. She didn’t recognize Eti as a Gatdula princess, but she’d seen the ashen look on her face and took pity on them. The old woman must have been accustomed to unusual guests, because she barely raised an eyebrow at Ariel’s accent when he paid for their meal and a week’s rent. She merely pocketed the coins and insisted on feeding them.

They exchanged few words as they ate. The boardinghouse keeper served them fresh steamed rice and a hearty tamarind stew. The hot homecooked meal warmed Eti from the inside and momentarily made her forget the anxiety gnawing a hole through her stomach.

Out of politeness, the old woman asked Ariel what he did for a living. The moment Ariel froze up in hesitation, she waved off the question and diverted her gaze. “Never mind my prying. A man’s business is a man’s business” was all she said.

Once Eti finished eating, she sat back and yawned. It wasn’t yet dusk, but her body needed rest. In the warehouse, she’d only managed to get a couple of hours of fitful sleep. The boardinghouse keeper stood and started clearing the plates. “This child is in need of a nap, I think,” she said.

Ariel and Eti complied, and the boardinghouse keeper took them upstairs to their room. It was simple, with two cots pressed up against the walls and paint chipping off the ceiling. The previous tenant had moved out in a hurry. He’d left behind a number of items, including a row of liquor bottles lined up in front of a mottled window. When Eti lay down on one of the cots, she noticed the sheets were clean, at least. Eti kicked off her shoes, her feet still aching from all the walking, and closed her eyes.

For over half an hour, sleep evaded her. In the quiet, worries clouded her head. She thought of her family, and the panic rose inside her chest again and again. With a sigh of frustration, Eti rolled onto her back. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well pray for the gods to keep everyone safe. She clasped her hands over her belly and whispered her prayers.

The gods didn’t answer her, but the prayers calmed her mind. Eti stilled in her cot as the afternoon air trickled in through the open window, filling the room with the scent of sea salt. Whenever the wind was thick like this, Eti imagined it was the Weeping Goddess sighing, her breath coating Mariit in a blanket of warmth. That afternoon, Eti could hear a whisper of sadness in her breath. The goddess’s pity:Oh, my children, look at what you have become.

WhatwasEti to become? Her life had changed so quickly in the span of a single day. Not long before, she’d been wielding gold pellets in the privacy of a palace stairwell. Then suddenly she was on the run, and not even the Royal Maynaran Guard was coming to rescue her. The boardinghouse did not offer the same protection as the palace. As long as Eti was a Gatdula, she wouldn’t be safe there?—not forever.

“There’s some sweet rolls left over from this morning if you want them,” Ariel called without turning around. He was staring pensively out the window, the half-empty bottle of palm liquor the previous tenant left behind dangling from his fingertips.

Eti rose from her bed and joined him at the window. Their room, which stood at the top of the boardinghouse’s run-down staircase, overlooked the shadow-cloaked alleyway below. No one passed through there, save for stray cats and hungry orphans.

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