Page 8 of Black Salt Queen

“And Laya?” she asked.

“Oh, Laya.” Maiza drew in a sharp breath, and Duja already had her answer. “Her power is at once raw and limitless. I need only explain once, and she grasps everything I say by sheer intuition. She is Mulayri incarnate, perhaps the most powerful Gatdula we’ve seen in centuries. But she’s?—”

Duja completed her thought. “Callous. Unthinking.”

Dangerous.

The high shaman sighed, setting the queen’s hand down lightly on the bed. “I haven’t seen such a power since...”

Him.Maiza didn’t need to say it.

Duja swallowed hard. “Laya will learn. I’ll teach her.”

Maiza hesitated. She said carefully, “Since the accident, the princess has shown more of an interest in practicing control. That’s a good sign, at least.”

The accursed accident. Three years before, and Maynara still spoke of nothing else. In the council room, Duja’s critics hammered on her regime’s negligence and waste. How could she justify herself? Twice in twenty-two years, an entire wing of the palace had to be rebuilt. Both times, they’d paid for the reconstruction from the funds allotted to shipbuilding and the rice harvest and the kadatuans’ dedicated chests. The blame fell, as it always did, on Hara Duja. Laya had been a child of fifteen then, wide-eyed, remorseful, and easy to forgive.

If the council had allowed them to move on, it was because they’d gotten lucky. Since the first fire all those years before, the eastern wing had stood uninhabited, and no one had been hurt in the second wreckage. Laya claimed to have learned her lesson, but sometimes, Duja wasn’t so sure. Her daughter was eighteen now, and she was expected to take Duja’s place frightfully soon. She could no longer afford to make such irreparable mistakes.

If Laya wanted to inherit the throne, to call herself Hara Laya one day, she had so much left to learn.

Duja set her jaw. She had known of her daughter’s callous nature since she’d been a little girl, yet how many years had she wasted? “I should have taken greater care with her. After all, I knew better. I saw firsthand what happened with Pangil.” She often avoided saying his name, as if the slight omission would keep the memories at bay.

Maiza shook her head vehemently. “You mustn’t think that way, Your Majesty. Laya is nothing like him.”

Him.Pangil, Hara Duja’s older brother. The fire starter, the spirit who haunted the palace, the man who was once Maynara’s beloved heir. He’d laughed as the eastern wing burned, not yet knowing that his own mother had been trapped inside it. Another accident, he’d claimed, back then.

Subconsciously, Duja rubbed the faint scar on the side of her neck, dark specks that stood out against her brown skin in the morning light, the ghost of a burn Maiza had healed many years earlier. Her brother was prone to accidents.

“Yes, Maiza, you’re right.”

She closed her eyes, and Maiza began chanting in the low, somber cadences of Old Maynaran. The pain in her muscles subsided, flushed out of her body in a great wave. The stiffness wouldn’t trouble her for the rest of the day, and the enchantments should stem the tremors until the following evening. Any reprieve the shaman could grant her was only temporary.

Meanwhile, the tremors would not wait for Laya to learn control. The power of the gods would continue to wear away at Duja’s body at alarming speed. For her daughter’s sake?—and for the rest of Maynara?—the queen needed to maintain her hold on the throne for a while longer. But how?

Duja’s thoughts flitted to the letter in her pocket. Her husband knew of her misgivings when it came to Laya. He loved their daughter, but even he agreed that Laya was not ready to ascend to the throne. For months, he had been searching for a way to buy Duja the time she needed. He wouldn’t have contacted Pangil without good reason. At least, that’s what Duja wanted to believe.

Twenty-two years since her brother had last roamed the island. He couldn’t be allowed to return?—not after what he’d done. Duja’s mouth flooded with bile at the mere prospect.

Nothing like him,Maiza had said.

Duja wanted to believe her, but the memory of her mother’s death was still fresh in her mind. Between her brother’s flame and Laya’s wreckage, she could not wash away the haunting resemblance.

Duja did not see the king until it was nearly suppertime. She happened upon him in the library, where the peppery scent of pipe cloves announced his presence. She made out his distinguished profile as she rounded one of the tall mahogany bookshelves that stretched to the gilded ceiling.

Hari Aki carried no despotic airs. If anything, he radiated intelligence?—more scholar than king. He was a surprising breed of handsome, with attentive eyes and warm brown skin, and a pleasant face that grew more bewitching the longer you gazed at it.

He hadn’t been Duja’s first love, but she had always admired him. Before they’d courted, Aki had been the gentlest man she’d known. His intelligence and political acumen, she gleaned much later. She fell in love first with his hearty laugh, which sent pleasant vibrations throughout every inch of her body. After their daughters were born, she saw how tenderhearted he could be. He was the sole man she would have chosen to father her children, and now he was the only soul whose counsel she could trust.

Until that morning, when Duja had found the letter, that was. The damned letter. She still did not know what to make of it. She frowned as she studied her husband?—her clever, gentle husband. A memory flashed of two young men strolling in the courtyard, Pangil’s arm slung around Aki’s shoulders. Aki had been her brother’s friend long before he’d become her king. What had Pangil promised him, exactly?

Duja could hear from the murmurs echoing across the quiet library that Aki wasn’t alone. She craned her neck. Curled up on one of the window benches next to a stack of books was Bulan, their eldest. A faint smile spread across Duja’s face when she peered at the title in Bulan’s hands:The Art of Maynaran Swordsmanship.Even when Bulan wasn’t in the courtyard sparring with General Ojas, she was busy training.

The queen watched as Aki leaned over their daughter’s shoulder. He pointed at the page she was reading, whispering something that made Bulan laugh?—a rare sound, like crinkling paper. It filled Duja with a tenderness she often didn’t feel for her other daughters. Beneath those sturdy muscles built up from hours and hours of sword training, Bulan suffered from the sting of comparison. She tried to drown it in sweat and sacrifice and duty, but Duja saw the envy in Bulan’s eyes when she gazed at her younger, more powerful sisters. Over the years, Duja tried to console her. The power of Mulayri may not flow through Bulan’s veins, but that did not make Duja love her any less.

Those words meant more coming from the king, a normal man who drew from a deeper source of strength. Aki understood Bulan’s insecurities more than anyone else in their family. Duja’s heart swelled when he planted a kiss on Bulan’s forehead.

Duja cleared her throat. Aki and Bulan looked up in surprise. Before the queen could speak, Bulan clapped her book shut and shot to her feet.

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