Page 43 of Black Salt Queen

Laya’s eyes narrowed as she gazed at Luntok. Bulan may have challenged him to an unfair fight, but he had no right to speak that way to a princess. To Laya’ssister.

Bulan swallowed hard. In the torchlight, Laya could see the glint of tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes. But Bulan didn’t crumble at Luntok’s taunts. She squared her shoulders. Raised her sword above her head.

Bulan refused to let him win.

After the tournament, no soul in Maynara would dare underestimate Bulan again. Laya watched, horrified, as she descended on Luntok like a charging bull. No clever strike could hold her back. Any restraint she might have afforded him vanished. She aimed for his heart, his throat. Her blade threatened to maim, to disembowel. Laya recognized the power radiating from Bulan’s body with every movement?—that immeasurable, godlike rage.

One mistake, and Luntok tripped over himself trying to match her. He dived for her in a center thrust. She sidestepped him and grabbed his arm. Without hesitation, she switched the angle of her weapon and jabbed the hilt straight into his gut. Luntok doubled over. She raised her sword again and drove the hilt straight into the side of his skull.

Laya gasped as the force knocked Luntok to his knees. Bulan kicked the sore spot. The jeering grew louder. Bulan didn’t care if they cried foul. She drove the hilt onto his wrist. He cried out, and his blade clattered to the platform. Bulan couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop. Once more, she raised her sword and brought it straight down on his head.

And Laya?—Laya could no longer bear to watch.

“Stop!” she screamed, thrusting out both palms.

Before Bulan’s hilt could make contact, the air above the platform split. A violent blast of wind nearly sent Bulan hurtling from the platform’s edge. She skidded backward, away from Luntok, her sword swept from her grip.

Laya clambered into the ring and threw herself at Luntok’s side. She cradled his swollen face in her hands, not caring who saw.

“Laya,” he groaned, leaning into her palm.

She smoothed back the hair from his bloodied brow and hushed him. Her heart sank as she inspected the damage. An angry, purple splotch had already spread across his cheekbone. After witnessing the force with which Bulan had struck his head, Laya knew it was a miracle Luntok was still conscious.

“Bulan, you absolute maniac,” Laya breathed. Her shoulders shook with anger. She couldn’t bring herself to look at her.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Bulan said. But her confidence from the start of the fight had long since faded, and doubt crept into her tone.

“Dramatic?” Laya let out a spiteful laugh. “You could have killed him.”

She waited for another retort, but her sister said nothing. After a long, painful moment, Bulan walked away. Her footsteps echoed as she stalked across the platform. The crowd had no cheers for her, no applause. Only stunned silence.

Laya didn’t watch her sister leave. She could not tear her gaze away from Luntok. He stirred feebly in her arms. Fear bubbled up in the back of her throat as she wrapped her arms around him. She bit back tears as she wiped the blood from his swollen lips.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

My love. My only love.

Luntok stirred again but did not try to speak. Laya held him until the crowd emptied from the stands and the pit. She held him until the beating drums and thunderous cheers faded to deafening silence. She would have held him for hours longer, but then the curtain of night fell over Mariit. With the moon came a unit of healers with their potions and dressings. They waved her off, impatient, as they hoisted Luntok onto a stretcher. Laya’s throat constricted as she wavered, alone on the platform. She had no choice but to watch him go.

Sixteen

Imeria

“I have failed you, Mother,” Luntok slurred as she helped him into bed. He was under the influence of the sleeping draft the healers gave him to ease the pain. They had stitched him up the best they could with their prayers and petty sorcery, but Imeria could do better.

He groaned as she eased him onto his side and, as lightly as she could, undid the bandages on his back. The cut that awful Gatdula girl gave him was shallow, but it would scar if Imeria didn’t act quickly. Her hand hovered over the wounded flesh. She closed her eyes as she reached deep into the blood, deep into herself, grasping for the power she had long been forced to hide.

The power greeted her like an old friend. It wove itself into the space between her fingers and Luntok’s wound. The skin on the edges, cut cleanly by Bulan’s blade, glowed. At her coaxing, it sealed itself shut.

“Tickles,” Luntok murmured into the pillow.

“Hush.” She needed all her concentration if she wanted to finish healing him.

Her forebears would not have blinked twice at such an injury. They once wielded power far greater than the Gatdulas could have imagined. That power was lost generations before; it died alongside the Kulaws’ shamans and their sacred texts. And the Gatdulas, who thought themselves their saviors, rejoiced as they marched all the way south to Thu-ki and watched everything the Kulaws built burn.

The power to wield mind and flesh was believed to have disappeared generations before Imeria was born. But it lived, a flame born of the brutality and righteous anger that surged in her blood. It was a mere scrap of what she might have possessed had she received the proper training as a child, but maybe it wasn’t too late. Her free hand wandered to the pocket of her skirt, where she kept the vials of precioso hidden.

Soon,she thought to herself. With haunting certainty, she remembered how Hara Duja threatened her with the earthquake earlier that morning. Perhaps it would all come to a head sooner than she realized.

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