Page 72 of Black Salt Queen

“Wait.” Gently this time, Luntok pulled her back by the waist and rested his chin against her shoulder. She waited for him to say something, but he had no words of comfort for her. Laya didn’t care. Luntok could feed her all the pretty words he liked. Never again would she believe him.

Water dripped from the pump in light staccato. The strength flushed out of Laya all at once; she could no longer play the coquette. She cried again, a plaintive wail that filled the water closet. Her sobs this time were quieter, more restrained.

Luntok stayed silent. He comforted her until her tears subsided. Several minutes later, she calmed herself long enough to gaze at him with red-rimmed eyes.

“Great Mulayri. I wish I could forgive you,” she said, in a thick voice of resignation.

Luntok’s face twisted as if slapped. “I pray that one day, you will,” he said stiffly.

Fool.Rage surged in Laya’s blood, but she could no longer argue with him. Sniffling, she drew her knees up to her chest. The steam in the air cooled as they sat in the bathtub in silence.

Twenty-Seven

Eti

Mariit was even larger than Eti had realized. Parts of the capital she knew as well as the inside of the palace: the goldsmiths’ guildhall, where Eti would sometimes study the young, deft-fingered apprentices for inspiration; the towering stone town houses of the central district, where noble Maynaran families held tiny courts of their own; and the ring of spirit houses encircling the giant balete tree at the heart of the city. Still, Mariit sprawled across dozens of neighborhoods where the royal family never deigned to venture. The boardinghouse where Eti and Ariel sought refuge was in one of the dockside districts on the outer fringes of Mariit. General Ojas’s men would never have allowed Eti to go there, but Ariel reasoned it was their safest bet. The Royal Maynaran Guard started patrolling the palace and the busy center of Mariit?—the deepest pockets of unrest. They would be too thinly spread to keep a watchful eye all the way out there.

From what little of the dockside neighborhood Eti had seen, it wasn’t dangerous. No one bothered them the few times she and Ariel dared go outside in their new unsuspicious clothes. During normal circumstances, the people there mainly kept to themselves, toiling for hours on the docks beneath the hot Maynaran sun before trudging home to their families at dusk. But the Kulaws’ coup had shaken the outlying districts. Fear hung heavy in the air, pungent as the scent of sea salt and fresh-caught fish. Eti saw it stark on each face she passed. Since the coup, the bustling docks had ground to a halt. For two days, ships had waited in the harbor to be unloaded. No one was working; they were waiting for the fate of Maynara to be decided.

The brothel owner next door, a well-coiffed woman with a daggerlike gaze and painted lips, came over during breakfast to trade gossip with the boardinghouse keeper. In the middle of the night, a client had shown up to the brothel with a bloodied nose and news that a riot had broken out in front of the palace gates. Scores of the Gatdulas’ loyal subjects tried to overtake the guards. They might have succeeded had Imeria Kulaw not felled them with her abilities. According to the brothel’s client, Imeria merely raised her hand, and the rioters froze, black-eyed, where they stood. The guardsmen rounded them up and threw them in the prison hold. The riot died in minutes.

The news made Eti’s stomach churn in apprehension. “Imeria Kulaw could reach into the minds of that many people?” she asked in quiet terror.

Ariel gave a glum nod, but he said something that made a small bubble of hope rise in Eti’s gut. “Perhaps she can. But how many people can she stuff inside your family’s prison cells?”

That same morning, Ariel and Eti spoke briefly with the two boarders who were renting the room across the hall. The boarders were a young married couple, both around Ariel’s age. The husband was a tall, broad-shouldered man who spent most of his time heaving crates and barrels off cargo ships. His wife was small in stature, a mere inch taller than Eti, with a round, pregnant belly. Ariel introduced himself to them as Eti’s brother, a fact neither of the boarders questioned despite the obvious lack of resemblance. Unlike the nobles prowling about court, the people here respected secrecy. They rarely questioned anything in these parts, Eti learned.

During their brief conversation, the husband pried once out of concern. He leaned in and clasped Ariel by the shoulder. “Listen, brother. Do you have family outside Mariit? I’m only asking because I have a friend who’s sailing out of the city tonight. There’s room on the boat if you wish to join us.” He cast a worried glance at Eti and added, “The tides here will turn fast. And we both have children to think about.”

“You can come stay with us,” his wife said when she saw Ariel hesitate. “My grandmother lives in the south. She’ll take you in should this matter up in the palace sour. And, knowing the Gatdulas, they will.”

“The Gatdulas?” Eti echoed. She had never heard her family’s name uttered that way?—like some common, dirty word.

The wife nodded grimly. “Of course, you’re too young to know about the rebellion, aren’t you? My grandfather fought for the Kulaws before he surrendered. Nevertheless, the Gatdulas killed him. Burned him alive as he begged. Why, they even?—” She broke off with a shudder. Her round eyes were glassy when she met Eti’s gaze. “Forgive me, child, you don’t want to hear this. But believe me when I say that if they survive, the Gatdulas will show no mercy. Best go to a place where we know we are safe.”

An unpleasant tingle trickled down Eti’s spine. She was half listening as Ariel politely declined the boarders’ invitation. Whatever excuse he gave, they seemed to believe him.

“May the gods look kindly upon you, brother,” the husband said. “We’re leaving here at dusk, in case you change your mind.” He gave Ariel a last pointed look. Gently, he slung his arm around his wife’s waist and helped her back upstairs to their room.

For a long moment after they left, Eti didn’t budge. She didn’t realize she was trembling until Ariel laid a hand on her shoulder. “Come along,” he whispered. “Let’s see if we can find more of those sweet rolls.”

She nodded, keeping her mouth shut as Ariel led her outside. The sun was too bright. The main street around the corner from the boardinghouse was too chaotic. People were rushing back and forth, toting carts piled high with jugs of oil and sacks of rice?—reserves should supplies run low. Fearful chatter from every corner, everyone whispering of the Kulaws, of civil war. Eti tried to stamp out the noise, but the voices echoed louder in her head. No matter how much she blinked, she couldn’t force her vision to focus. Instinctively, she grappled at her wrist for one of her bangles. Then Eti remembered they’d peddled most of them, which had given them more than enough money to survive over the next couple of weeks. The rest of her jewelry they’d stashed beneath the floorboards in the boardinghouse alongside Ariel’s precioso. Her fingers itched for a tiny scrap of gold to wield, but she couldn’t risk it. The city was on high alert. The slightest wielding would reveal Eti for the Gatdula she was.

Without her wielding to center her, panic swelled inside Eti’s chest. Crowds overwhelmed her often?—during her mother’s dinner parties and royal ceremonies and, of course, the feasts. In the palace, she knew where to hide. Behind the mahogany bookshelves in her father’s library. Inside the half-forgotten stairwells where not even scullery maids bothered to go. Eti couldn’t escape to her favorite shelters. Not as long as she was stuck here.

She let out a whimper of frustration. A second later, Ariel thrust something soft and toasty into her hands. “Eat,” he said. “It will help you feel better.”

Eti looked down. Sure enough, Ariel had found her a sweet roll. Shakily, she took a bite. The bread was light and airy on her tongue. She discovered with delight that Ariel had found one with sticky coconut filling.

“You were right, Ariel,” she said, licking the coconut flakes off her fingers. Food didn’t quite curb the panic cresting up and up inside her, but it helped.

They were standing next to the long, narrow canal that cut through the outlying districts. Her gaze traced the water down to where the canal began, at the massive stone walls shielding the city. She often looked down at those walls from the palace terraces. How mighty they loomed from afar! But up close, Eti could spy cracks branching up from the walls’ foundations. They cut so deep into the stone in some parts that it wouldn’t take more than one of Laya’s half-hearted gusts to knock them down.

Doubt swirled in Eti’s stomach. The palace walls couldn’t keep the Kulaws from invading the palace. Nor would the city walls keep any foreign invaders at bay. Her family was their biggest protection, but some Maynarans didn’t see it that way. Perhaps it was true what so many members of the court assumed of her: Eti was nothing more than a daft, useless child who allowed the world to fill her head with lies.

“You read the books on Maynaran history I gave you,” she said. “Do you think it’s true? What that woman said at the boardinghouse?”

“You mean about your family?” Ariel asked.

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