Page 24 of Black Salt Queen

“I’ll see to it,” Hari Aki murmured as he backed out of the sitting room.

Ariel watched the king head downstairs, confused. “Is something the matter?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Duja said with a shake of her head. “It seems Laya and Bulan are fighting again.”

Duja had long struggled to mitigate the tensions between her eldest daughters. If not for their shared Gatdula traits?—murky, green-flecked eyes and deep-brown skin?—one would never guess they’d come from the same womb. Their weekly clashes, though trivial and short-lived, reflected a deep-seated fracture between the sisters, which Duja often blamed herself for.

She crossed the sitting room and struggled to pry open the window screen. Her fingers had gone rigid, a warning of coming tremors. Ariel rushed to her side and helped her slide the screen open a few inches. Duja offered him a small smile of thanks, then glanced through the window. She half expected to find her daughters at each other’s throats. What she saw was even more surprising. Laya and Bulan weren’t fighting, nor were they in the courtyard alone. Eti was scampering across the tiles to stand between them.

“Are you ready?” Eti’s voice, small and childlike, floated up to Ariel’s sitting room. The girl raised her right palm. A pellet of pure gold rose about a foot above her head, its rounded surface glinting in the sunlight.

Duja let out a delighted laugh. “I don’t believe it. They’re playing a game,” she said, amazed, and waved Ariel over to watch. He stood behind her shoulder, the window screen concealing most of his profile.

Down in the courtyard, Eti made the first move. Her eyes darted between her sisters, deciding upon her target. After a few seconds’ deliberation, she drew her hand back and hurled the pellet at Bulan. The pellet zoomed across the courtyard in a yellow streak. Bulan was ready. She lunged to the side, catching the pellet with the flat edge of her sword. It soared back to Eti, who jumped to catch it with a satisfied cheer.

“Your turn, Laya!” she cried, casting the pellet in her other sister’s direction.

But neither Bulan nor Eti could match Laya’s winds, which cut through the air like a dagger. Laya needed only to thrust out her hands, and a blast erupted across the courtyard, rattling the windows in their metal frames. The blast whisked the pellet high above the girls’ heads. It sailed over fifty feet away to the opposite end of the courtyard, before crashing to a stop a few inches in front of the entrance to the palace gardens.

“Whoa,” Ariel whispered, astonished.

In the courtyard, Bulan groaned. “Laya! We agreed to keep it within bounds,” she yelled.

Eti crossed her arms and pouted. “I don’t care what you said. I’m not fetching it.”

“Well, I’m not fetching it,” Laya yelled back.

“What’s going on here?” the king called. Duja caught sight of the top of his head as he stepped out of the eastern wing. He joined his daughters in the courtyard, his hands clasped behind his back.

Eti pointed at Laya. “She’s cheating.”

Duja could see Laya roll her eyes all the way from the sitting room. “Please. There are no winners or losers in this game,” Laya said.

“So?” Bulan asked.

Laya shrugged. “If you can’t win, you can’t cheat. Everyone knows that.”

“Oh, I don’t know if that’s true,” Aki said in a good-natured tone.

“Of course it’s true,” Laya said. Eti stuck her tongue out at her, and Laya stuck out her tongue back.

With Laya’s attention on her younger sister, Aki barreled toward her, catching her off guard. He hauled Laya over his shoulder like a sack of rice. “Does this count as cheating, my dear?” he asked.

Laya pounded his back while her sisters howled. “Let me down, Father! That’s not fair!” she cried. But Laya could never be angry with her father. Even as she protested, tears of laughter streamed down her cheeks.

“I thought you couldn’t cheat!” Aki teased.

“I’ll save you, Laya!” Eti ran for them, tackling their father at the knees. With a dramatic cry, he tumbled to the ground and Laya with him. Before they could get up, Bulan threw herself atop the pile. All four of them collapsed on the tiled ground, their shoulders shaking as they laughed.

Warmth burst inside Duja’s chest as she watched the scene unfold. She leaned against the glass, her joy numbing the stabs of pain shooting down her fingertips. “They’re happy,” she said, more to herself than to Ariel.

He gave her a shy smile. “A happy family indeed.”

Duja looked back at her children. It was so rare to see them like this, especially Laya. A broad, unguarded grin stretched across Laya’s face. She looked as young as Eti when she smiled like that. Duja saw bits of herself and Aki in Laya’s face; but, with her sharp gaze and delicate features, Laya looked most like her uncle.

Oh, Pangil.Lately, she saw her brother everywhere. Duja still pictured Pangil as a young man, lithe and handsome with skin the shade of narra wood. She remembered when they played in the courtyard as children. As she watched her daughters, another rare and tender memory struck her, of another sunny day, the day Imeria Kulaw challenged Duja to a race.

“First to the garden gate wins the loser’s yam cakes,” Imeria had said. She was smaller than Duja, and she ran on much shorter legs. That did not deter the Kulaw girl. She set her jaw as she tucked her hair into a neat plait that wound over Imeria’s shoulder like an eel. Imeria had thick, straight hair the shade of ink. For weeks, Duja had itched to touch those strands. Surely, they weren’t as silky as they looked.

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