Page 50 of Black Salt Queen

Eti brightened. “Laya, look! I’ve saved Ariel from eternal boredom. Come see.”

Laya raised an eyebrow before settling into the chair beside her. “Oh?” she said. “How can that be?”

“Dayang Eti was kind enough to bring me some reading materials from the royal library,” Ariel clarified, meeting Laya’s gaze.

Laya’s cheeks warmed at the sight of his grin. She remembered the spark that wound through her the last time she and Ariel were alone together. A trick of the mind, she was convinced. That spark wouldn’t strike her again.

She turned her attention to the book laid out before them. “What sort of books did you bring him?” she asked.

Eti hauled a few heavy tomes from the floor and deposited them at the edge of the desk. They landed on the lacquered mahogany surface with a loud thump.

“Mostly historical accounts,” she chirped. “I asked Father to bring me the most comprehensive volumes. Ariel’s got nothing to do at the moment, so I thought these would keep him busy.”

Eti was a kindhearted child, and she never failed to impress Laya with her thoughtfulness. Although if Eti wished to keep the Orfelian entertained during his stay at the palace, she ought to have chosen something a touch more entertaining than Maynara’s densest historical texts.

Laya scanned the titles of the books beside her, biting back a chuckle. “Everything you’ve chosen is in Maynaran,” she remarked.

“That won’t be a problem,” Ariel said. “I know how to read Maynaran now, after all.” He gave Laya a pointed look.

“In that case, these books ought to keep you enthralled,” she said dryly.

Ariel’s grin broadened. For Eti’s sake, he did not say anything to the contrary. “You will find, however, that my vocabulary is lacking,” he told Laya.

“I should think, then, that another lesson is in order,” she said, her eyes twinkling with the promise of a challenge.

Surprise flickered in Ariel’s expression. “If that is what you are offering, Dayang, I would be grateful,” he said, bowing his head.

She stared at him. He had yet to lose his nasal Orfelian accent, which grated Laya’s ears to no end, but something had changed in his inflection?—the rolling dips within words, the slight upturns at the ends of his phrases. In the few days since Ariel had arrived, he had begun to adopt Maynaran’s songlike speech patterns.

Fascinating.Laya smiled to herself. The Orfelian was definitely not a fool.

“Ariel can speak over a dozen languages. He’s traveled around the world,” Eti piped up between them. “Laya, did he tell you that?”

“No, he did not.” Well, that explained how fast Ariel had picked up Maynaran. Once more, she met his gaze. “I suppose we have a great deal to learn from each other.”

“Yes, Dayang. I suppose we do.”

Ariel stared back at her with the same brazen openness, which Laya might have mistaken for insolence in other circumstances. This time, she didn’t mind. She understood the intent she saw behind those spectacles. Ariel wished to read her, the same way he wished to read the book splayed out on the desk between them. The same way Laya wished to read him.

She had not forgotten the vow she’d made to Ariel before their first language lesson. She would discover his true business in Maynara. In the meantime?—

Laya reached for a sheet of paper on the other side of the desk. “Another lesson,” she said without preamble.

Ariel chuckled and reached for his pen. “Certainly, Dayang. Whatever pleases you.”

They went over the Salmantican alphabet once more. He taught her how to link the letters together to form words. Laya found the alphabet easier to understand than she had the first lesson, but perhaps that was because she poured every ounce of her concentration into mastering it. The paper she had stolen from Ariel’s desk earlier that week was still hidden beneath the floorboards in Laya’s bedroom, and she had pored over it the previous night to distract herself from her sorrows. She quickly discovered it was a letter, addressed to someone named Nelo and written in Orfelian. Her first lesson with Ariel had not taught her much, but she was able to cobble together a baffling string of words and transcribe them into Maynaran:comrade,prince, and most cryptic of all,precioso.Laya would learn to read the rest of it, no matter how painful.

With the letter in mind, she watched Ariel’s gestures and mimicked them, committing each stroke to memory. The awful, ugly script kept her hands occupied?—and her thoughts oceans away from Luntok and Bulan.

When Ariel complimented Laya’s progress, her stomach betrayed her and fluttered in excitement. “Now that you know this writing system, you’ll be able to read most western languages as well as Orfelian,” he explained.

“I’m not sure what good it will do me, but that’s satisfying to hear,” Laya said with a shrug.

In the seat beside her, Eti yawned. She had been following the lesson until then. But she’d become bored. “If this is what you plan on doing all day, then I’m going to practice my wielding,” she said.

Laya tousled her hair. “Go on, then,” she said, dismissing her. She turned back to Ariel, a renewed hardness in her tone. “I don’t believe our lesson is over quite yet.”

“Suit yourselves.” Eti set her pen down and swept from the room, no doubt to spend the rest of the afternoon crafting a bangle or two.

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