Page 51 of Black Salt Queen

Ariel held Laya’s gaze, this time with a frown. “You truly don’t believe learning to communicate in these languages will be useful to you?”

“To communicate with foreign dignitaries, you mean?” she asked.

“To communicate with anyone who isn’t Maynaran.”

“When I am queen, I shall require any foreign dignitaries to study my language before I deign to speak with them. As for non-Maynarans...” Laya trailed off with a laugh. “I hardly think I will encounter them enough in my lifetime to make learning their languages a worthwhile endeavor. You, of course, are the exception.”

Ariel’s frown deepened. “With all due respect, Dayang, Maynara is but one small island in a vast world. I understand your people’s policy of isolation, but even isolation has its limits. There are dozens of countries out there with whom you might form a beneficial alliance. As a future sovereign, you must be at least a bit interested in this.”

Laya matched his frown with one of her own. “By the gods. You sound like you’ve been spending too much time with my mother,” she said, annoyed. She was willing to tolerate Ariel’s insolence, but she was not going to allow this foreigner to presume he knew what was best for Maynara’s future, more than she did.

“Hara Duja is being realistic,” Ariel said, frustration rising in his tone. “Maynara must open the door to the rest of the world in some way, be it through trade agreements or diplomacy. Openness does not always end in conquest.”

“Oh, but it does. We need only look at your homeland to know this,” Laya retorted. She slouched back in her seat, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “No matter what you believe, Ariel, Maynara does not need the rest of the world. We’ve survived hundreds of years for a reason. If closing our doors protects our people, so be it.”

“Maynara may not need the rest of the world, but the rest of the world needs Maynara. Did you once consider that?” Ariel shoved his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose and leaned in. “I watched you in the courtyard the other day, Dayang. Had I an ounce of your power, I?—”

Laya cut him off with a harsh laugh. “Go on, then, Orfelian. You would not know the first thing about Mulayri’s power. All this talk of the rest of the world, you speak like an enslaved man.”

Ariel’s gaze snapped to hers. “You dare speak to me of enslavement?” he asked in a low, gravelly voice.

“What else are we to speak of? It’s all your people know,” Laya said, raising her chin. She was accustomed to hurling cruel words at anyone who dared challenge her. Less often did they throw their own cruel words back.

Ariel threw his pen down, splattering ink trails across the sheets of paper. Behind his spectacles, his eyes bulged with anger.

“And what do you know of Orfelia, sitting up here in your palace?” Ariel said, his cheeks reddening with each sentence. “For centuries, my people have fought for freedom. We penned pamphlets. We rallied the resistance. And my friends?—these uncultured imbeciles, as you regard them?—they could not carve out islands from the ocean floor. They could not summon the wrath of the skies at their fingertips. Their power was but adream, and theydiedfor it.” Fury flashed in his sharp, scholarly eyes. He jumped to his feet, the legs of his chair scraping across the floorboards. “Tell me, Dayang, what kind of mindless slave would risk their life for that?”

His words rang out across the room, which suddenly felt too small for the pair of them. Ariel fell silent, bracing his weight against the edge of the desk. His shallow breaths filled the study. Laya didn’t dare speak. She stared up at him in astonishment, her mind reeling from his impassioned words. Of all the information she had hoped to wheedle from the Orfelian, this was not what she’d expected him to confess.

Ariel flushed as he caught his breath. He sat back down, horrified. “I?—I apologize, Dayang,” he said quietly, shifting his eyes to his lap. “I should not have lost my temper. You meant no disrespect.”

She blinked as she gazed back at him in awe, momentarily struck speechless. His candidness caught her off guard. Laya’s cheeks heated, not in rage, but in shame. She cleared her throat. “No, Ariel, I am the one who should apologize. I meant every disrespect. And that was wrong of me.”

Ariel’s outburst hung heavy in the air; in comparison, her words came out thin, feeble. Inadequate. Rarely did she admit fault, and miraculously, the Orfelian had startled an apology out of her.

His eyes flitted back to hers in shock. “You aren’t angry?”

Laya shook her head. No, she wasn’t angry. Her skin prickled as the damned spark burst through her once again.

She stared at him and, this time, truly drank in his features. In the muted light of the sitting room, Ariel appeared to be in his midtwenties?—younger than Laya had initially thought him to be. But she could sense a weariness in him that belonged to a man twice his age. The Orfelian was lying about what had brought him to Maynara. He was not who he said he was. But something he said struck a chord with Laya. Maybe Hari Aki was right. They did have much to learn from each other after all.

Laya did not know what overcame her when she reached across the desk and cupped her hand over his. The slight touch alarmed them both, but Ariel did not pull away. “I am sorry, Ariel?—about your friends,” she murmured. “They were brave to fight. And what happened to them was awful.”

Her words did not encapsulate half of what Laya wished to say, but to make amends, they were enough.

Ariel swallowed. “Thank you, Dayang... It was awful,” he said, his voice tight.

He was still in pain, she realized. She did not want to press him any further. Instead, Laya leaned back and reached for her pen. Something told her that would please him.

“If you don’t mind, Ariel,” she said gently, “I suggest we continue with our lesson.”

Ariel continued to plague Laya’s thoughts until she retreated to her chambers after supper. The evening’s festivity had been an intimate affair involving the Gatdulas, cousins from Hari Aki’s bloodline, High Shaman Maiza, and a handful of the queen’s closest, crustiest advisers. Her father had invited Maynara’s most exclusive troop of dancers and musicians to perform for them while a singer narrated their ancient myths. Normally, this was the feast-day event that excited Laya the most.

But throughout their performance, Laya did not pay attention to the gongs and flourishes, nor to the story of Mulayri, who’d sent his birds down to earth and pecked mankind into creation. Her mind wandered to the Orfelian’s fallen rebel friends. She imagined them to be as young as Ariel, wide-eyed fools who dived headfirst into a battle they knew they could not win. A vision of Ariel charging alongside them, a saber in his scholar’s hands, his wire-framed spectacles splattered with blood and soot, broke her heart, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Was it Maynara’s responsibility to balance the odds in those unwinnable fights? To bolster the scrappy rebels scattered about the world? That was what Ariel had implied. His words echoed in her mind as she shut the door to her bedroom behind her. So absorbed was she in their conversation earlier in the eastern wing, she did not realize she was not alone.

“Laya.”

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