Page 9 of Black Salt Queen

“Mother, about the ship?—I can explain,” Bulan began, worry creasing her brow.

Duja raised her hand to silence her. Her heart had nearly stopped when Laya had told her about the ship. At the moment, however, she had more pressing worries to address. “Never mind that, darling,” she said. “Would you mind if I spoke to your father alone?”

Bulan nodded and gathered her books in her arms. She cast a curious glance at the king on her way out of the library. Duja didn’t speak until she heard the door creak shut behind her daughter.

“You’ve been awfully busy, my love,” she said.

Aki was an observant man. He picked up on the sadness laced in her tone. “I take it you don’t mean with feast-day preparations?” he said.

Duja took Bulan’s place on the window bench. Her hands quivered when she rested them in her lap. “I’m worried, Aki.”

“About the tremors?” Aki sat down across from her. He laid a hand on her arm and lowered his voice. “I promise you, darling, we will find a solution.”

“It appears you already have,” she said.

Duja pulled the letter out of her pocket. Her brother’s distinctive scrawl glowed in the afternoon light. She thought of Pangil’s words?—old friend?—intimate enough to make her question her husband’s intentions.

Aki’s expression darkened. “It isn’t what you think, Duja,” he said calmly. But she could tell by the tightness in his shoulders?—he was ashamed.

“Isn’t it?” Duja asked.I love you. I trusted you.She swallowed her accusations.

“Pangil?—he wrote to me years ago. I ignored him. I would have gone my entire life without speaking to him again. But then?—Laya’s accident.” He rubbed his chin and reached into the pocket of his vest for his pipe.

Duja watched as he struck a match against the windowsill. The tobacco cloves sputtered when he drew the flame to the pipe bowl.

“Pangil had written to me around that time. Claimed to have found a way to suppress the body’s degradation. At first, I dismissed it as mere rumors. But then, I began to read things?—terrible, fascinating things.” Aki drew in a deep breath. When he exhaled, puffs of smoke wafted from his mouth to the library’s high coffered ceilings. “I meant it when I told you I would explore every avenue, Duja,” he said, meeting her gaze. “And while I hate your brother as much as you do, there is hope.”

Anticipation bubbled in Duja’s stomach?—anticipation and dread. Her husband would not have hidden the letter from her if he didn’t have his reasons. He was loyal to Duja, to his family?—not to her brother, the exiled prince. But what if he and Pangil had struck some perverse agreement? Would Aki renege on the vows he’d made her based on nothing more than the empty promises of an old friend?

“This man,” she said, thinking back to the letter. “Pangil mentioned a man who can help me. A kind of... alchemist.”

The word felt foreign on Duja’s tongue. Alchemy had no place in Maynara. It was more science than sorcery, and it lay beyond her realm of comprehension.

“The key to abiding glory,”the king said, quoting Pangil’s letter. Judging by the faint frown at the corners of his lips, a large part of him doubted it. “Iwasgoing to tell you, Duja. I wanted to wait until after the feast days,” he added, a wrinkle of regret between his eyes.

Doubt twisted in her stomach. Shewantedto believe him. While the king was clever, he was no match for Pangil and his nose for weakness. She couldn’t believe any promises either man made her. Duja needed to meet with this alchemist herself.

“No. We shouldn’t wait. How fast can you get word to him?” she asked. The words flew from her mouth before she could stop them.

Aki’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Duja?—are you certain?”

No, she wasn’t certain. But what choice did she have? Her body’s clock was ticking at an alarming rate. Duja’s control over her powers faded with each passing day. If a solution was lying out there, awaiting her discovery, she couldn’t afford to ignore it. Even if the solution had come from her brother’s lips.

“Write to him tonight,” she said, sounding more confident than she felt. “Let us see what this messenger has to say.”

Who was he, this so-called alchemist? And how could she know whether to trust him? Her nerves lit up when she thought back to Pangil’s claim:He can help Duja more than you or I ever could.

The king’s eyes softened. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Of course, my love.”

He would move heaven and earth for her, her husband. Duja closed her eyes and breathed in his familiar scent. The cloves calmed her nerves, but nothing Aki said could quell the doubts swirling in her head. Duja’s concerns had grown far greater than her daughter’s readiness to inherit the throne. Laya’s accident appeared trivial wherever Pangil’s shadow loomed. If there was any truth to Aki’s words, her brother held the secret to long-lasting power. For all they knew, he could be stronger than Duja, or even stronger than Laya. This realization didn’t sit well with the queen.

The decades-old fear twisted in her gut when Duja stared out the window at the eastern wing. She could still picture, with heart-pounding immediacy, the last time she’d seen it aflame.

Duja.Pangil’s voice reverberated across the rifts of time. This time, he wasn’t alone. No, Duja had not forgotten?—another ghost, another threat. Amidst Pangil’s laughter, she could still hear the echoes of another girl’s screams.

Four

Laya

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