Page 80 of Black Salt Queen

His voice lowered to a desperate whisper. “For Mulayri’s sake, don’t drag my daughter into your personal vendetta. Punish me if you wish, for I was the one who took Duja away from you. I knew you loved her. I was the one who convinced Duja to marry you off. I wanted Duja for myself. Don’t you see, Imeria? The fault is mine. I beg you. Leave Laya out of this.”

A lump formed in Imeria’s throat. The king was babbling now. He didn’t mean a word of this. He was only telling her what he thought she wanted to hear. She tore her gaze away. “I’m sorry, Aki. It is done.”

The king pounded the bars in terror, and the hall filled with the echoes of clanking metal. “Imeria, wait!”

Imeria ignored his pleas as she turned toward the exit. She ran up the stairs, nearly stumbling over her skirts on the way. Servants bombarded her when she emerged at the courtyard level. They needed to leave for the wedding ceremony in a mere hour’s time, and the palace was still in chaos. Imeria swept past the servants, dismissing their questions with a wave of her wrist. Let Vikal or Gulod deal with it.

Imeria didn’t stop walking until she locked herself into one of the guest chambers on the upper floor. She slammed the door shut and sagged against it. Frustrated tears threatened to spill over her eyelids. No time to dwell on the smoke-filled memories. She wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve and pushed the tears away.

After drawing in a deep breath, Imeria headed for the nearest water closet to bathe before the wedding ceremony.

A personal vendetta, the king called it. So be it.

Soon, Imeria would have her vengeance. Soon, her dance with Duja would come to an end.

Twenty-Nine

Duja

Duja’s brother joined her in her cell. She saw him as the handsome young man he’d once been. Tall and slender, with dark-brown skin and a sharp, mocking gaze. It startled her in that moment just how much he resembled Laya. The outline of his profile blurred in the dim bar of light that streamed through the narrow window. She should have known he would come to her in this miserable prison cell, appearing only when she was at her lowest.

“Poor sister,” he said, sighing as his dark eyes fell on the brass shackles encircling her wrists. “How on earth did you wind up down here?”

“Brother,” she said in a low voice. “You know better than to return.”

None of this was real. Pangil had not come back to Maynara.I watched you,she thought.I watched you sail away.

“You look well, Duja,” he said, smiling sadly. “Did you enjoy my gift?”

She laughed to herself. The sound echoed across the slime-coated walls of the prison hold. Pangil was talking about the precioso.

“Your gift?—fat lot of good that would do me now,” she said, waving her hand at the gray walls of the cell around them.

Pangil let out a weary sigh and inched closer to her. “Duja?—”

“Don’t.”She recoiled. He was a ghost, but she still feared him.

His eyes dropped to her neck, to the tail of the scar that peeked out from under her ceremonial sash. “I know I hurt you. My own sister. Know that I am a changed man. I will never harm you, or anyone else, again.”

Lies.Pangil would not fool her with his empty promises. Not this time.

Duja shook her head, backing away from him. “How can I believe you? You are the reason Mother is dead,” she said, her voice cracking. “All of this is your fault. Now Imeria has my family, and I can do nothing to save them.”

Pangil fell to his knees before her as she sobbed into her hands. “Don’t cry, Sister,” he said in that smooth, velvet voice of his. “I am here now. All is not lost.”

“It’s too late, Pangil. I bet you’re satisfied with the mess I’ve made of my reign,” she bit out through her tears. “You were always telling me I was never meant to be sovereign. I should have listened to you. Now I’m about to lose everything.”

Perhaps she should have never ordered her brother’s exile. Becoming queen?—perhaps that had been her first mistake.

Guilt creased her brother’s face. “I was cruel and immature. I would have made a pitiful king. In a time of turmoil, you brought stability to the realm. You were the queen Maynara needed.”

Duja sniffled in disbelief. She had prevented Maynara from falling apart, but she’d never made her country anything more than what it had been during her mother’s reign. Pangil had been the rightful heir?—not her. She’d been too preoccupied with appeasing the datus. She wanted to prove that she was nothing like her brother, that she was worthy of the crown. Her caution veered too often into cowardice. Any vision she had for Maynara’s future had gotten lost somewhere between the politicking and the posturing and all the court games she’d been forced to play.

“In a few decades, Maynara will have forgotten all about me,” she said, for once giving voice to her fears. “I have no legacy of which to speak.”

“You have your daughters. You have Laya.”

Pangil’s words hit her like a punch to the stomach. She did have Laya?—an heir she failed to prepare in time. A daughter who wanted nothing but her mother’s unconditional devotion. But Duja had been too afraid of turning Laya away from her. Of turning her into Pangil. Even in exile, her brother had cast a shadow over their relationship. She couldn’t love Laya in the way she needed.

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