Page 24

Twenty-Four

Eti

Stabbing pain rocked up from the soles of Eti’s feet to her knobby knees.

She had never walked so many steps in her life.

The panic that flooded her veins as they’d fled the previous night had dimmed to a soft but constant pitch.

Eti was anxious, exhausted, and, once she allowed herself a moment to let it all sink in, absolutely miserable.

The crowds didn’t help.

She was trailing behind Ariel as they walked alongside the market canal.

The shirt he’d found for her was scratchy and hastily stitched together, but she needed to blend in.

Although the morning was young, the sun still pale and low on the horizon, it appeared as though half of Mariit had clustered around the canal.

Their chatter rang in Eti’s ears.

Their elbows rammed into her sides as they brushed past.

The bustling market was a far cry from the peace of the palace courtyard.

Eti kept her eyes to the ground and tried to shut the rest of the world out.

Part of her longed to return to the warehouse where she and Ariel had spent the night.

It wasn’t much, but it felt safe enough, dusty stacks of inventory shielding them from view, a wall between them and the rest of Mariit.

But they couldn’t stay there.

The warehouse belonged to someone, Ariel warned?—and that someone would not be happy to discover that Eti had broken their padlock.

Eti had broken a great deal of locks lately: the padlock on the warehouse door and, before that, the lock on the servants’ entrance through which she and Ariel had escaped.

Perhaps all she was good at was breaking things.

“Come along, Eti,” Ariel murmured, casting a concerned look at her over his shoulder.

“Just a bit farther now.”

He’d offered her the same words of comfort as they’d fled the palace, when Eti couldn’t breathe through the panic rising in her throat.

Any fear the Orfelian harbored he’d transformed into gentle protection.

Eti hadn’t realized how much she needed that until the midnight feast, when the walls shielding her from hardship came crashing down.

The tears came before Eti could stop them.

She froze where she stood, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle.

“I can’t, Ariel. Everything that’s happened?—it’s all too much,” she whispered.

If she rolled herself into a tiny ball, maybe she could slip between the cracks in the cobblestones and hide there until this all blew over.

“Hush, now. We’ll find a way out of this.” Ariel wrapped her in a brief hug.

Outside the palace walls, he was the only ally Eti could count on.

The Gatdula family had fallen, and it was just the pair of them against Imeria Kulaw.

Who knew what other horrors awaited them at the palace?

As the initial shock of the midnight feast began to fade, Eti’s new reality struck her with alarming force.

“What are we to do?” she asked, despondent.

“My family’s in trouble, and I can do nothing to save them. I’m not like my sisters. I’m useless.”

Eti had grown up knowing she’d never be able to blast through her enemies like Laya or strike them down with a flash of steel like Bulan.

She’d guessed what people whispered about her?—that she was a daft child, worthless apart from tinkering with her precious metals.

She told herself she didn’t care.

But suddenly her family needed her, and she had no choice but to abandon them.

The word continued to rattle in her mind.

Useless, useless, useless.

“Listen. We’re going to save your family. But first, we must come up with a plan.” Ariel reached over to brush aside Eti’s hair, which hung limp and knotted from their late-night run through the city.

“By the way, you’re not useless,” he added, and gave her a small, encouraging smile that was so like her father’s, Eti’s heart flooded with a tender ache.

They ended up walking the full length of the market canal.

Along the way, they bartered one of Eti’s golden bangles in exchange for sweet rolls to quench their hunger and two sturdy pairs of shoes.

During their venture, they eavesdropped as customers gossiped with the vendors floating along in their boats.

According to the gossip, dozens of servants had fled the midnight feast with tales of bloodshed and Imeria Kulaw’s infernal powers.

By midday, news of the coup had swept through the city like wildfire.

Fear hung in the air, mingling with the copper-pipe scent that wafted up from the canals.

From frenzied arguments Ariel and Eti had overheard, bloody fights had broken out across the city.

If anyone had died, it was too soon to say.

Eti assumed the clashes were between the cowardly guardsmen, who’d capitulated to the Kulaws without hesitation, and the loyal people of Mariit, who would die for the Gatdulas if justice demanded.

The violence, Eti was convinced, was the start of a cresting tide that would steer Maynara back to the light.

“More will rise, and together, they outnumber the Kulaws. Imeria won’t be able to hold the palace for long. Isn’t that right?” she muttered to Ariel in a short-lived spark of triumph.

But Ariel merely pressed his lips into a thin line and said, “We shall see, Eti.” He explained that more violence would likely follow.

He wanted to make sure that Eti didn’t get caught up in the thick of it.

A small, naive part of Eti believed the coup had been nothing more than a minor fluke and that she’d be back in her mother’s arms by sundown.

But another night would soon fall over Mariit, and Imeria Kulaw was still in charge of the palace.

Eti knew she couldn’t fight for her family on her own, but surely their people would flock to their aid.

Why, then, did the entire capital not rebel?

For this, Ariel offered no simple explanation.

“People will always seek to save their own skin. What good is loyalty when your survival is at stake?” he said, his gaze clouding with a dark, unspoken thought.

Eti wondered where he crawled to in his mind during those rare but worrying moments when his expression became guarded.

Distant.

By then, the feeling of dread hovering over the canal had escalated to disquieting heights.

He told Eti they needed to leave the market as soon as possible.

The farther they got, the better.

They walked as far as the dockside districts on the outskirts of Mariit, where they knocked on half a dozen doors before finding a boardinghouse with an available room.

The boardinghouse keeper, an old woman with gray hair and kind eyes, ushered them inside without question.

She didn’t recognize Eti as a Gatdula princess, but she’d seen the ashen look on her face and took pity on them.

The old woman must have been accustomed to unusual guests, because she barely raised an eyebrow at Ariel’s accent when he paid for their meal and a week’s rent.

She merely pocketed the coins and insisted on feeding them.

They exchanged few words as they ate.

The boardinghouse keeper served them fresh steamed rice and a hearty tamarind stew.

The hot homecooked meal warmed Eti from the inside and momentarily made her forget the anxiety gnawing a hole through her stomach.

Out of politeness, the old woman asked Ariel what he did for a living.

The moment Ariel froze up in hesitation, she waved off the question and diverted her gaze.

“Never mind my prying. A man’s business is a man’s business” was all she said.

Once Eti finished eating, she sat back and yawned.

It wasn’t yet dusk, but her body needed rest.

In the warehouse, she’d only managed to get a couple of hours of fitful sleep.

The boardinghouse keeper stood and started clearing the plates.

“This child is in need of a nap, I think,” she said.

Ariel and Eti complied, and the boardinghouse keeper took them upstairs to their room.

It was simple, with two cots pressed up against the walls and paint chipping off the ceiling.

The previous tenant had moved out in a hurry.

He’d left behind a number of items, including a row of liquor bottles lined up in front of a mottled window.

When Eti lay down on one of the cots, she noticed the sheets were clean, at least.

Eti kicked off her shoes, her feet still aching from all the walking, and closed her eyes.

For over half an hour, sleep evaded her.

In the quiet, worries clouded her head.

She thought of her family, and the panic rose inside her chest again and again.

With a sigh of frustration, Eti rolled onto her back.

If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well pray for the gods to keep everyone safe.

She clasped her hands over her belly and whispered her prayers.

The gods didn’t answer her, but the prayers calmed her mind.

Eti stilled in her cot as the afternoon air trickled in through the open window, filling the room with the scent of sea salt.

Whenever the wind was thick like this, Eti imagined it was the Weeping Goddess sighing, her breath coating Mariit in a blanket of warmth.

That afternoon, Eti could hear a whisper of sadness in her breath.

The goddess’s pity: Oh, my children, look at what you have become.

What was Eti to become?

Her life had changed so quickly in the span of a single day.

Not long before, she’d been wielding gold pellets in the privacy of a palace stairwell.

Then suddenly she was on the run, and not even the Royal Maynaran Guard was coming to rescue her.

The boardinghouse did not offer the same protection as the palace.

As long as Eti was a Gatdula, she wouldn’t be safe there?—not forever.

“There’s some sweet rolls left over from this morning if you want them,” Ariel called without turning around.

He was staring pensively out the window, the half-empty bottle of palm liquor the previous tenant left behind dangling from his fingertips.

Eti rose from her bed and joined him at the window.

Their room, which stood at the top of the boardinghouse’s run-down staircase, overlooked the shadow-cloaked alleyway below.

No one passed through there, save for stray cats and hungry orphans.

“You ought to lie down. You barely slept last night,” Eti said in the same kind tone Ariel had used with her since the day her father introduced them.

The Orfelian was so unlike the king’s past palace guests, the brightest subjects in Maynara.

Loyal and talented they might have been, but Laya had warned Eti they sought only to improve their station.

According to her sister, they saw Eti as a pea-brained little girl, easy to cajole with sugary treats and empty promises.

Ariel, on the other hand, never asked a single favor of Eti.

From where Eti stood, she could make out the sharp edges of precioso lining Ariel’s pockets.

He’d smuggled it out of the palace the night they’d escaped.

Eti understood little about the drug apart from the fact that it was the true reason Ariel was in Maynara?—and, should the precioso fall into the wrong hands, it would doom the entire kingdom to a ghastly fate.

She noticed then that Ariel was holding one of the crystal pieces in his fist.

Sunlight winked off the glassy tip, which stuck out over his knuckles.

He’d told her that precioso had cursed the people back in Orfelia, burrowing itself deep inside their minds, enslaving them.

As curious as she was about the precioso, she didn’t ask to see it.

There was something about the drug’s spotless, manufactured beauty that didn’t sit well with Eti?—a magic not even the mightiest Gatdula could wield.

She reached instead for the liquor bottle’s narrow stem.

That jolted Ariel out of the fog that had settled over him.

He batted Eti’s hands away with a frown.

“Hey,” he said, chiding her for the first time.

“You may be a princess, but you’re not of drinking age.”

Eti raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“Do you have to be a certain age to drink, where you’re from?”

“Yes. In most places, actually.” Ariel raised the bottle and took another sip.

Eti waited patiently for him to offer her one, but he never did.

When her surprise morphed into mild annoyance, the corners of his mouth quirked up into an amused grin.

“You look so much like your sister when I offend you.”

Eti had two sisters, but Ariel could only be referring to one of them.

“Why? Do you often offend Laya?” Eti asked, and a faint flush crept across Ariel’s cheeks.

Clearly, the sound of Laya’s name fazed him.

Eti took the opportunity to pluck the liquor bottle from his grip.

“I turn thirteen in a few weeks,” she said as he opened his mouth to protest.

“That is old enough to drink in Maynara.”

“Only a sip,” he cautioned.

“One of us must keep their wits about them.”

“One sip.” Eti brought the bottle to her lips.

It was much stronger than the wine they served at the palace feast.

She swallowed the liquor and handed the bottle back to him, fighting the urge to gag.

“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t like the taste.”

Ariel chuckled.

“Few people drink for the taste, Eti.” He’d stopped calling her dayang for fear of being overheard.

As long as the Kulaws controlled the city, no one could know who they were.

She liked that he didn’t use her title.

It made her think that, maybe, he considered her a friend.

Eti didn’t have many of those.

And she needed friendship more than ever.

“Oh, no. I’ve heard how people try to drink away the sadness... Although you didn’t strike me as one of those morose types.” Eti smiled at him, openly, trustingly.

She half expected Ariel to smile back in that shy, reassuring way of his.

But the alcohol had loosened Ariel’s features.

His expression fell into one of abject helplessness.

“But I am,” he murmured.

“I am morose and pitiful. Unlike you, I truly am useless. How am I to get you out of this mess alive?” Panicked questions seemed to rise in the back of Ariel’s throat before he coughed, choking his worries back down.

“Forgive me, Eti. I promised I was going to help you. I just need to find out how.” His brow was creased with worry, but this time, he spoke with shaky reserve.

Ariel was afraid, but he’d never leave Eti on her own.

He was as determined to save the Gatdulas as she was.

Gratitude swept through her, a force so strong she couldn’t put it to words.

She threw her arms around his neck.

Ariel returned her embrace, leaning down to rest his chin atop her head.

Warmth filled Eti’s chest as she thought once more of her family.

She’d see them again soon.

Finally, her mind cleared from the shock of the midnight feast.

Her entire body began to vibrate with a fierce determination Eti had never felt before.

What did it matter if she couldn’t wield a sword or summon typhoons?

Eti was a Gatdula.

The blood of Mulayri flowed through her veins.

She could break through locks and whittle down iron bars with a twist of her fingers.

She wasn’t strong, but she was small and fast.

If she could fade into the city undetected, she could slip past an entire army if she needed to.

And, above all else, Eti wasn’t alone.

The mere reminder gave her strength.

She squeezed Ariel’s shoulders, breathing in sharply through her nose.

“We’ll find out how to rescue them,” she vowed into the rough fabric of his shirt.

“Together.”

“Together,” Ariel echoed.

He didn’t budge when Eti stepped back and tucked herself under the cot’s threadbare sheets.

Although he set the bottle down, he stayed at the window for a long moment.

Eti didn’t bother him.

She was too alert to sleep.

In her mind, she stalked the halls of the palace.

She sifted through hazy memories, lessons in cleverness passed down from her father.

She searched for a solution, anything that could help free her family from the Kulaws’ clutches.

The queen, the king, Bulan, Laya?—Eti knew she could help them better than anyone.

But how?