Page 25

Twenty-Five

Laya

Her tongue awoke before the rest of her body.

She felt it, thick and rubbery, against the roof of her mouth.

The grassy taste of herbs clung to it like medicine, and Laya wondered if she had caught a fever.

The last time she woke up swimming in sweat-soaked sheets, she had been ten years old.

Hours later, when the fever had broken, Maiza was leaning over her, the back of her hand pressed to her forehead.

Her father was curled up next to her on the bed.

Maiza had said he didn’t want to leave her in case sickness-induced nightmares jolted her awake.

But Laya was alone this time.

She was in her room.

Someone had drawn the panels of her window open to the sun.

The light blinded her the moment she opened her eyes.

She lifted her hand to shield her face, only to find that her wrists had been bound together in front of her chest.

She shot upright.

She couldn’t wrench her hands free.

And without her hands, she was powerless.

Panic coursed through her as memories of the midnight feast flashed in her mind.

She remembered the explosion of glass above her head.

The blood-slick tiles.

Her mother’s blank-eyed stare as she froze in the middle of the throne room, caught in Imeria’s grip.

She scrambled to get out of bed.

Her vision swirled.

She struggled to plant one foot in front of the other.

Whatever Imeria had done to her, the effects lingered.

Laya’s limbs betrayed her.

She fell to the ground with a thud.

Voices echoed on the other side of the door, and it slammed open.

Laya blinked at the sight of sandaled feet as they hurried over to her.

“Dayang, you’re awake,” a woman said?—a servant.

Gently, she pulled Laya by the arms into a sitting position.

“Mother,” she said in a feeble voice, her throat dry as sand.

“You must be parched.” The servant reached for the water jug that was sitting on one of Laya’s bedside tables.

She poured some of its contents into a cup and knelt by her side, bringing the cup to her lips.

Laya gulped down the water and nodded.

“More.”

The servant obliged, holding back her hair as she drank.

Sleepiness made Laya clumsy.

Some of the water leaked down her chin and onto her clothes.

No one had thought to remove the soiled dress she had worn during the closing ceremony.

She felt filthy and ill all over.

Her wrists chafed against the shackles, fastened tight against her skin.

“They told me to let them know when you woke up,” the servant said quietly.

She set the cup down on the floor and made to stand, but Laya snatched her by the elbow.

“Wait,” she croaked.

“Don’t tell them yet. A moment longer?—please.”

The servant hesitated but, at Laya’s pleading eyes, gave in.

“One moment, not more,” she said, and refilled the cup.

Laya tried to drink slowly this time.

Less dehydrated now, her mind cleared.

Her gaze settled on the servant before her.

She was young, around Laya’s age, pleasant looking but unremarkable.

She had to be someone Imeria trusted, enough to allow her to be alone with her.

“What is your name?” Laya asked, lowering the cup.

The servant stared, surprised, then bowed her head.

“My name is Yari, Dayang.”

A southern accent, maybe from the Kulaws’ kadatuan.

Clipped speech marked her as lowborn.

The palace must have employed her as a scullery maid, too common to serve the royal family this intimately.

Laya wondered what she had done to win Imeria’s trust.

The girl was not loyal to her, but she had to know something about Imeria’s plans for the Gatdulas.

The chains rattled when Laya took her hand and whispered, “My family, Yari. What has become of them?”

Yari hesitated.

Fear creased the corners of her eyes.

“They are alive and well, Dayang,” she told her, bowing her head lower.

“Datu Kulaw has been merciful.”

Anger flared beneath her ribs.

“Merciful,” she echoed, releasing her hand.

“Does this look like mercy to you?”

Sensing her wrath, Yari scrambled for the door.

“You’re awake, now. They’ll want to know.”

“Wait!” Laya cried, but it was too late.

She had spoken too brashly, and the servant girl disappeared.

The door locked shut behind her.

Cursing loudly, Laya tossed her cup to the side.

Her thoughts raced as she searched her room for options.

Yari would be of no help to her.

She had to act while she was alone, because she wouldn’t be for long.

Her gaze landed on the open window.

She struggled to her feet and rushed toward it.

Laya glanced over her shoulder.

The door remained closed, and she couldn’t hear any footsteps from the outside.

Cautiously, she headed onto the balcony.

The chains on her wrists clanked against the balustrade.

When she leaned over the railing and saw the drop to the ground below, she felt like vomiting.

Luntok may have survived that fall dozens of times before, but he had use of both his hands.

Sweat beaded across Laya’s back.

She could try to climb down.

If she watched her step, she could make it.

The sun was too bright, and the flower bushes below taunted her.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

She couldn’t keep thinking about falling, or she would lose her nerve.

She thought instead of her family, trapped somewhere within Imeria’s clutches.

Laya needed to escape?—for them.

With a deep breath, she braced her bound wrists against the edge of the balcony and swung her right leg over the balustrade.

As she slipped over to the other side, guards burst through her door.

“Stop right there!”

Now.

Jump now, you coward.

Laya’s wrists slid against the balustrade.

She panicked and lost her balance.

The second she righted herself, a guard grabbed her by both arms and wrenched her back onto the floor of her bedroom.

She balked when she heard the window screen slam shut.

What if that had been her only chance to flee?

“I wouldn’t try that again if I were you,” a deep, hearty voice called.

She looked up, half expecting to see Ojas crouched before her.

Instead, it was a towering man with rows of tattoos that wound their way up the thick muscles of his arms.

Laya recognized him.

“You’re Vikal,” she said.

“Luntok’s told me about you.”

“He’s told me about you too, Dayang.” Vikal helped her to stand.

“I won’t see him. You can’t make me.” Laya hated how small and spiteful her voice sounded.

She had stood beside a great deal of warriors, and never had they made her feel so weak before.

With her hands bound, the blood of Mulayri would be of no use to her.

For the first time, she wished she had at least a kernel of Bulan’s training.

If she knew how to wield a dagger, how to sink it between a man’s ribs, maybe she could overpower him.

Vikal sighed.

He addressed her as if she were a petulant child.

“Come, now. They only wish to speak to you.”

She tilted her chin up at him.

“Tell them they have no right to make demands of me.”

“Dayang, listen. You are in no position to refuse.” He reached for her arm, but she shrank away, shaking her head violently.

“I won’t speak to him. I won’t.”

“Dayang, please?—”

“No.”

She screamed when Vikal reached for her again.

Exasperated, he called one of the other guards to help him.

Laya lost all sense of reason as she struggled to break free from their hands.

“Let me go!”

Like a wild animal, she thrashed and kicked and dug her nails into whatever skin she could reach.

She threatened their lives and the lives of their families.

She cursed them and called them traitors.

Nothing she said fazed them.

They half dragged, half carried her downstairs to the great hall.

“My lord,” Vikal said as he deposited Laya gracelessly on the floor.

“I told you to be gentle with her.”

“Fetch her yourself next time, then.”

“Laya?” Luntok’s voice cracked so sincerely, her gaze snapped to his.

He was kneeling beside her, his brow furrowed in concern.

“You wished to see me,” she said between labored breaths.

Luntok brushed the sweaty strands away from her face.

She knew his touch too well to flinch.

“There’s something we would like to discuss with you,” he said as he helped her to her feet.

She didn’t understand it?—the shade of hope she heard in his voice.

Her gaze shifted over his shoulder to the crowd gathered toward the back of the hall.

The guests of the midnight feast were still there?—the Council of Datus and their closest kin?—all surrounded by armed guards who wore sashes of scarlet silk.

She saw Datu Luma, a shock of blood crusting over his white hair.

Datu Tanglaw, ashen-faced, with Bato seated silently beside him.

Their eyes were downcast.

They didn’t dare look up when Laya arrived.

They, too, were prisoners.

“What is this?” she asked in a low voice.

“Laya, pet, come closer. We’ve called this meeting expressly for you.” Before the throne stood Imeria Kulaw, with beady-eyed Datu Gulod at her side.

Laya’s gut twisted.

The traitor.

Had he been working with her the entire time?

“The queen,” Laya demanded as the blood turned to ice in her veins.

“What have you done to her?”

“Your mother is fine. If you cooperate, you may see her. Now come, child.” Imeria beckoned to her once more.

“Don’t toy with me.” Laya’s voice shook and her hands balled into fists.

“Where are they, Imeria? What have you done with the rest of my family?”

“Laya, please,” Luntok begged.

He placed a hand on her back, nudging her forward.

The heat of his palm radiated through the thin silk of her dress.

She recoiled.

He would never touch her again?—she vowed it.

“Get off.” Laya swung her bound wrists over her shoulder as if she were wielding a bamboo rod.

The brass shackles crashed into the side of his face with a loud crack.

Luntok stumbled back with a gasp, rubbing his cheek.

“Laya,” he hissed.

She hadn’t struck hard enough to break any bones, but one of the notches on her shackles had caught his mouth.

A thin trail of blood trickled from the corner of his lips to his chin.

By the throne, someone coughed.

Laya glanced over.

Datu Gulod’s beady eyes glimmered.

He was biting back a chuckle.

“Stop this. Now.” Imeria had lost her patience.

She cast Laya a withering glare.

“Do I have to ask again, or are you ready to talk civilly?”

“You.” Laya rushed toward her in a rage.

“You have attacked my family. Imprisoned me in my own home. Betrayed the crown. How dare you lecture me on civility?”

But Imeria didn’t shrink back.

She answered her calmly.

“I understand this must all be a shock to you. Before you tire yourself out, can I ask you a question?”

“You already have.”

Imeria’s eyes flitted to hers.

She cocked her head to the side.

“Aren’t you ready to be queen?”

Laya faltered.

She sought answers in Imeria’s face, but her expression betrayed nothing.

“I don’t understand.”

Imeria gazed upon her with pity.

“Laya, child, don’t tell me your mother kept it a secret from you?”

She stiffened.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

A wry grin spread across Imeria’s face.

She reached into the pocket of her skirt and retrieved something small and clear, no bigger than Laya’s thumb.

“Precioso,” Imeria explained, holding it out for Laya to see.

“It’s worth more than gold, this substance?—the key to immeasurable power. Hara Duja wanted it to keep the tremors at bay. According to my sources, she sought out an alchemist to produce it for her?—one of the finest makers of precioso in the world, by the looks of it.”

Laya stared at Imeria.

Her thoughts raced as she began to piece the information together.

Images flashed through her mind.

The furtive glances her mother gave over her shoulder as she snuck away from the dawn feast.

Ariel’s sudden appearance in the eastern wing.

The peculiar smell of vinegar wafting from his borrowed clothes.

He hadn’t come to Maynara to be Laya’s Salmantican tutor at all.

No, he?—

“You truly don’t know anything about it,” Imeria said, amused by the shock etched across Laya’s face.

“No,” she said hoarsely.

“I truly don’t.”

A humiliated flush crept up Laya’s neck when she realized what the precioso meant.

Her mother had wanted the drug for a reason.

She hadn’t wanted to step down from the throne as her predecessors had when their tremors grew out of their control.

She hadn’t trusted Laya.

She had been terrified of her, just as Laya feared.

Imeria understood this.

Soon, the rest of the court would too.

She took a measured step toward Laya.

“Hara Duja was a coward. It’s time for a new sovereign to take her place.” She met Laya’s gaze and added in a conspiratorial whisper, “She didn’t think you were ready, but I do.”

Laya frowned.

“Me?”

If Imeria’s plan was for Laya to become queen anyway, why would she have gone through the trouble of staging a coup?

Unless.

.

.

“I have one condition, though. I believe it will please you.” Imeria’s smile broadened, and she held out her hand.

Luntok brushed past Laya to join her.

“You will become the queen Maynara needs, Laya. And your betrothed will join you on the throne,” she declared for the entire room to hear.

Laya’s gaze snapped to Luntok, who nodded in encouragement.

“You mean?—”

“We will marry,” he told her.

“Isn’t that what we always wanted?”

Her heart hammered in her chest.

Her gaze trailed down to Luntok’s hands?—the hands that had traced prayers across the length of her spine.

The same hands that had held her down in the great hall the previous night.

“I wanted to marry you,” she said weakly.

That had been before?—before Luntok had joined the attack on her family.

Before he’d allowed his mother to string her up in chains.

“Hara Duja never would have allowed it, for the same reason she’d never have stepped down from the throne. She’s stubborn, unaware of her own shortcomings,” Imeria said.

“Don’t you see? She gave me no choice but to intervene.”

Laya shook her head.

She knew what Imeria was doing.

She was trying to poison her mind, same as she poisoned the minds of Luntok and Datu Gulod and all the others with whom she conspired.

She thought Laya was as weak-willed as them, that she could be swayed by flattery and empty promises.

“I cannot marry Luntok,” she said, and stared him straight in the eye.

“I refuse to marry a traitor.” The words echoed beneath the vaulted ceiling of the throne room, loud and damningly clear.

Imeria’s jaw tightened.

“What a change in tune from a few days ago,” she said, “when you let my son play you like a lute.”

Laya’s cheeks burned, but she refused to let Imeria humiliate her.

“I am not the one who was played.” Defiantly, she met Luntok’s gaze.

This time, however, he looked away.

“Oh, child.” Imeria clicked her tongue in pity.

“Who do you think engineered the attack on the palace? Who do you think snuck our men through the gap beneath the garden wall?”

A clammy feeling spread across her skin.

“Luntok couldn’t have broken into the palace on his own,” Imeria said.

“How generous of you, Laya, to show him the way.”

Laya’s throat constricted.

A weight dropped on top of her chest.

Years earlier, she’d been the one who’d taught Luntok how to sneak past the palace guard through the tunnel under the wall?—the tunnel that belonged to no one but the pair of them.

She had been so sure that he loved her.

That he was devoted to no one else.

Had he fought to win her heart, knowing he could twist its strings for his own gain?

Had he always planned to betray her?

Tears splashed down her front unchecked.

Imeria sighed when she noticed.

“Remember, no marriage is without flaws. You’ll find a way to forgive him, in time.”

“No,” Laya croaked out.

She shook her head, aghast.

“You cannot expect me to marry him. Not after this.” She glanced at Luntok with bruised eyes.

She had loved him, and he’d betrayed her.

How could she be his wife when she couldn’t bear to look at him?

“A Gatdula must sit upon the throne. That is how the gods willed it,” Imeria said with a grim smile.

“Believe me, Laya, if I could have chosen any daft highborn girl for a daughter-in-law, I wouldn’t have wasted my energy with you.”

“No. You cannot make me.” Out of instinct, she groped for her powers.

Her hands strained against the shackles.

It was no use.

Desperate, she whipped around and beseeched the council members, who were watching Laya’s horror unfold before them in silence.

“My lords, how do you tolerate this farce?” she cried.

“You, who have sworn your loyalty to my family. You, who bowed before my mother, Maynara’s chosen steward. How can you sit there, meek as sheep? How can you fall to your knees before a traitor whom you all hate?”

When no one budged, panic gripped at the base of Laya’s throat.

She tried to shame them.

“What noble datus you claim to be,” she spat.

“You tremble in the face of the enemy. You renege on your blood vows at the first sign of threat. Stay silent if you must. I will fight these traitors on my own, and when I win, I will not forget who betrayed me. I will not forget your groveling or your cowardice. I will?—”

“Enough.” Imeria grabbed her by the chin.

Pain unlike anything Laya had ever endured radiated from her skull.

Her own brain had erupted, sending rivers of lava down her spine.

She shrieked in agony, as scorching heat flooded her entire body.

The taste of rust stung the inside of her mouth.

She couldn’t speak.

Couldn’t beg for mercy.

Her vision melted into a white-hot blur.

The sound of her wails rang in her ears.

Death couldn’t come soon enough.

Laya welcomed it.

Let her die on her back, screaming.

At least she wouldn’t die the wife of a traitor.

The pain lifted for the briefest moment.

In the quiet, she sucked in a ragged breath.

Darkness circled her like a swarm of vultures.

With all her strength, she pushed up against the night.

It hammered against her skin, the relentless beating of a thousand wings.

Submit, a monster murmured, its voice a soothing balm against Laya’s torment.

Submit, and mercy will be yours.

Never.

The defiant thought shot through Laya’s mind without hesitancy.

The monster roared and plunged Laya back into the searing flames.

As she fought back, the renewed pain pierced deeper.

An imagined knife sliced through her flesh, tearing it from the bone in slow, harrowing strips.

The monster wanted her to beg.

Laya refused.

She would last until the monster grew tired of its torture?—maybe then Imeria would kill her.

Between wave after wave of agony, she heard Luntok pleading.

He sounded a thousand miles away.

“Leave her. Mother, please.”

An eternity later, Imeria complied.

The pain finally ebbed to a dull ache.

Laya opened her eyes to find herself plastered across the floor of the throne room.

Fresh blood trickled from her mouth and splattered against the tiled floor.

She must have bitten her tongue, helpless against the pain that wracked her body.

Salty tears ran down her cheeks.

Sweat soaked through her dress.

When she tried to push herself off the ground, her arms shuddered beneath her weight.

With tremendous effort, she lifted her head.

Several of the palace guests were on their feet.

They stared at Laya in worry and terror.

Not even Luntok dared rush to her side.

They were too afraid?—of her .

Imeria laid a hand against her cheek.

Laya blanched, but no pain came.

“You know, when Luntok told me a Gatdula girl had caught his eye, I prayed to the gods he didn’t mean you,” she said in a quiet voice.

“Couldn’t he have gone after the little one? She’s just as pretty and twice as weak. But no, Laya. He had to have you .”

A faint spark of pride swelled within her heart?—the one place the pain didn’t reach.

Steadily, she met Imeria’s gaze.

“You would not crown me if I were weak.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” Something twinkled in Imeria’s eyes?—something akin to respect.

Her mouth hardened.

“You will marry Luntok,” she told her.

“Or whatever pain I inflict on you, Bulan and Eti will receive tenfold.”

Laya’s eyes widened with the threat to her sisters.

“No, Imeria, please. Leave them out of it.”

“So complicated, just like your mother,” Imeria said.

“I’m giving you what you’ve always desired, Laya. I merely ask for your cooperation in return.”

How dare she act as if she were doing Laya any favors.

Fury slashed lines of red down either side of her face, clouding her vision.

With her last ounce of strength, Laya lunged for Imeria.

But Imeria was too fast.

She sidestepped the attack easily.

Instead of digging her fingers into Laya’s mind, she struck her hard across the cheek.

Shocked gasps ripped through the room.

Too drained to right herself, Laya plunged to the ground.

Her ribs collided against the cold tiles.

No one rushed to her defense.

She howled in pain, helpless.

She wanted to charge at Imeria Kulaw again.

Wanted to claw the eyeballs from her sockets and tear her limb from limb.

But Laya’s fall had jolted the fight out of her; she needed all the energy she had left to keep from bursting into sobs.

Imeria clicked her tongue at her.

“Oh, Laya. I could beat you within an inch of your life, and still, you’d refuse to surrender. Your resistance is admirable. I wonder, Are your sisters cut from the same cloth?”

Her heart threatened to pound out of her chest.

She imagined Bulan’s tortured screams in place of her own.

She pictured Eti writhing on the floor, her hair streaked with blood.

They were not strong the way Laya was strong.

Whatever pain Imeria inflicted on them, they would not endure.

Laya herself could barely survive it.

The truth came as a crushing blow.

Fighting the Kulaws would only put her family in further danger.

No one was coming to save them.

For the first time in her life, Laya found herself cornered from all sides.

“Please, Imeria. Don’t hurt them,” she said, lowering her head in defeat.

“I promise, I will cooperate.”

Imeria stared down at her.

She raised her hand, and Laya flinched.

Instead of striking her again, Imeria offered her hand to Laya and helped her to her feet.

“Wise girl,” she said with a cold grin.

“I hope you won’t give me a reason to regret making you a part of my family.”