Page 28

Twenty-Eight

Imeria

One week had passed since Imeria had wrested control of the palace.

She stood in the courtyard where she and Duja used to play as children.

The floor had been wiped clean of the broken glass and bloodstains left over after their attack.

The courtyard buzzed with activity.

Save for the conspicuous absence of Hara Duja, one might assume the feast days had yet to end.

Servants flooded past her in all directions, bearing brooms and rags and pails that sloshed with soapy water.

Imeria had enticed several new workers to come to the palace with the promise of obscene amounts of pay, twice what they would have earned under Hara Duja.

Royal weddings took weeks to plan in normal situations, and she needed the extra labor to expedite the process.

The marriage ceremony itself was a logistical nightmare.

Maynaran custom required it be held at sundown on the edge of the Black Salt Cliffs.

It was among Maynara’s most sacred grounds, nestled at the base of Mount Matabuaya, far away from the palace on the edges of the city.

Imeria did not understand the significance of the place, nor did she care to.

All she knew was that they had to follow the royal customs precisely in order to ensure the datus accepted the marriage as legitimate.

After Luntok married Laya, they were to host yet another midnight feast, which would conclude with a reprisal of the vow ceremony.

Instead of bowing before Hara Duja, the Council of Datus would assert their fealty to their new sovereigns in blood.

Then at last, Imeria could rest in her chambers, their claim to the Maynaran throne officially sealed.

Yari hurried past Imeria, Laya’s wedding gown scrupulously bundled in her arms.

Imeria had ordered her to have them laundered.

The poor girl was managing her new duties with surprising grace, considering she had no prior experience as a lady’s maid.

Imeria knew she’d chosen her allies well.

She would have to think of how to reward her after the ceremony.

“Yari,” she barked.

“Yes, my lady?” Yari rushed to her side, her head lowered in respect.

“Is Dayang Laya almost ready?”

“Yes, my lady. The other girls are tending to her hair. Shall I bring her to you when she is finished getting dressed?”

“No, that won’t be necessary.” Imeria didn’t have time to speak to Laya before the ceremony, but she wanted to be ready should Laya decide to do anything rash.

“How would you describe the princess’s temperament this morning, Yari? Did she seem restless? Excitable?” she asked.

“I would say she seemed agreeable, Your Majesty. I believe your son spoke with her last night.”

Imeria bit back a laugh.

The last word she would have used to describe Laya was agreeable , but the princess wasn’t heartless; she wouldn’t dare defy Imeria, knowing her family’s lives were at stake.

“Very well, Yari, I’ll leave you to attend her.”

“Yes, my lady,” she said, and scurried into the main building.

As long as Imeria had Laya under control, she could deal with the other loose ends later.

According to Vikal, the Royal Maynaran Guard had yet to track down Eti.

The girl’s disappearance was a nuisance, but Imeria needed to worry about the wedding first.

To quell the riots in the city, she’d consumed more precioso than she’d anticipated.

The drug left her with growing cravings, a lingering headache, and little energy to think of anything else.

In the hours following each use, its absence grew harder to ignore.

It didn’t help that the vial of precioso shifted along her necklace at the slightest movement.

The tiny shards of crystal whispered in her ear like naughty spirits?— more, more, more .

Imeria banished the thought with a sharp exhale.

She gazed past the bustle of servants in the courtyard, her eyes landing on the eastern wing.

The alchemist was not hiding there, as she had hoped.

She remembered the last time she had been inside that building, the same day the eastern wing went up in flames.

The memory returned to her in a billow of smoke, crashing into Imeria before she could push it away.

She could still feel the weight of the air inside the guest chamber pressing up against her skin.

Beyond the Untulu Sea loomed the threat of a hurricane.

The midday sun had baked the tiles in the courtyard outside.

The shell-paneled window screens did little to block the wet-season heat, and young Imeria had wanted to open them to filter out the thick, resinous incense the old queen liked to pump into the eastern wing, but they needed to keep the screens drawn for fear of being seen.

Despite the boiling heat, Imeria awoke curled up alongside Duja’s sleeping form, her cheek pressed against the princess’s bare shoulder.

Duja was far softer than the earth she wielded.

Imeria couldn’t help but nestle closer, even though the princess’s skin felt hot enough to burn.

Beside her, Duja stirred.

“Imeria?” she called, her voice sluggish from sleep.

Imeria’s heart leaped at the sound of her name.

“Yes?”

Duja yawned and stretched her arms over her head, arching into Imeria’s embrace.

Slowly, she rolled onto her side.

For a wild moment, Imeria feared what she would find on the princess’s face when she turned around?—apathy?

Or worse, disgust?

Instead, Duja gazed at her tenderly, her dark eyes free of their usual shields.

“That was foolish of us,” she said, smiling shyly.

Warmth crawled up Imeria’s neck and spread across her cheeks.

“Do you regret it?” she asked.

“No,” Duja said.

She sounded sure of herself for the first time.

“Truly, I don’t.”

Imeria wanted nothing more than to accept Duja’s reassurance, but she couldn’t quell the doubt that continued to simmer deep within her gut.

“What about the?—the others?”

Duja frowned.

“What others?”

“You know,” she said, tearing her gaze away.

“Them.”

She couldn’t bring herself to name a single one of Duja’s growing band of suitors.

Their numbers had doubled since the previous season when the princess had turned eighteen, an endless parade of arrogant men who deigned to think themselves worthy of Maynara’s beloved princess.

Imeria glowered each time a guard interrupted her walks with Duja to announce yet another gentleman’s visit.

These men thought they could win Duja’s heart by regaling her with overblown tales of their own excellence.

Only one had come close?—the young and beguiling Aki Tanglaw, whose gift for storytelling constituted a magic of its own.

At first, Imeria had dismissed Aki as an unremarkable boor, no different from the stream she watched strut through the halls of the palace.

Then she noticed how Duja’s eyes sparkled when she looked at him?—the same way Duja was looking at her from the opposite side of the bed.

The princess softened when she reached out to cup Imeria’s face.

“Who else could I possibly be thinking about right now?”

Imeria fought the urge to melt against Duja’s touch.

Instead, she leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips.

Duja sighed in contentment.

She ran her fingers through Imeria’s hair and pulled her closer.

Imeria’s stomach fluttered?—Duja had never reached for her before.

The princess was too hesitant, too inhibited, too afraid of her own wanting.

It was always Imeria who had to reel her in.

They folded into each other, skin flush against skin.

Duja’s fingers trailed from Imeria’s hair to the swell of her breast.

They continued their journey downward, pausing at the apex between her thighs.

Out of instinct, Imeria parted them.

Duja slid her hand into the wetness there, teasing Imeria with slow, languid strokes.

Imeria moaned wantonly at the princess’s touch.

Her hips bucked against her hand.

Duja didn’t need to guess what her companion wanted.

Imeria made her desires abundantly clear; she wanted anything Duja was willing to give her.

She wanted more .

Lovingly, Duja complied.

She slipped a finger inside Imeria’s slick channel.

Then a second.

Then a third.

Imeria closed her eyes.

Her back arched off the pillows.

Duja’s hand began to pump inside her at an exquisite rhythm.

Imeria drew in a sharp breath before losing all sense of restraint.

“Please,” Imeria chanted over and over, like the prayers of a blessed shaman.

Please, please, please.

Duja buried her face in the crook of Imeria’s neck.

She continued her ministrations.

The angle of her hand shifted.

Her fingers plunged deeper, hitting a spot inside Imeria that sent her over the edge.

She climaxed with a strangled gasp, wave after wave of pleasure surging through her body.

Moments after Imeria floated down from her high, Duja leaned over and pressed her mouth to hers.

Imeria sighed against her warm, tender lips.

To lie with Duja was to steal a slice of divinity from the gods.

If loving her was an offense in Maynara’s eyes, so be it.

This, Imeria thought as she coiled into Duja’s embrace.

This is why they want to keep us apart.

As Imeria deepened the kiss, footsteps thudded from down the hall.

Both girls froze.

Faint laughter echoed through the thin walls of the eastern wing?—the queen.

Duja’s mother was making her way upstairs.

It sounded like she had just returned from her trip to the southern provinces, and, judging by the deep male voice Imeria could hear all the way from the guest chamber, she had brought her consort with her.

They shot up from the bed, scrambling to find their clothes in the tangled sheets.

“I thought you said she wasn’t coming back until tomorrow evening,” Imeria hissed as she forced her arms through the long, cumbersome sleeves of her blouse.

The old queen had accepted Imeria as a member of the royal household, but the terms of the Kulaws’ surrender were painfully clear.

Imeria remained the daughter of a traitor.

She could never marry Duja.

She could never know her this intimately.

The only reason they ended up in the eastern wing was because it was supposed to be empty.

“She must have returned early,” Duja whispered, tight-lipped, as she pulled her skirt up over her hips.

When they were both dressed, Duja crept over to the door.

It gave a loud, condemning creak when she opened it.

Imeria leaned heavily against the wall, her heart hammering as they exchanged a nervous glance.

They remained still for one agonizing moment, waiting to be discovered.

But the queen’s light, unhurried footsteps continued to resonate from the upper floor.

The consort was still with her.

He called out to the queen, his voice muffled through the floorboards so that Imeria couldn’t understand him.

He must have said something clever, because the queen laughed once again.

Imeria let out a sigh of relief.

No one was coming for them.

Duja grabbed her wrist.

As quietly as they could, they darted across the corridor and down the stairs.

The hard soles of their sandals clacked against the smooth tile, but they managed not to call any attention to themselves.

Imeria followed Duja to the lower level, and they snuck out the way they had come?—through an oft-forgotten side entrance reserved for scullery maids and armored guardsmen.

With enough distance between them and her mother, Duja let out a sigh of relief.

“We ought to be more careful next time,” she said, patting down her mussed hair as she cast a wary glance over her shoulder.

“Next time?” Imeria’s lips stretched into a knowing grin.

Duja turned red as a beet.

“No?—I mean, I didn’t mean to presume?—”

Before the princess could talk herself into a stupor, Imeria kissed her again, pressing her against the cool stone of the outer wall.

But rather than sigh against Imeria’s lips, Duja stiffened.

She braced her hands against Imeria’s collarbone and pushed her away.

“You can’t do that,” she said sternly.

“Not here.”

Imeria’s throat clenched.

“Yes. My apologies, Dayang.” She could not keep the bitterness from seeping into her tone as she stepped back, shame heating her ears.

Roughly, she brushed past Duja and made a beeline for the courtyard.

Duja groaned and ran to catch up with her.

“Imeria, wait,” she said, and grabbed her hand.

Imeria wrenched her hand back as if burned.

“You can’t be like this, Duja?—loving one moment, hateful the next,” she said, tears threatening to spill out from the corners of her eyelids.

“You’re cruel to me. It’s not fair.”

Duja pursed her lips.

“Please, Imeria, be reasonable. There’s nothing cruel about my wanting to exercise a bit of discretion?—”

“Discretion?” Imeria let out a high-pitched laugh.

“You and I both know it’s more than that.” She barreled around the corner with Duja close on her tail.

“What do you want from me, Imeria?” Duja called after her, her voice strained.

“Tell me, and I shall give it to you.”

Imeria froze in her tracks.

They were standing in the courtyard now, mere steps away from the entrance hall of the eastern wing.

The sun, still high in the sky, beat down on the nape of her neck.

Sweat beaded along her back, likely soaking through the thin fabric of her blouse.

She could hardly breathe.

How did capital dwellers stand it?

The air in Mariit was thick as tar, stifling.

“I want you,” Imeria murmured, hands clenched into fists at her sides.

All I could ever want is you.

Over her shoulder, she heard Duja steer to a stop.

She refused to turn around.

She imagined the princess’s face, her soft lips contorted into a confused frown.

“Imeria,” Duja said, a throaty whisper that sent a bolt of longing down the column of Imeria’s spine.

Nasty snickers erupted in the courtyard.

Both girls whipped around.

To their right, the crown prince emerged from the shadows of the arcades.

He slouched against one of the pillars, a vile smirk on his face.

“Pangil,” Duja snapped.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough,” he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

His black eyes flitted over to Imeria.

“Didn’t think you were the type to wear your heart on your sleeve, Kulaw.”

Anger boiled in Imeria’s veins.

She took a menacing step toward the prince, but Duja laid a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“Leave her alone, Pangil,” Duja said.

“This doesn’t involve you.”

“Oh, it does,” he shot back.

“How do you think Mother will feel when she hears about this little affair?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Duja’s eyes flashed red as her cheeks.

Beside her, Imeria grimaced?—the princess was a terrible liar.

Pangil’s eyes narrowed.

“I think you do, Sister. The moment Mother returns from the south, I’ll let her know exactly how you’ve carried on with your little traitor tart, Duja, then you’ll see?—”

The ground lurched before he could finish his threat.

Imeria fell, scuttling back several feet.

She cried out as her side collided with rough stone.

A bright red glow flared up at the edge of her vision as heat, stronger than a thousand suns, flooded the courtyard.

She rolled over to see Pangil, his palms raised above his head.

A fireball the size of a small planet blazed between them.

He aimed it straight at his sister.

“Duja!” Imeria screamed.

A column of earth shot up in the center of the courtyard.

Duja ducked behind it.

The fireball collided with the column in a mighty blast that shook the entire palace.

Pangil conjured a long fire whip, which he unfurled against Duja’s weakened column.

It crumbled to dust at the impact.

Duja scrambled to her feet.

The ground between her and her brother split open with a deafening crack.

She erected a jagged wall that spanned the courtyard, reaching nearly twice her height.

Pangil didn’t relent.

He bombarded her with an onslaught of flame.

The wall groaned but absorbed most of the impact.

It would hold?—but not for long.

Duja turned, chest heaving, and met Imeria’s gaze.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

“Run!”

But Imeria couldn’t run.

Her eyes locked on the wall over Duja’s shoulder.

Pangil had lobbed a fireball directly at the crisped earth at its center.

“Duja,” she screamed again as the wall exploded into a thousand bits.

Guards and servants flooded the courtyard at the sound of tumult.

Their terrified shouts filled the air.

“Your Highness. Oh, Your Highness, please!” they shrieked at Pangil.

But the crown prince could not be appeased.

“Don’t you dare stop me!” Pangil spat, stabbing a finger in Duja’s direction.

“Not when she would choose her over her own blood?—this filthy Kulaw traitor .”

With a snarl, he charged toward his sister, both hands ablaze.

Duja didn’t have time to wield.

She dived, dodging the streak of flame by inches.

The fireball soared into the eastern wing.

It gobbled up the front door, the antique giltwood sputtering as it burned to ash.

“No!” Duja’s terrified cry rang out over the sound of crackling flame.

The fire fanned out from the door with breathtaking speed.

Within seconds, it leaped all the way up the eastern wing’s facade to its tall, sloping roofs.

Imeria watched the flames spread, helpless to stop them.

The scorching heat warped her vision.

She opened her mouth to call for Duja, but her lungs filled with smoke.

“Your Highness, don’t!” It was the booming voice of General Ojas.

Beyond the flames, Imeria recognized his towering silhouette.

He had emerged from the main building and was running toward the royal siblings.

A wall of flame fanned out across the courtyard, blocking Duja off from all who could save her.

Pangil stalked toward Duja.

Imeria saw the flash of madness in his eyes, as though he had been possessed by malevolent spirits.

“Pangil, please!” Duja cried.

He ignored her and wrenched her up by the collar with one hand.

With the other, he conjured an arc of flame.

Its shadows danced across his dark cheeks, and his lips curled into a sneer.

He raised his hand, ready to cast the flame down toward his sister.

“Stop!”

The second his fingers flexed, Imeria shot to her feet.

She launched herself at the prince’s back.

He hit the ground with a groan.

She pressed her hands to his forehead.

The power she had long struggled to hide burst through her fingertips, hungry to be unleashed.

Take him, it screamed in her head, and Imeria complied.

She clawed deep into the rageful threads of Pangil’s mind and pulled tight.

“You won’t touch her,” Imeria said between ragged breaths.

“You won’t touch her ever again.”

Beneath her, Pangil stilled.

His head lolled back.

He stared up at the smoke-filled sky, unseeing.

Inky pools seeped out from his irises, blotting out the whites of his eyes.

Only then did Imeria release him.

She fell back on her hindquarters as the power that roared in her ears quieted to a dull whisper.

“Imeria?—by the gods.” Duja’s terrified gasp jolted Imeria back to her senses.

She looked up in a daze.

Her nose stung with the caustic scent of ash.

The facade of the eastern wing crackled as Pangil’s flames leaped to the upper floors.

Thick clouds of smoke rose from the broken windows, smothering the sunlight.

Agonized screams reverberated across the courtyard.

Imeria barely heard them.

Her eyes darted between her hands and the black-eyed prince, still trapped under her curse.

Her entire body quaked when she realized what she had done.

“Duja”?—she croaked out a response?—“I can explain.” She reached for her, but Duja scuttled back.

The princess shook her head in disbelief.

Beneath the streaks of soot, her cheeks had gone gray.

“No,” she said in a strangled voice.

“It can’t be.” When she stared back at Imeria, her face twisted into a look of horror.

A hundred half-formed apologies fought their way to Imeria’s mouth.

No time to utter a single one.

More shrieks for help rang out from the eastern wing.

Her heart plummeted in her chest.

She recognized that voice.

The queen was still trapped somewhere between the mounting flames.

“Mother,” Duja whispered.

She charged toward the burning building, leaving Imeria in her wake.

An armored guard stepped into the princess’s path.

“Don’t come any closer, Dayang. It’s too dangerous,” the guard yelled, his voice carrying over the sound of snapping timber.

Imeria turned to find the courtyard flooding with servants.

Water sloshed across the tiles as they thrust buckets from one hand to another, transporting them all the way from the palace kitchens.

As quickly as they could, they tried to douse the fire leading up to the staircase.

Anything to clear a path up to the queen.

Guards barked orders from all directions.

More water, they cried.

But the fire was moving too fast.

General Ojas emerged from the eastern wing, ash smeared across his face.

“The staircase is collapsing,” he choked out between coughs.

“There must be another way.”

Imeria’s eyes stung as she gazed up at the blackened sky.

She knew the eastern wing and all the corners where she and Duja used to play.

If another path to the queen existed, it had already been lost to the inferno.

The palace staff worked tirelessly for what felt like an eternity to put out the fire.

By the time the flames started to die down, much of the eastern wing’s facade had been reduced to smoking rubble, and the screams coming from inside had long quieted.

At last, Imeria crept toward Duja.

“Dayang,” she called tentatively, breaking the deathly silence.

But Duja didn’t budge.

She studied the embers that remained of the eastern wing.

Tears carved a trail through her soot-stained cheeks.

“Mother is gone.” A rare, wild spark flashed in the princess’s eyes.

She turned around, her gaze falling on Pangil, still lying unconscious several feet behind them.

The black pools in his eyes had just begun to fade.

Moments after, his eyelids drifted shut.

He looked like he was sleeping.

“Mother is gone,” Duja said again, this time with fatal certainty.

“And he killed her.”

Ojas approached Duja with red-rimmed eyes.

For a long, painful moment, the general struggled to find the words.

“I... I’m sorry, Dayang,” he finally said.

“We did everything we could.”

“I know you did. Thank you.” Duja’s words came out steady, even as her bottom lip trembled.

Ojas gave a stiff nod, then hesitated.

Imeria realized that he was awaiting orders.

Duja also came to this realization at the same moment.

She glanced once again at her brother, sprawled out in the middle of the courtyard.

Her next command caught Imeria by surprise.

“Take the prince down to the prison hold. We struck him down with a blow to the head. You must shackle him before he awakens. He’s too dangerous to leave to his own devices,” Duja said in a brutal, guttural voice Imeria didn’t recognize.

The general’s expression hardened into one of grim acceptance.

“Right away, Your Majesty,” he answered without question.

Imeria’s eyes widened as she witnessed the exchange.

The queen was dead.

Pangil was a murderer.

Which meant?—

“Duja,” she called as she reached for her once again.

She wanted to hold her.

To comfort her.

To promise her that everything would be all right.

In the blink of an eye, their destinies had changed.

The world they once knew had crumbled beneath Pangil’s fire.

The queen was dead, and only one could take her place.

Duja Gatdula was to be the next queen of Maynara.

But the second Imeria’s fingers brushed against her wrist, Duja recoiled.

“Don’t.”

Imeria’s entire body went rigid from her icy rebuff.

She stared at Duja as a renewed wave of hurt wracked her body.

It was too late.

The princess had seen what Imeria Kulaw was.

She’d never let Imeria touch her again.

“General.” There was no hint of tenderness in Duja’s tone as she called Ojas back to her attention.

“Have someone escort Imeria Kulaw back to her chambers. Keep a guard posted in front of her door. I fear she is in shock and may need some time to recover.”

The apologies turned to bile in Imeria’s throat.

Distantly, she felt a guard’s hand closing around her elbow.

She opened her mouth to protest.

No words came out.

How could she deny the Maynaran sovereign?

She prayed for Duja to relent, but her mind was already made up.

The new queen gazed impassively at Imeria, her face cooling into a mask of stone.

“Don’t look at me like that. Duja, please!” Imeria pleaded as the guard led her away.

The hand on her elbow gave it a comforting squeeze.

“Her Majesty is occupied. She will attend to you soon,” the guard murmured in her ear.

But Imeria couldn’t be reassured.

She craned her neck to meet Duja’s eyes a final time.

She wanted to cry out: I saved you.

I protected you.

I love you.

I?—

“Enough,” Imeria hissed to herself, blinking away the memory.

When she opened her eyes again, she was still frozen in the middle of the courtyard, caught in the sea of servants rushing with the wedding preparations.

She tore her gaze away from the eastern wing and leaned against one of the marble pillars on the edge of the courtyard as she caught her breath.

The pain from that wretched day, would it ever end?

Above, the sun dipped beneath the palace roofs, the jaw-shaped finials casting long shadows across the tiles.

Dusk crept in over the horizon.

They needed to depart for the Black Salt Cliffs soon.

With little time before the ceremony, Imeria didn’t visit Luntok’s chambers.

Nor did she go upstairs to dress.

Instead, she headed for the winding staircase that led down to the prison hold.

The staircase emptied onto a long, narrow corridor lined with cells, each of them filled with the Gatdulas’ closest allies.

Duja was being kept in the largest cell all the way at the end.

Cool sweat dripped down Imeria’s spine as she swept through the corridor.

She stopped at Duja’s door.

Imeria kept the key to the queen’s cell in her pocket because she didn’t trust any of the guards with it.

Through the barred window, Imeria spied the outline of Duja’s sleeping body on the cot at the back of the cell.

It was the first time Imeria laid eyes on her since the coup.

Her hand hovered over the doorknob.

She couldn’t bring herself to open it.

“Imeria Kulaw,” a familiar voice rang out.

“Have you come to flaunt your victory?”

Imeria whipped around.

The king was being held in the cell diagonally across from Duja’s.

His face peered out from between the thick metal bars.

His tone had been jovial, but his gaze was hard.

“Hari Aki,” she said, raising her chin.

“How do you find your new accommodations?”

“I must say, I prefer my old chambers.” The king held her gaze, his fingers curling around the bars.

“But I’m pleased to see you, Imeria. I was wondering when you would grace us with your presence.”

Imeria didn’t like the knowing way he was looking at her.

“I couldn’t deny my old friends a visit,” she said curtly, turning to leave.

“She loved you too, you know,” Hari Aki said.

Imeria froze.

She let out a shallow breath.

“What did you just say?”

“Duja,” he whispered.

“You know it’s true.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“It was never love,” she spat.

“If she loved me, she never would have?—”

“A mistake,” he said.

“It was all a terrible mistake. You must forgive her, Imeria. Please. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Imeria shook her head furiously.

“You don’t know of what you speak.”

“But I do,” Aki protested.

“I was the one who stood by Duja’s side all these years. I saw how she wept after she banished you from the palace. The decision to push you into another man’s arms destroyed her. She regretted it every day.”

“No,” Imeria spat.

“Duja never?—”

“Duja never told me how she truly felt for you,” he said, his mouth twisting into a bitter frown.

“Because that feeling never went away.”

Hope fluttered in Imeria’s stomach, but she refused to give in to it.

The king was merely feigning hurt.

He was trying to win her over with his honey-coated words, the same way he won over the rest of the court.

The same way he stole Duja from her all those years before.

“You’re wrong, Aki. Duja never loved me,” she said.

“This is how it was always meant to be. And in a few years’ time, I’m sure Laya will thank me for it.”

At the mention of his daughter, the blood drained from Aki’s face.

His knuckles whitened against the bars.

“What have you done to Laya?”

Imeria’s lips curled into a cruel smile.

“I’m giving her what she’s always wanted. Thanks to me, Luntok is all hers. Thanks to me, she’ll be queen of Maynara.”

The king’s eyes widened in panic.

“No. This isn’t Laya’s fault. Imeria, please?—”

“You should be satisfied, Aki,” she said, cutting him off.

“I found your daughter a suitable match?—a way to thank Duja for finding mine.”

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.