Page 29

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.

“It’s too late,” Duja said again.

“If Imeria gets her way, Laya is already lost.” She could already see her daughter’s future mapped out before her, etched into copper like a Maynaran epic.

Imeria would use Laya to solidify her family’s claim on the throne.

If she couldn’t wear her down, she’d contain her by any means necessary.

She’d wait for Laya to produce a new Gatdula heir?—one whom Imeria could mold as she pleased.

Imeria had no problem biding her time.

The second the rest of Maynara had their backs turned, she’d dispose of Laya.

And she’d be clever about it too.

Duja swallowed a frustrated scream when she thought about her former lover.

“I should have killed her,” she muttered to herself.

“I should have killed her when I had the chance.”

“Imeria?” Pangil cocked an eyebrow at her.

“But you loved her.”

Reluctantly, she nodded.

It was true.

“I did love Imeria. And she made me weak.”

In the shadows, her brother flashed her a sly grin.

“No, Sister, she did not.”

His claim made Duja take pause.

What had loving Imeria Kulaw gotten her, other than an adversary who threatened to destroy everything she held dear?

Memories flooded back from their shared childhood.

Imeria’s long, inky hair spilling down her shoulder.

Her unguarded laughter echoing across the palace courtyard.

Always urging Duja to speak louder, run faster.

A lump formed in the queen’s throat when she remembered.

Imeria had been the first person to make her feel brave.

“Why are you here?” Duja cast her brother a wary glance.

Pangil leaned toward her.

“I vowed to Aki that I would help you. This is a promise I intend to keep.”

She tore her gaze from him.

“Help me,” she said bitterly.

“How do you plan to do that?”

Pangil’s ghost sighed.

He laid a hand atop her head.

“First, you will take care of Imeria. Then, when you both are gone, I shall handle the rest.”

When I am gone.

What did he mean by that?

Duja’s head jerked up.

Her brother had disappeared.

The cell before her was empty.

She opened her mouth to scream.

Pangil.

Pangil, come back!

“Duja... Duja, wake up!” Another man’s voice called her back to her cell.

Her husband.

Aki.

Duja’s eyes flung open.

She shot up in the cot with a strangled gasp.

She wasn’t alone in her prison cell, but Pangil’s ghost no longer accompanied her.

The king was hovering over her in the cot, his brow furrowed in concern.

“Duja, are you all right?” he asked.

She sat up and tried to speak, but the inside of her throat had gone as dry as sandpaper.

“Water,” she croaked, and a cup was thrust into her hand.

“Here, Mother. Drink.” It was Bulan.

She was staring at Duja, a broad smile on her face.

Duja blinked.

Was this another hallucination?

When she reached out and touched Bulan’s shoulder, she wanted to sob in relief.

“Darling! I don’t understand. How did you?—”

“Mother! You’re alive!” A serving boy barreled through the open door of the prison cell, straight into Duja’s arms.

The queen looked down in surprise.

It wasn’t a serving boy at all, but Eti, her black hair cropped above her chin.

Duja would recognize her daughter’s round cheeks anywhere.

“Oh, darling,” Duja said, cupping Eti’s face in her hands.

“We’ve come to rescue you,” Eti said as she gazed up at Duja happily.

“Eti snuck back into the palace disguised as a servant. Clever little thing?—she’s the one who broke the locks on all these doors. In fact, General Ojas and the others are waiting for you just out there,” Bulan said, nodding toward the corridor that cut across the prison hold.

Duja felt as though her heart couldn’t be any fuller as she stared at her daughters.

After Imeria had locked them down there, she feared she would never hold them in her arms again.

But one was missing.

She turned to Aki as a cool wave of dread trickled down her spine.

“Where is Laya?” she asked.

Aki’s lips tightened into a thin line.

“She’s heading to the Black Salt Cliffs with Imeria,” he said gravely.

“They plan to marry her to Luntok at sundown.”

Duja’s expression hardened.

“We cannot allow that to happen.”

Imeria must have thought she could wrest control of Maynara without waging a bloody war.

A ruthless takeover thinly disguised as a blessed union.

Duja could concede that it was a cunning strategy.

Maynaran law was uncompromising when it came to marriage pacts.

Once Laya and Luntok exchanged their vows on the Black Salt Cliffs, they could never take them back.

And without the Gatdulas’ aid, the datus were too weak?—too terrified of Imeria?—to stop the marriage from happening.

All of them assumed the Gatdulas were already defeated.

That was their mistake.

Duja thought back to the cold smile she’d seen on Imeria’s face when her people had stormed the throne room.

Foolish queen.

Now do you see what I am capable of?

her eyes seemed to say.

It was true.

Duja had underestimated Imeria for twenty-two years.

Very well, my heart, she thought, her jaw squaring in determination.

Let us see what happens when you underestimate me.

“Come, Duja. We must leave at once,” Aki said.

We?

Duja turned to her husband.

“You will stay here,” she told him.

“I will not have you fight the Kulaws.”

“Stay safe behind the palace walls while my family heads straight into battle? I think not.”

Rarely did Aki defy her orders.

She wanted to shake the sense back into him.

“I bid you stay. You are not a fighter,” she cried.

“But I am a father.” The king raised his voice.

His words echoed off the cool walls of the cell, alarming everyone inside.

Softening, he took Duja’s hand.

“Have you forgotten the vows I made to you? I am your husband. Through triumph and adversity, my place is by your side.”

Duja’s heart swelled, and she swallowed her objections.

She pressed her lips to his?—a hard, fleeting kiss.

She loved him.

Oh, how she loved him.

There was so much more she wished to say, but now was not the moment.

The king held out his arm to help her to her feet.

But Duja stood too quickly.

She stumbled, and Aki caught her before she fell.

He eased her back onto the cot.

“They must have put something in the wine with my meals,” she muttered, grabbing his arm to steady herself.

“Something to sedate me. It’s muddled up my head?—and now my hands... I cannot fight, Aki. Not like this.”

“But we don’t have time to wait for the drugs to wear off. If we want to make it to the cliffs, we need to leave now,” Bulan said, her eyes darting between her parents.

Bulan was right.

The Black Salt Cliffs were far outside the city, and judging by the long shadows that slanted across the floor of the cell, Laya would have just left.

Duja wanted to scream in frustration.

“By the gods,” she cried, wringing her wrists, “how can I hope to stop Imeria now? My daughter needs me, and I do not have the strength.”

“Um, Your Majesty?” Duja looked up to find Ariel Sauros standing before her in the prison cell.

His lanky stature and wire-framed spectacles were unmistakable.

She stared at him.

“How did you?—”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty, we don’t have time for explanations,” Ariel said.

He reached into the pockets of his trousers, digging out a handful of crystal bars and a rusty pipe.

Cautiously, he knelt before her and laid the objects in her lap.

Duja’s heart raced as she stared down at them.

“I don’t believe it. It’s?—”

“Precioso,” Ariel said, nodding.

“I believe it’s exactly what you need.”