Page 30

Thirty

Laya

Laya’s neck ached as she leaned out the window of her carriage.

It was the damned headdress with wide gold plates that weighed a pound each?—the same one her mother had worn during the closing ceremony.

Behind her stretched a string of royal attendants and the spineless nobles who had already capitulated to Imeria, eager to win the new sovereign’s favor or to spare their families from her wrath.

She glanced at the lone girl sitting across from her and would have allowed herself a dark, humorless chuckle at the laughable size of her retinue for such a momentous occasion, if she weren’t leading her country to its doom.

They passed through the heart of Mariit on their way to the ramparts that protected the city.

The entire population had gathered around the canals?—ruddy fishermen, finely dressed merchants, mothers with crying babies swaddled against their chests.

If this were like royal weddings past, there would have been baskets of coconut-flaked sweets passed around and paper lanterns launched into the air and rice wine flowing into the streets.

From every footbridge, minstrels would have serenaded them with warbling love songs.

Children would have chased behind her carriage, waving banners, cheering.

Instead, the people watched in silence as the procession cut through the throngs.

Their faces were somber, resigned, as if they were bearing witness to a funerary march.

Save me, Laya thought as she met their gazes through the carriage window.

Save your future queen.

In spite of her gods-given power, Laya could not save herself.

Before she left the palace, the brass shackles had been fastened to her wrists anew.

The marriage ceremony was too important, Imeria had told her, for things to go amiss.

Laya cast a bitter glance over her shoulder.

The Kulaws rode in the carriage directly behind her.

If she were to try to escape, they would be the first to see.

“You look lovely, Dayang. Your betrothed will be more than pleased.”

Laya flinched.

It was that dreadful, simpering serving girl Yari, whom Imeria had assigned to her carriage.

That morning, she had clothed Laya in her wedding gown, a gorgeous dress of bloodred silk.

It was sleeveless, pinned together above her right shoulder with a filigree brooch in the shape of a dragonfly, its wings carved from vitreous jade.

A thick belt strung together out of golden disks cinched her waist.

Her hair, which Yari had rubbed with jasmine oil until it shined, was twisted into a knot at the top of her skull.

Laya looked lovely, but not at all like herself; she looked like Imeria’s puppet.

Ignoring Yari, she stared straight ahead.

Over their driver’s shoulder, the jagged mouth of the Black Salt Cliffs loomed.

The cliffs stretched out from the base of Mount Matabuaya, enveloping the bay like shark teeth.

Laya thought about the story Maiza had told her about the first Gatdula king, the daughter of Mulayri, and their blood-soaked marriage atop those cliffs.

The high shaman used to regale her with Maynara’s founding myths during their lessons.

But on this day, as a bride herself, the story gave her no comfort.

How could she feel like the mother of her nation when she’d been brought to the Black Salt Cliffs in chains?

“We have arrived, Dayang,” Yari muttered as their carriage rolled to a stop at the end of the rocky path.

A footman dismounted and hurried to open the door.

As Laya tried to balance on the carriage step without the use of her hands, the footman held her arms to steady her and help her to the ground.

Swallowing the knot in her throat, she continued down the path.

The wind was stronger along the coast, and her skirt caught between her legs.

At the mouth of the cliff, the witnesses had already gathered: Datus Luma, Tanglaw, Sandata, and Patid.

Rows of nameless servants hung behind them.

Over two hundred guards flanked them on either side, scarlet sashes draped around their waists.

Imeria had summoned an even bigger battalion than Laya expected.

Her palms grew clammy as she passed them, line after unbroken line.

Even without the shackles, she couldn’t fend them off single-handed.

All watched in silence as she approached, their faces as somber as the ones she had passed in Mariit.

Maiza stood alone all the way at the edge of the cliff.

She looked frailer than usual.

After the coup, she must have fought back.

Laya’s blood boiled when she saw the purple bruise that streaked across Maiza’s narrow chin.

The Kulaws dared strike a high shaman.

With a pained expression, Maiza took Laya’s arm and had her kneel before her on the windswept grass.

“What a shame, my child, to be wed beneath such cruel skies,” the shaman murmured.

She brushed her leathered knuckles against Laya’s cheek?—a rare display of affection, which caught Laya off guard.

A whimper escaped from her mouth.

“Maiza.”

“You are doing your duty, Dayang,” Maiza said in a gravelly voice.

“As shall I.”

Imeria arrived a moment later.

Luntok was at her shoulder, handsome in his gold-trimmed vest, his eyes soft and hopeful.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered as he knelt beside her.

Laya’s gut clenched.

She cast her eyes forward to avoid looking at him.

Beyond the cliffs, the sun was just touching the horizon.

Its orange rays skated across the Untulu Sea.

“Sundown,” Imeria said, as she gave Maiza a curt nod.

“The ceremony may begin.”

A hush dispersed through the crowd.

Laya stilled, listening to the soft rumble of the sea as it lapped against the rocks and the cackling of terns overhead.

Maiza began to chant blessings in Old Maynaran, a language as ancient as the gods themselves, abstract words that lost all meaning in translation.

Laya recognized a few from her studies.

The words for devotion , compact , and the most useless of them all, promise .

As she chanted, Maiza beckoned to a serving boy, who brought forward a bowl of uncooked rice and laid it in the grass.

Desperately, she met Maiza’s gaze.

Save me.

Stop the ceremony.

Please.

But Maiza shook her head as she reached forward and entwined Laya’s fingers with Luntok’s above the bowl.

Her hands were clammy.

Luntok, unaware of the depths of her suffering, gave her fingers a tight squeeze.

Maiza called again for the servant, who presented a goblet and ceremonial dagger?—the same objects that had been used at the midnight feast.

When she lifted the dagger, Luntok leaned forward.

Maiza made a shallow cut across his chest no larger than a dimple, then dripped his blood into a goblet.

She did the same to Laya.

She hardly felt the blade pierce her skin.

Maiza mixed their blood, diluted it with blessed water, and handed the goblet to Luntok to drink.

He took a sip and passed the goblet to Laya.

With bound hands, she lifted it to her lips.

Their combined blood tasted bitter?—tainted, like the rest of them.

How many times had Laya dreamed of this day, praying Luntok would be the man kneeling beside her on the cliffs?

She wondered, If Hara Duja had let them marry, if she were the one standing by her side, would this moment have tasted any sweeter?

More chanting, more blessings followed.

Maiza nodded to the serving boy, who came forth once again with a cord.

The boy brought Laya’s hands to Luntok’s and wound the cord around their shoulders and wrists.

As he wrapped the silken threads around Laya’s shackles, his hands snagged around her fingers, and he gave them a light tug.

Too intimate.

Too familiar.

Her gaze snapped up to meet his.

Laya nearly gasped.

Eti?

Her sister’s long hair had been snipped short, her knobby knees concealed by baggy, threadbare trousers?—but her round cheeks and light footsteps were unmistakable.

Laya tore her gaze from Eti for fear of calling attention to her.

Her eyes flitted between the Kulaws and Datu Gulod standing next to Imeria, convinced they would register her sister’s presence at any second.

But Imeria remained fixated on the goblet resting between the high shaman’s hands.

And Luntok?—Luntok only had eyes for her.

Maiza drew Laya’s attention back to herself.

This time, she caught a sharp glint of defiance in her eyes.

In a thin, scratchy voice, the shaman announced, “I bring together this man, Luntok Kulaw, and this woman, Laya Gatdula. They are now one. May we all bear witness to their union, and to the start of their enduring reign as sovereigns of Maynara and Thu-ki.”

Behind them, a discontented rumble spread across the crowd.

Luntok’s gaze locked on hers.

His eyes burned with a love that Laya suddenly knew was genuine?—it always had been.

“Laya...” He hesitated, waiting for her to speak.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eti shuffling toward her.

Neither Luntok nor Imeria had noticed her.

So consumed were they by the marriage ceremony?—and the victory it would bring them?—they could think of little else.

But the ceremony was drawing to its farcical end.

Eti was standing so close to them; anyone might recognize her if they gave her a second glance.

Laya forced her eyes to soften when she returned his gaze.

“I suppose that makes you my husband,” she said.

“And you, my wife.”

She saw the question in his eyes and gave him a small nod to encourage him.

He exhaled sharply, like he had been waiting his entire life for this signal, and leaned in.

As Luntok pressed their lips together, Maiza barked out, “Boy, the marriage cord!” and motioned Eti over.

Laya barely registered the heat of Luntok’s mouth on hers.

It was no more than a brief peck, but any softness from Laya sufficed to distract him.

When he pulled back, he did not spare a glance at Eti, who was hovering over them.

Laya held her breath as Eti reached between her and Luntok.

Her sister kept her head bowed, her cropped hair spilling over her cheeks.

With nimble fingers, Eti untied the cord binding Laya to Luntok.

The young girl’s hand lingered on the shackles for a long, pregnant moment.

The short chain linking her wrists together snapped with a metallic click, and the marriage cord fell to the dirt between them.

Laya flexed her fingers.

She couldn’t hear her own thoughts over the swell of the waves and the blood pounding in her ears.

A nervous tingle seeped throughout her body.

She was free.

Eti had rescued her?—and neither Luntok nor his mother appeared to notice.

“Come,” Imeria announced to the awaiting crowd.

“It’s time to return to the palace for a celebration feast.”

Gently, Luntok helped Laya to her feet.

He made to lead her to the carriages, but she held him back.

“Luntok,” she called breathily, as though flustered by the beauty of the cliffs, by the weight of their nascent union.

“What is it?” He looked at her worshipfully, lovingly, in spite of everything he had done.

But Laya finally understood that to love a Kulaw was dangerous.

And she would not yield herself to him.

Laya grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked him close.

He didn’t have time to react before she pressed a harsh kiss to his lips.

He kissed her back hungrily.

Foolish boy.

She planted her palm flat against his chest, right above the wound where the dagger had pierced him.

Luntok looked down and, finally, noticed the broken chain between her wrists.

His eyes narrowed.

He opened his mouth to yell?—but not fast enough.

“Goodbye, Husband,” she sneered and raised her other palm to the sky, then heaved him back with a jet of wind.

Luntok flew high above the heads of the datus and the Kulaw guards.

He crashed to the ground several feet away, skidding to a stop near the carriage path with a groan.

Imeria whipped around, nostrils flaring.

She threw her hand in Laya’s direction.

“You stupid bitch!”

Roughly, Laya shoved Eti behind her.

She closed her eyes, readying herself for the inevitable onslaught of pain, when the ground beneath their feet rumbled with tremendous intensity.

Laya would have fallen had Eti not grabbed her arm and jerked her upright.

Over her shoulder, Maiza cried out, “Hara Duja. By the gods!”

Barreling down the path on a great floating slab of earth was the queen.

She wasn’t alone.

Hari Aki and Bulan stood beside her.

Laya counted about a hundred warriors at their flanks, including the towering figure of General Ojas.

“Ariel and I,” Eti whispered excitedly, “we got them all out. And then we?—”

“The Orfelian?” Laya let out a startled laugh.

“Really?”

Hara Duja released the earth she had been wielding.

It sank down, shuddering, onto the flat face of the Black Salt Cliffs.

Inches away, Luntok had only just begun to come to his senses.

“Imeria,” Duja cried.

A gale from the coast swept over the cliffs, whipping back her wild hair.

She stalked toward the other woman.

The Kulaw warriors clustered behind Imeria, their hands poised on the hilts of their weapons.

If Imeria was afraid, she didn’t dare falter.

“You cannot defeat me now, Duja. The ceremony is finished, and I have double your men.”

“Have you?” The queen gazed at the rows of warriors the Kulaws had amassed.

Her dirt-streaked face was hard and unrelenting.

Impressive as Imeria’s numbers were, the vast majority had either been intimidated by the Kulaws or paid off.

Laya realized that her marriage was no longer the only alliance in question.

She watched, rooted where she stood, as her mother addressed the traitors gathered before them.

“Brave warriors. Each one of you has pledged your sword to the rightful ruler of Maynara, and yet you fight beside our greatest enemy. Maybe you think I have failed you as sovereign. Maybe you’re afraid. If that is the case, I can forgive your transgressions. But if you throw your support behind Imeria Kulaw, I cannot rectify the mistakes I’ve made.

“In my reign, I may not have been the perfect queen?—but I am a daughter of Mulayri.

The throne is my birthright, and this land is mine to defend.

So I ask again: To whom do you pledge your sword?

The true queen of Maynara?

Or a dangerous usurper, who, at any second, can claw her way inside your head?

”

Imeria uttered a cry of indignation.

“No one is interested in your lectures, Duja. Your reign is over. The people have already decided.”

But judging by the chorus of agitated murmurs rippling through the Kulaws’ ranks, nothing was decided.

A tense silence overtook the cliffs.

And then?—

“Have mercy, Your Majesty.” A lone figure broke away from the Kulaws’ ranks.

He was a senior officer around Ojas’s age.

Laya recognized his steady gait from the countless times she’d seen him patrolling the halls of the palace.

He staggered across the grass, shame clouding his features, before throwing himself at Hara Duja’s feet.

“I have broken my vows. I allowed fear to stand between me and my duty. I owe my service to your family, for your sacrifice and your protection. I cannot undo my errors, but I can offer my sword to you?—the true queen of Maynara.”

His words echoed in the salt-sprayed air.

Then, all at once, the mass of warriors crowded behind Imeria began to shift.

Dozens followed the senior officer to the other side of the cliff, where the rest of the Gatdulas were waiting.

One by one, they begged for forgiveness and pledged their swords to Hara Duja.

A smirk spread across Laya’s face as she reevaluated their numbers.

By the time the warriors settled into their new positions, nearly half of Imeria’s forces had defected to the Gatdulas.

Imeria could no longer be certain of her victory?—the size of their battalions were suddenly even.

Seeing that the odds had shuffled in their favor, Hara Duja opened her arms to the rest of the Kulaw faction.

She raised her chin and spoke with renewed confidence.

“Come. You need not fear my wrath if you step forward. I promise to grant each one of you clemency if you stand down. Now.”

Then a moment of uneasy hesitation.

A fleeting stillness swept over the Black Salt Cliffs.

When no one else crossed over to the queen’s side, Imeria threw her head back and laughed.

“Oh, I’ve had my fill of Gatdula clemency.” She turned to her remaining warriors and roared, “Guards! Attack the queen.”

Laya scarcely had time to register Imeria’s abrupt order.

But the Kulaw forces didn’t hesitate.

In a menacing swell, they advanced.

Their stampeding footsteps thundered across the cliffs.

They swarmed Hara Duja, the steel of their weapons burnished with the pink-and-orange cast of twilight.

“Hurry,” Ojas yelled from the queen’s side.

The terse quiet of the cliffs broke as his men surged forward to engage them.

Laya steeled her shoulders and ran after them.

She had never known battle before.

The war songs and sweeping epics could not have prepared her for the chaos of clashing metal, the sickening squelch as blades penetrated flesh.

No training could have steeled her soul to withstand the shrieks of men struck down in a flash of silver.

Bodies darted past her, bolts of green and scarlet and flailing limbs.

The sea wind stung the corners of her eyes.

Her nostrils filled with the smell of rust as blood soaked the grass atop the cliffs.

In the tumult, she struggled to orient herself.

She skirted past slashing swords and walls of breastplates until she arrived at the center of the fray, where the fighting was fiercest.

A flash of gold drew Laya’s focus to the front line.

Imeria Kulaw stood shielded by a ring of Kulaw warriors, their swords raised as they deflected the Gatdula offense.

Their assailants came at Imeria from all sides, and they did not relent.

As the Kulaw warriors closed in to protect Imeria, Laya glimpsed the older woman’s face.

Her brow was furrowed in concentration.

Both her hands were directed at the lines of Gatdula guards advancing toward them.

With a pang, Laya realized what she was doing.

Instinctively, she raised her palm.

The threads of power braided themselves through her fingertips.

If she calculated the angle just right, she could send a blast straight down the front line without taking down too many of her mother’s men.

The second before Laya launched her attack, Imeria swore at the top of her lungs.

For once, she sounded panicked.

“It’s not enough. I cannot get a hold of them,” she barked to the group of warriors shielding her.

“I need more cover. Get me to the rear.”

Laya refused to let her slip away.

She sucked in a breath, ready to strike her down, when a metallic gleam caught her eye.

Three Kulaw warriors were charging toward her.

Reflexively, she flung out her arms.

She sent them hurtling across the grass with a violent blast.

“Laya!”

She ducked as a rock hurtled from behind her, narrowly missing her brow.

A Kulaw warrior had his sword posed above his head, ready to strike her down, before the rock crashed against his chest.

With a nauseating crunch, he fell back, crumpling beneath its weight.

Hara Duja ran over and grabbed her face in her hands.

She gave her a harsh shake, a savage spark in her eyes.

“You have to be more careful.”

More and more Kulaw guards advanced toward them.

The queen grabbed Laya’s arm with one hand and with the other, raised the earth beneath their feet.

They shot up to the sky on a limestone pedestal.

On the flat face of the cliffs, there was no higher ground from which to fight, so Hara Duja made her own.

When she raised her palms, four gigantic chunks of earth broke off from the cliff face.

They rose to orbit the pedestal, ready to crash down on any who dared attack her.

Laya could not help but gape at her mother.

Had the queen wielded such power all this time?

Her thoughts flitted to the substance Imeria had boasted about back at the palace.

The secret Hara Duja had been keeping from her.

Precioso.

“They’re too strong. We must act fast,” a voice bellowed from the ground?—Vikal, who’d trained Luntok in the art of war.

Imeria had managed to join him behind the Kulaws’ defenses.

He stood, pleading, at her side.

Luntok and Datu Gulod were with them.

They stared up at Hara Duja, frozen in anticipation.

Imeria held herself still as the battle raged around them, but Laya could see the color drain from her cheeks.

She was shaken.

From high up on the pedestal, Laya watched as the woman groped for something around her neck.

“Mother,” Luntok pleaded, his cry carrying over the sounds of battle.

“You need to hurry.”

Laya frowned, trying to decipher Imeria’s next move.

Behind her, a familiar voice boomed.

“Duja!”

She turned around and spied her father, a borrowed sword at his side, shouting to them from the base of the pedestal.

Hara Duja’s eyes bulged in their sockets.

“What are you doing?” she snapped.

“Get back to the rear.”

The king ignored her command.

“I tried to warn you from back there. You must stop Imeria as soon as you can. I couldn’t get a good look, but I fear she has her hands on precioso.”

To Laya’s shock, her mother let out an ungainly curse.

Then her gaze locked on the Kulaws.

With a grunt, she hurled a chunk of earth in their direction.

It missed them by mere inches, smashing into the dirt at their feet.

Imeria stumbled back to avoid it.

Vikal dragged her and Luntok bodily from the fighting, barking out orders to retreat.

Their surviving soldiers and loyal attendants raced for the carriages.

“Don’t let them escape!” Duja yelled, her voice echoing across the cliffs.

She knelt low, the ground rumbling as she erected a great wall to block Imeria from the carriage path.

Ojas and his men rushed forward to detain them.

With a frustrated growl, Vikal plunged back into the fray.

He headed straight for Ojas, who was limping, a blood-soaked bandage hanging from his side.

Ruthlessly, Vikal dug his knee straight into his injury.

Ojas yelled and toppled to the ground.

Vikal raised his sword, ready to plunge it into his gut.

“No!”

Bulan threw herself in between them.

Vikal was twice her size.

It took all of her force to deflect his blade.

She lunged, but Vikal blocked her easily.

He flicked her onto the grass as if she were nothing but a fly.

She yelped in pain, her weapon tumbling from her grip.

He took a step toward her, his body dwarfing hers, and raised his sword once more.

“Bulan!” Hara Duja gasped.

The earth cracked open as she flattened the pedestal back into the dirt.

She sprinted toward her, dodging the Kulaw warriors in her path, but her husband got there first.

“Don’t you dare,” the king gritted out, swinging his sword over his head.

Hari Aki was a man of wit, not a fighter.

He was no match for Vikal and his warrior’s instinct.

In one sweeping motion, Vikal disarmed the king and plunged his blade into his gut.

“Father!” Laya screamed.

Time slowed down.

In the moment before she blinked, her father floated, suspended in midair.

His head tilted skyward, his back curved in a graceful crescent.

The king was no god, but rimmed in the dying sunlight, he became a creature that did not belong to this earth.

He was not falling, no, but rising to meet Mulayri in his mountain kingdom.

As though the gods had called him by name.

As though they had already claimed him.

When she opened her eyes, her father had crumpled onto his back.

A bolt of scarlet seeped through his rumpled court silks and dripped onto the dirt.

Hara Duja and Bulan huddled around him.

One of Ojas’s guards fell to his knees at their side, offering his sash.

They pressed it into the wound.

The dirt beneath his body turned to mud where the blood continued to pool.

Weakly, he looked up.

“Duja,” he said.

When he opened his mouth, rivers of blood rippled down his sharp, clever chin.

And Laya could only watch.

Her vision warped and seared at the edges.

The Black Salt Cliffs folded in around her.

The battle waging around them faded.

She could only hear her father gasping for breath.

She saw nothing but the light fading from his eyes.

“Maiza,” Bulan yelled, a sob caught in her throat.

“Maiza, he needs a healer.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Vikal was backing away.

His sword hung limply at his side, drenched with the king’s blood.

He looked stunned, ashen-faced.

“We must leave,” Datu Gulod hissed.

“Now.”

No.

Laya tore her gaze from her father.

Her eyes closed in on Vikal as waves of anger wracked her core.

They weren’t going anywhere.

She raised her palm, feeling the threads of energy tauten around her fingers, when a body tackled her from the side.

“Run!” Luntok screamed to his mother.

He struggled to hold her down, but Laya elbowed him hard in the ribs.

He groaned and she shoved him off, scrambling to her feet.

“I’ll kill you for this,” she said, her chest heaving.

“I’ll kill you all.”

His expression hardened as he rose, retrieving the horned, ceremonial dagger from his belt.

He held it in his fist.

“You would kill your lover? The man you’ve just wed?” Luntok spat.

He was taunting her.

He wanted to distract her while his mother and the others fled.

Laya didn’t care.

She hurled a blast of wind toward him.

It hit him square in the chest.

The dagger flew from his grip.

He hurtled several feet backward, rolling to a stop inches away from the cliff’s edge, winded.

On shaking arms, he struggled to push himself upright.

Laya ran over and grabbed the collar of his shirt.

His hands shot to her fingers, but he didn’t fight to free himself from her grip.

He stared up at her, and for a wild moment, she thought he might try to kiss her again.

Instead, he shook his head.

His lips parted in disbelief.

“Laya. You wouldn’t.”

She glanced over her shoulder to where her father was bleeding out on the grass.

She could hear Ojas’s deep voice booming for more bandages.

The datus flocked to the king, offering strips of cloth torn from their shirts and clean pairs of hands.

But they couldn’t give the king what he needed most?—more time.

Amidst the chaos, she saw her mother.

The queen had folded herself over her husband’s bloodied chest.

She was sobbing, brutally, brokenly, because she already knew the truth.

Hari Aki was beyond saving.

He was dying, Laya realized.

A sharp stab of pain pierced her soul.

Her fingers clenched into fists, threatening to rip through Luntok’s marriage vest.

At her beckoning, black clouds gathered overhead and the cool, coastal air crackled and sparked.

Her vision cleared and a strange calm washed over her, the quiet that preceded a typhoon.

“Laya,” Luntok whispered from where he knelt.

“Please.”

Laya looked down at him.

For a moment, the fear melted from his handsome face.

In her mind, an old memory flickered, where their positions were reversed.

He was bowed over her naked body, dragging his lips between her breasts; when he met her gaze, his eyes burned.

It was not love, but obsession.

She let out a ragged breath.

He was the reason for all of this.

Her family’s undoing, her father’s downfall, was all because of him.

“For anyone who dares harm my family,” she said as her gaze frosted over, “let this be my message.”

Farewell, my love.

Without hesitation, Laya drew her palm back.

An arc of wind rushed forward to meet it.

She cast it down at the man who loved her, pitching him headfirst over the Black Salt Cliffs.