Page 35

Thirty-Four

Laya

At dawn, people flooded the streets of Mariit by the thousands to catch a glimpse of their new queen.

They gasped in awe when the palace gates opened and Laya emerged.

Her dark skin glowed with an unearthly essence.

She appeared like a goddess, descending from her mountain kingdom.

The dull morning light glinted off her headpiece, a half circle of gold plates that radiated like sunrays.

She wore a coronation gown of viridian silk, its long train slinking along the marble steps like a water serpent.

She glided to the riverboats, where her retinue was waiting.

General Ojas offered Laya his arm and helped her onto the largest boat from which the Gatdula banner waved.

Bulan followed, a ceremonial sword at her belt and a green sash tied over her gleaming breastplate.

Eti and the rest of Laya’s retinue joined them.

Laya leaned on Ojas’s arm as they strode across the deck of the riverboat.

The battle against the Kulaws had shaken the aging warrior.

Although he still stood upright at her side, he had come to Laya alone earlier that week.

He’d told her it was time to think about choosing his successor.

Laya didn’t hesitate to name Bulan.

In fact, her first directive as queen would be to announce her sister’s new rank as general and head of the Royal Maynaran Guard.

It was one of the most important roles in the palace, and it suited Bulan more than high counselor or any other empty title.

If anyone dared question Bulan’s experience or level of swordsmanship, the queen would refuse to hear it.

Laya could think of no one better to protect her than her own blood.

A member of the royal guard gave the order to start the engine, and they chugged down the main canal.

Along the sides of the water, the entire city had gathered.

They sang as the royal procession passed.

Children reached into baskets and showered their boat with fistfuls of jasmine rice.

At the bow, Laya laughed in delight as the rice scattered across the deck.

“Your kingdom, Your Majesty,” General Ojas murmured as Mariit unwound before them.

Its spires and sloping roofs rippled across the water, twisting into patterns of red and gold.

Even though Laya had lived in the city her entire life, it didn’t cease to entrance her.

She wanted to fall asleep amidst the spirits of the mangrove trees.

She wanted to sail along its network of canals, which branched through the capital like arteries.

Around her, Mariit’s citizens hummed and rejoiced.

“All hail Hara Laya,” they chanted.

That was the heart of Maynara.

Laya’s mother had surrendered everything to give it to her.

Despite all the secrets between them, all the tensions between mother and daughter, Hara Duja had loved Laya and loved her people.

But she’d left behind a hole in Laya’s heart, along with a thousand unanswered questions.

In darker moments, Laya allowed that hole to fill with anger and bitterness?—that is, until she remembered the weight of her mother’s sacrifice.

A determined spark coursed through Laya at the reminder.

“I will not waste this,” she told Ojas in a tight whisper.

And Ojas nodded because he understood.

A distant echo of drums rang out over the cheering crowd.

The beat started at a slow, steady pace before it picked up and grew riotous.

On top of the footbridges, the people of Mariit continued to dance and drink.

Platters of food passed from hand to hand: steamed pork buns and squid balls and batter-fried quail eggs.

The sounds and smells overwhelmed her as the boat drew closer to the heart of the city.

The feast wouldn’t last forever.

Were the Kulaws truly gone?

Did Laya’s reign mark a new era of peace?

She wanted to believe that was the case, but she couldn’t deny the voice in the back of her head that whispered otherwise.

Over Ojas’s shoulder, Laya caught a glimpse of sunlight glaring off a pair of spectacles?—Ariel Sauros.

The growing fondness she felt for him aside, she owed him for protecting Eti.

When any self-seeking man would have fled, Ariel had stayed in Maynara and helped the Gatdula family.

He was part of Laya’s retinue because she needed him and his priceless alchemy skills?—more than she cared to admit.

The previous evening, Laya had summoned Ariel to her chambers.

She waved before him the letter she had stolen from his desk all those weeks before.

Although she had finally deciphered it, the words left her with more questions than answers.

“I think it’s time you told me about this,” she said.

Ariel stared at her, dumbfounded.

“How on earth did you find that?” he demanded.

“I’m queen now. And it’s my duty to get to know my guests,” she said, giving him a wry grin.

“It’s your own fault, you know. If you didn’t want me to read it, you should never have taught me that dreadful alphabet.”

Ariel had sighed in half-hearted defeat, because Laya was right; Ariel was under her protection as queen and had no right to lie to her.

Thus, the story came out.

Parts of it, Laya already knew?—what precioso could do, and why her mother had sought his services.

As for Pangil, the man who’d sent Ariel to Maynara in the first place?—

“I wish to speak to this man,” she said.

“Can you contact him for me?”

“Certainly, Your Majesty,” Ariel told her.

He met her gaze before bowing his head in deference, his lips curling into a hesitant grin.

On the riverboat, Ojas drew back so Laya’s family could join her at the bow.

Eti leaned against Laya’s side, her cropped hair tumbling over her eyes in the breeze.

Bulan placed a reassuring hand on Laya’s other shoulder, keeping her steady gaze trained on the canal ahead.

Laya tightened her grip on the brass railing.

The three Gatdula sisters, left to fend for themselves in the land of gods.

The land of monsters.

At the end of the tour of Mariit, the riverboat circled back to the balete tree.

Laya could hear the wind rustling through its twisted vines, the whisper of spirits?—the dead who awaited her on the other side.

With a heavy heart, she stepped onto the platform.

The whispers quieted as she walked past the ring of spirit houses and into the sacred grove.

Her parents slept together in the same rosewood tree.

Hari Aki’s remains rested in the tree, tucked into a limestone sarcophagus.

Over the nine days following his death, Maiza’s shamans sang funeral dirges as they cleansed his skin with blessed water and betel sap.

They had hollowed out a space for Hara Duja’s sarcophagus beside him earlier that week, even though they never recovered her body.

Laya reached out and laid her palm against the bark.

If she could have wielded the wood, she would have reached straight through and tugged her parents’ spirits from the resin.

But they were gone, roaming a distant realm, and not even Maiza could call them back.

“I will not fail you,” she murmured.

She wanted her mother to hear this more than anyone else.

Her mouth flooded with all the questions she would never get a chance to ask her.

Hara Duja had left her too soon, and Laya was not yet ready to bear the mantle.

How could she govern a country that had scarcely healed from its recent scars?

She had coveted the throne her entire life, but the reality of taking her mother’s place terrified her.

But she wouldn’t be alone.

Her ears perked up at the light tread of footsteps.

Laya looked over her shoulder.

Bulan and Eti hung back to give her a moment alone with their parents.

The small act of deference caught Laya by surprise?—the first of many changes.

She beckoned to them, and they joined her.

They linked hands as they stood before the sacred rosewood tree.

“They’re still with us,” Bulan said softly.

She squeezed Laya’s hand.

A deep trust had blossomed between them in the hole their parents had left behind.

After everything they had lost, they put aside their unspoken grievances.

They agreed to be kinder to each other.

To lean on one another, as sisters should.

Their past arguments, the hurtful insults they had exchanged over the years?—all of that seemed so petty.

Laya’s cheeks burned with shame when she thought about how awfully she had treated Bulan before.

Eti sighed and pressed her forehead against the bark.

Ever since the battle on the Black Salt Cliffs, she had fashioned herself into a little adult.

She changed her mannerisms and even adopted a lower timbre to her speaking voice?—all to appear older than her thirteen years.

But Laya knew better.

She could see the scared child underneath, and her heart ached for her.

Eti was the youngest of them, and she had known their parents the least.

Hara Duja and Hari Aki were gone.

No one but Laya was left to protect her sisters.

A fierce desire flooded her heart as she gazed at them.

I will protect you, she vowed.

Both of you.

Laya vowed to be an even better queen than her mother had been.

She was not the foolish girl she had been before the start of the feast days.

And she would learn from Hara Duja’s mistakes, same as she would learn from her own.

Laya realized, with a dull pang, how much she had changed over the previous few weeks.

Her heart had led her wrong before, and she vowed to ignore its nagging whispers.

She had learned to trust no one but her family?—for Laya had not understood loyalty until she was betrayed.

Wisdom bore a terrible cost, Maiza once told her.

And Laya had paid a steep price for the knowledge and the throne she had desired for so long.

At the edge of the sacred grove, someone cleared their throat.

Laya turned around.

General Ojas was waiting, his shoulders level and his hands clasped behind his back.

That was his signal.

“Come now,” she said to her sisters.

Ojas led them back to the riverboat.

By the time they emerged from the grove, the sun had risen on the horizon, marking the end of their tour of Mariit.

That afternoon, Laya had her first meeting with the council following her coronation.

She imagined them gathered around the council table?—Datu Luma with his wispy white hair and somber gaze, Datu Tanglaw with his thick black eyebrows and groveling tone.

Out of the six highborn families, four loyal datus remained.

They wouldn’t think to cross her like the Kulaws had.

Laya vowed to make them cement their fealty to her in blood.

They were probably at the palace already, awaiting their next set of orders.

Like the rest of Maynara, they were waiting patiently for Laya to steer them.

Well.

They need not wait for her any longer.

Laya smiled as the riverboat rounded the corner onto the main canal and the white stone walls of the palace came into view.

The palace’s tiered roofs peeked up above the walls, sunlight glaring off their gold-encrusted finials.

At the sight of the riverboat, one of the guardsmen barked the orders.

A moment later, the gates swung open for their new queen, revealing the marble staircase that rose up to the palace’s great giltwood doors.

Over Mariit, the day broke with a blinding fervor.

Hara Laya had arrived.