Page 7

Seven

Duja

The alchemist was not what Duja had expected.

She spied his outline through a crack in the doorway.

He was as tall as General Ojas, but half his width.

He had a gangly, almost malnourished frame so unlike the brutish guards who once trailed Pangil as he terrorized the palace.

Duja wondered, What in Mulayri’s name did her brother see in him?

General Ojas had him brought up to the guest chambers in the eastern wing, far away from the prying eyes of Mariit.

No one, not even the servants, went up there anymore.

The air that hung in the corridor was stale.

Above Duja’s head, dust particles drifted along in slow, lazy currents, reflecting the faint light streaming in through the white-shell window screens.

Duja had scarcely set foot in the eastern wing in over two decades.

She remembered, with heart-pounding immediacy, the last time she had made it to the upper floors.

How could she forget that fateful afternoon?

The air seeping into the guest chambers had been heavy with the promise of torrential rain.

It was red-hot and suffocating, but they needed to keep the screens drawn for fear of being seen.

The eastern wing?—whose idea had it been?

Duja would have been too reticent, too skittish.

As she stared down the darkened corridor, Imeria’s laughter, soft as orchid petals, echoed in her ears.

Reaching through memory’s haze, Imeria’s slender fingers left trails of gooseflesh across Duja’s skin.

Oh, yes, the queen remembered.

The air had been thicker than honey that day, but that hadn’t been the reason she couldn’t breathe.

“Are you all right, Your Majesty?” Ojas’s deep voice jolted Duja back to the present, resonating through her bones like a gong.

She blinked.

The general watched her, his stoic eyes hard with concern.

Duja gave him a small smile of gratitude.

Beneath his stern exterior, Ojas was undeniably loyal to the Gatdula family.

It didn’t matter to Ojas who the man in the guest chambers was.

If Duja or the king gave him an order, he would follow it without hesitating.

His left hand rested on the doorknob, awaiting her instruction.

Duja nodded, smoothing down the thin fabric of her skirt to collect herself.

“Go ahead, Ojas,” she said.

“I’m ready to speak with him.”

Ojas opened the door and strode into the guest chambers.

He announced her presence, as if she were receiving any other visitor.

“Her Majesty, Hara Duja, daughter of Mulayri and protector of the Maynaran throne.”

But the alchemist wasn’t some highborn son or foreign dignitary.

He was standing at one of the closed windows, lost in thought, when Ojas’s voice startled him.

He whipped around.

His spectacles, crooked wire-framed glass, slid down his nose; like his starched shirt and stiff trousers, they appeared to be of western make.

He hesitated for a long, painful moment, which made Duja think he had never interacted with royalty before, then stumbled to his knees.

When he lowered his head, he let out a garbled sound that might have been an attempt at obsequiousness.

Duja couldn’t be sure.

A frown tugged at the corners of her lips.

“Do you not understand Maynaran?” she asked the alchemist as she appraised him.

“I’m afraid I didn’t think about that.”

The alchemist looked up in surprise.

“N-no, I understand. If you speak slowly, at least, Your... Your Majesty.” He answered her not in Maynaran, but in a sister tongue.

His accent had a foreign twang, and his mouth stretched strangely around certain vowels, but otherwise she could understand his speech.

Duja’s eyes lit up in realization.

She took in the alchemist’s language and his western clothes.

Suddenly, everything made sense.

“You’re Orfelian,” she gasped, unable to contain her shock.

Orfelia was one of their closest neighbors, lying about a week’s sail from Maynara.

Like countless other islands in the Untulu Sea, they fell centuries before to foreign invaders with faster ships and paler skin.

Maynara was the sole kingdom in that corner of the world to have survived conquest.

For generations, mighty Gatdula kings and queens had kept the invaders at bay.

None of Duja’s ancestors had wished to entangle themselves in the troubles of their fallen neighbors, and for good reason.

The western masters were a selfish breed.

They’d had their greedy eyes on Maynara’s wealth since their ships first cut through their waters.

If the Gatdulas had learned anything from their neighbors, it was that conflict with the west would prove costly.

Fortunately, Maynara had steered clear of it thus far.

As for the alchemist, Pangil must have discovered him in Orfelia, that sad little island across the sea.

That wasn’t the island’s true name, of course.

The conquerors rechristened it in honor of their foreign king, then scorched any trace of its original name from history.

From what Duja understood, Orfelia was a land of forgotten names and stolen riches.

Its plundered, impoverished villages had nothing to offer the likes of an exiled prince.

Duja wondered what on earth had brought her brother there .

“Yes, Your Majesty, I am from Orfelia,” the alchemist said.

Behind his spectacles, a shade of sadness flickered in his expression.

“I came here because I needed to escape. That man?—Pangil. He said he could help me.”

Duja stiffened.

How strange it was to hear her brother’s name uttered from a foreigner’s lips?—although she suspected her brother must have befriended a great number of foreigners during his many years in exile.

Twenty-two years earlier, she’d watched her men drag him onto the first ship out of Maynara.

The ship had disappeared into a blanket of fog on the horizon, and her brother along with it.

In the beginning, she had her people track his whereabouts.

They followed Pangil north to Wakon, then west to Xitai.

Last she heard, he had ingratiated himself with the sultan of Mandoo, who’d financed his trip to the Sunset States.

Before discovering his letter in the king’s stack of books, Duja had never expected to hear from Pangil again.

And now, the alchemist rose to his feet before Duja?—a common Orfelian and a strange choice for a messenger.

How he had wandered into Pangil’s path, Duja didn’t know.

If she hadn’t been afraid her brother had sent him to waste her time, she would have almost felt sorry for him.

He looked haggard, confused, and out of his depth.

“What did Pangil promise you? Safe harbor in Maynara?” Duja asked.

“I don’t know what he told you, Orfelian, but I am the only one who can grant you that.” She raised her chin to give the alchemist the impression that she was looking down at him.

Her mother did not teach her this; despite the blood of Mulayri that had run in her veins, the old queen had been softer than wool.

No, Duja had learned the move from Imeria?—another memory that came with the bitter sting of regret.

The alchemist’s mouth flattened into a line.

His body language shifted.

He slid his spectacles up the bridge of his nose, which made him look taller.

Duja observed him, fascinated.

This was a man who was accustomed to conducting negotiations.

“You are correct, Your Majesty. I do seek safety in Maynara. And I understand I am in no position to make demands of a queen. However...” He trailed off.

His eyes flitted to General Ojas, who was standing behind Duja’s shoulder, no doubt with one hand on the hilt of his sword.

The alchemist swallowed hard and met Duja’s gaze.

“I would not have come if I did not have something to offer in exchange.”

Duja’s heartbeat quickened.

She remembered the promise Pangil made in his letter.

“The key to abiding glory,” she echoed.

The alchemist let out a surprised chuckle.

“Yes,” he said, nodding slowly.

“Or something to that effect.”

Hope fluttered without warning in her chest.

She shoved it down.

The alchemist looked harmless, but Duja knew nothing about him?—what he offered, why he needed to leave Orfelia.

For all she knew, he came to Duja on her brother’s orders to lay some elaborate trap.

She studied him closely.

“If we’re going to strike a deal, I can’t go on calling you Orfelian,” she said.

“Tell me, young man. What is your name?”

The alchemist opened his mouth just as a violent tremor shot through Duja’s hand.

She fisted the silk of her sash and spun around.

“Your Majesty!” Ojas gasped.

Duja shook her head to hold him back.

The vibrations rocked up her arm to the stiff muscles at the base of her neck.

She bit back a hiss of pain, cradling her hand until the shaking dissipated.

“You?—yes. Of course. ” The alchemist’s voice rang out across the room’s vaulted ceiling, awestruck.

Duja looked up.

Her hand fell limply to her side.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“The tremors. I’ve seen them before. Do you see now? This is why he sent me.” The alchemist’s eyes lit up in excitement.

He spoke in rapid Orfelian.

With his accent, Duja found him hard to understand.

“Are you talking about Pangil?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes, Pangil. He had these tremors. I helped him. I can help you too?—” The alchemist’s mouth snapped shut.

His cheeks flushed red in embarrassment when he remembered who Duja was.

“Your Majesty,” he added, lowering his head in deference.

Questions flooded Duja’s mind as she stared at the alchemist.

She detected no trace of treachery in his eyes.

Maybe her brother had been telling the truth after all.

“Pangil,” she said again.

A shiver of apprehension ran through her body.

“How did you help him, exactly?”

The alchemist’s eyes trailed down to Duja’s fingers, which quivered like dying leaves at her side.

Something clicked in his gaze.

For a brief moment, he didn’t appear lost at all.

In fact, he appeared to understand more than Duja gave him credit for.

Duja stared as he leaned closer.

Judging by the nervous glint in his eyes, she half expected him to start babbling in Orfelian again.

Instead, the alchemist took a tentative step toward her.

In a hushed voice, he asked, “What do you know about precioso, Your Majesty?”