Duja was queen by blood, but not queen by nature⁠—not the way a Gatdula was meant to be queen. If her older brother’s crimes had been pardonable, she never would have sat upon the throne. In a way, it was a blessing. To grow up her mother’s heir would have been a heavy burden. Laya had borne it for years. That night, when Duja met her daughter’s gaze, she saw the queen she would become⁠—swift-fingered in the way she shifted her pawns about the court. Godlike in her justice, as in her cruelty. The kind of Gatdula their subjects would come to respect and, one day, adore.

Born a queen, in all the ways Duja could never hope to be.

“Look.” Laya nodded toward Aki’s end of the table, where two seats remained empty. “The Kulaws have yet to arrive.”

“It isn’t like them to be tardy.” Duja kept her voice calm, but her gut twisted with an uneasy feeling.

Her last meeting with Imeria had resurrected painful memories. Duja knew Imeria resented her, but she had not known that buried deep beneath her bitterness dwelled a tiny spark of hope. It was the last surviving speck of the love they had felt for each other as girls. Imeria had clung to it, unwilling to let go. By granting Laya and Luntok the future they could never have, Imeria wanted to see the sentiment echoed in their children. If she were crueler, Duja might have played on her love, teased a gentleness out of Imeria, and cajoled her to join her side for once. Instead, she crushed Imeria’s hope. She had thought she was being merciful. Suddenly, she feared she had misjudged her.

She waited as the feast continued. Servants emerged once again with dessert: pillow-light sponge cakes, sticky-rice balls drenched in coconut sauce, and glutinous rolls wrapped in pandan leaves. Her goblet was filled and refilled, and time ticked on, and still, the Kulaws did not appear. As midnight grew closer, Duja’s gut flipped in apprehension. Imeria’s absence had not gone unnoticed by the other datus. They could not conduct the closing ceremony without her.

Once the servants came to clear the plates, Maiza appeared at Duja’s shoulder. “The ceremony must start soon, Your Majesty,” she said in a low voice.

She nodded and met Aki’s eyes at the other end of the table, where the two seats remained empty. The king’s brow was knitted in confusion. This was unlike Imeria. Although she had insulted the Gatdulas with a string of absences in the past, not once had she forgone the closing ceremony. After all, Imeria was not an idiot. She knew the evening was too vital for her position on the council, and for the functioning of the Maynaran government, to miss.