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Back Black Salt Queen
Chapters (50)
  1. Praise for
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. City of Mariit: Capital of Maynara Map
  5. One
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Two
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Three
  24. Seventeen
  25. Eighteen
  26. Nineteen
  27. Twenty
  28. Twenty-One
  29. Twenty-Two
  30. Four
  31. By Order of General Ojas,On Behalf of Her Majesty Hara Duja
  32. Twenty-Three
  33. Twenty-Four
  34. Twenty-Five
  35. Twenty-Six
  36. Twenty-Seven
  37. Twenty-Eight
  38. Twenty-Nine
  39. Thirty
  40. Thirty-One
  41. Thirty-Two
  42. Thirty-Three
  43. Five
  44. A Coronation Prayer
  45. Thirty-Four
  46. Epilogue
  47. Acknowledgments
  48. Thank You
  49. About the Author
  50. Violetear Books x Bindery Books

Ariel and Eti complied, and the boardinghouse keeper took them upstairs to their room. It was simple, with two cots pressed up against the walls and paint chipping off the ceiling. The previous tenant had moved out in a hurry. He’d left behind a number of items, including a row of liquor bottles lined up in front of a mottled window. When Eti lay down on one of the cots, she noticed the sheets were clean, at least. Eti kicked off her shoes, her feet still aching from all the walking, and closed her eyes.

For over half an hour, sleep evaded her. In the quiet, worries clouded her head. She thought of her family, and the panic rose inside her chest again and again. With a sigh of frustration, Eti rolled onto her back. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well pray for the gods to keep everyone safe. She clasped her hands over her belly and whispered her prayers.

The gods didn’t answer her, but the prayers calmed her mind. Eti stilled in her cot as the afternoon air trickled in through the open window, filling the room with the scent of sea salt. Whenever the wind was thick like this, Eti imagined it was the Weeping Goddess sighing, her breath coating Mariit in a blanket of warmth. That afternoon, Eti could hear a whisper of sadness in her breath. The goddess’s pity: Oh, my children, look at what you have become.

What was Eti to become? Her life had changed so quickly in the span of a single day. Not long before, she’d been wielding gold pellets in the privacy of a palace stairwell. Then suddenly she was on the run, and not even the Royal Maynaran Guard was coming to rescue her. The boardinghouse did not offer the same protection as the palace. As long as Eti was a Gatdula, she wouldn’t be safe there⁠—not forever.

“There’s some sweet rolls left over from this morning if you want them,” Ariel called without turning around. He was staring pensively out the window, the half-empty bottle of palm liquor the previous tenant left behind dangling from his fingertips.

Eti rose from her bed and joined him at the window. Their room, which stood at the top of the boardinghouse’s run-down staircase, overlooked the shadow-cloaked alleyway below. No one passed through there, save for stray cats and hungry orphans.