Duja trusted her husband more than she did anyone in the world. She would not have thought to riffle through his correspondence, but never before had Aki been so careless with his personal items. Carelessness was not a trait anyone associated with her husband. If he had not been so occupied with feast-day arrangements, he might not have left the letter inside one of the tomes stacked beside his pillows. Duja discovered it while she was getting dressed that morning, a task that grew more cumbersome each day. A Gatdula of her age and rank was entitled to attendants who could assist her. Duja had dismissed them years earlier. She was determined to dress herself as long as she was able. But that morning, she’d struggled to fasten her earrings, tiers of golden disks inlaid with freshwater pearls, which she had inherited from her mother. One earring had slipped from her trembling fingers and disappeared beneath her husband’s bedside table. When she’d bent over to retrieve it, she noticed the letter.

It wasn’t the letter that caught her eye so much as the swirling symbols that peeked out over the top of the book⁠—To His Royal Highness, Hari Aki. Duja recognized, with blistering intimacy, the hand that looped them together.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she tore the letter from the book and pored over its contents. She didn’t budge for what felt like hours. She read and reread the letter. If she could commit the words to memory, maybe they would make sense.

But nothing about this letter made sense⁠—none of it. What on earth might have possessed her husband, the Maynaran king, to contact Duja’s exiled brother?

With a ragged breath, Duja folded the letter and slipped it into the pocket of her skirt. She finished dressing and headed to the central courtyard. The king was not there orchestrating the final preparations with his pipe sticking out of the corner of his mouth, as she had hoped he would be. Perhaps it was for the best. She had a hundred questions for him, but she wasn’t yet ready to hear the answers.

“Your Majesty.” At the soft thudding of Duja’s footsteps, the handful of servants buzzing about the courtyard promptly dropped to their knees.

“Please, continue,” she said, offering them a thin-lipped smile as she passed.

A tall, slender shadow appeared in the arcaded walkway that ran along the sides of the courtyard. Duja froze in her tracks, the smile melting from her face. Her hands twitched, and a low rumble rippled beneath the tiles. When the shadow emerged from behind one of the marble pillars, sunlight glinted off the brass clasps of a breastplate. She let out a shallow breath⁠—it was merely one of the royal guards patrolling the palace perimeter. Her fingers trailed to the letter, which felt hot enough to burn a hole through her pocket.