“You.” Laya rushed toward her in a rage. “You have attacked my family. Imprisoned me in my own home. Betrayed the crown. How dare you lecture me on civility?”

But Imeria didn’t shrink back. She answered her calmly. “I understand this must all be a shock to you. Before you tire yourself out, can I ask you a question?”

“You already have.”

Imeria’s eyes flitted to hers. She cocked her head to the side. “Aren’t you ready to be queen?”

Laya faltered. She sought answers in Imeria’s face, but her expression betrayed nothing. “I don’t understand.”

Imeria gazed upon her with pity. “Laya, child, don’t tell me your mother kept it a secret from you?”

She stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

A wry grin spread across Imeria’s face. She reached into the pocket of her skirt and retrieved something small and clear, no bigger than Laya’s thumb. “Precioso,” Imeria explained, holding it out for Laya to see. “It’s worth more than gold, this substance⁠—the key to immeasurable power. Hara Duja wanted it to keep the tremors at bay. According to my sources, she sought out an alchemist to produce it for her⁠—one of the finest makers of precioso in the world, by the looks of it.”

Laya stared at Imeria. Her thoughts raced as she began to piece the information together. Images flashed through her mind. The furtive glances her mother gave over her shoulder as she snuck away from the dawn feast. Ariel’s sudden appearance in the eastern wing. The peculiar smell of vinegar wafting from his borrowed clothes. He hadn’t come to Maynara to be Laya’s Salmantican tutor at all. No, he⁠—

“You truly don’t know anything about it,” Imeria said, amused by the shock etched across Laya’s face.

“No,” she said hoarsely. “I truly don’t.”

A humiliated flush crept up Laya’s neck when she realized what the precioso meant. Her mother had wanted the drug for a reason. She hadn’t wanted to step down from the throne as her predecessors had when their tremors grew out of their control. She hadn’t trusted Laya. She had been terrified of her, just as Laya feared.

Imeria understood this. Soon, the rest of the court would too. She took a measured step toward Laya. “Hara Duja was a coward. It’s time for a new sovereign to take her place.” She met Laya’s gaze and added in a conspiratorial whisper, “She didn’t think you were ready, but I do.”

Laya frowned. “Me?”

If Imeria’s plan was for Laya to become queen anyway, why would she have gone through the trouble of staging a coup? Unless . . .