Duja’s brother, Pangil, had not set foot in the palace in many years, but it wasn’t the first time she had imagined seeing him there.

She crossed the courtyard and stared up at the eastern wing, thrice rebuilt now. Her hand shook as it hovered over the stone walls of the wing, which stood a half-shade lighter than the others. During her mother’s reign, the eastern wing had been the grandest in the palace complex. Its red-tiled roofs still sloped toward the heavens, its spires piercing the clouds like crocodile teeth. The reconstruction had changed little, but the gold-encased finials and latticed windows, in their third incarnation, had lost their luster.

For Duja, there had always been a certain romance about the place. After her father passed, it was where her mother had housed her new consort, a younger man with kind eyes who always brought Duja something from his travels. She remembered his gifts, the bitter chocolate and yellow-haired dolls. She could no longer remember his name, but she had cried for him, as well as for her mother and the other poor souls who’d perished in the fire.

She had watched the eastern wing crumble twice in her lifetime. Two decades had passed since the first incident. Time could not wash away the taste of ash in her throat, could not smother the towers of flames that continued to chase her from the courtyard with their bloodcurdling heat. His laugh echoed over the sound of crackling doorframes, cold and remorseless. She couldn’t outrun him, and she’d been more powerful then.

Sister, he’d called her, his voice either sweet as coconut flakes or thick with drink. She heard it in the silence between prayers, in the rustle of narra leaves. She heard it as if the eastern wing had never fallen, as if no time had passed at all.

Some days, it shocked her how strongly she remembered.

The dull thumping of a walking stick against the tiles jolted Duja from her thoughts. She turned around to find that an old woman had entered the courtyard. Her simple, handwoven clothes clung like seaweed to her slight frame but left her arms bare where tattoos spiraled over the leathery skin. Her graying hair, threaded with red glass beads, glowed silver under the morning sun, as did the medallion on her neck, which was engraved with the image of the raptor god, Mulayri, the mark of a high shaman.

“Hara Duja.” The old woman bowed her head when she noticed Duja’s presence.

Duja nodded in greeting. “Hello, Maiza. Do you mind if I speak to you alone?” Maiza wasn’t her husband, but maybe she was the person Duja needed to see.

The shaman raised her eyebrows and nodded toward the main building. Maiza had known Duja since she was Eti’s age. She knew when something was bothering her.