And Laya could only watch. Her vision warped and seared at the edges. The Black Salt Cliffs folded in around her. The battle waging around them faded. She could only hear her father gasping for breath. She saw nothing but the light fading from his eyes.

“Maiza,” Bulan yelled, a sob caught in her throat. “Maiza, he needs a healer.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Vikal was backing away. His sword hung limply at his side, drenched with the king’s blood. He looked stunned, ashen-faced.

“We must leave,” Datu Gulod hissed. “Now.”

No. Laya tore her gaze from her father. Her eyes closed in on Vikal as waves of anger wracked her core. They weren’t going anywhere. She raised her palm, feeling the threads of energy tauten around her fingers, when a body tackled her from the side.

“Run!” Luntok screamed to his mother. He struggled to hold her down, but Laya elbowed him hard in the ribs. He groaned and she shoved him off, scrambling to her feet.

“I’ll kill you for this,” she said, her chest heaving. “I’ll kill you all.”

His expression hardened as he rose, retrieving the horned, ceremonial dagger from his belt. He held it in his fist. “You would kill your lover? The man you’ve just wed?” Luntok spat. He was taunting her. He wanted to distract her while his mother and the others fled. Laya didn’t care.

She hurled a blast of wind toward him. It hit him square in the chest. The dagger flew from his grip. He hurtled several feet backward, rolling to a stop inches away from the cliff’s edge, winded. On shaking arms, he struggled to push himself upright.

Laya ran over and grabbed the collar of his shirt. His hands shot to her fingers, but he didn’t fight to free himself from her grip. He stared up at her, and for a wild moment, she thought he might try to kiss her again.

Instead, he shook his head. His lips parted in disbelief. “Laya. You wouldn’t.”

She glanced over her shoulder to where her father was bleeding out on the grass. She could hear Ojas’s deep voice booming for more bandages. The datus flocked to the king, offering strips of cloth torn from their shirts and clean pairs of hands. But they couldn’t give the king what he needed most⁠—more time.

Amidst the chaos, she saw her mother. The queen had folded herself over her husband’s bloodied chest. She was sobbing, brutally, brokenly, because she already knew the truth. Hari Aki was beyond saving.

He was dying, Laya realized. A sharp stab of pain pierced her soul. Her fingers clenched into fists, threatening to rip through Luntok’s marriage vest. At her beckoning, black clouds gathered overhead and the cool, coastal air crackled and sparked. Her vision cleared and a strange calm washed over her, the quiet that preceded a typhoon.