Hara Duja, Maiza⁠—they were always telling Laya she was too young, too fickle, to understand the responsibilities awaiting her. But she understood far better than they did what it meant to reign over Maynara. Although centuries had passed since the first Gatdula king had rid the land of invaders, foreign ships still lingered on the horizon. One by one, the invaders had vanquished the neighboring kingdoms. Maynara was the last sovereign nation left for miles⁠—and their sovereignty hinged on the Gatdulas’ very existence. For the Gatdulas were the one thing standing between them and conquest. They stood for safety and prosperity. They were freedom made flesh. That was why their people worshipped their monarchs more than their ancestral spirits, more than Mulayri himself.

Laya knew that a Gatdula’s reign was about more than ruling a country. To become queen of Maynara was to become a god.

Unlike her mother, Laya had never shied away from her destiny. She donned it like armor. And soon, she would slip into her rightful title like a glove. In her imagination, they called to her, thousands of Maynarans chanting her name⁠—Hara Laya.

That bolt of excitement rushed through her again, and she thought back to Bulan’s claim. Her sister was right⁠—all this marriage talk was nonsense. Laya was stronger than her mother. Stronger than any Gatdula who’d come before her.

Strong enough to sit upon the throne alone.

Five

Imeria

The last time Imeria Kulaw arrived in Mariit alone, she was ten years old. Her jaw had dropped to the ground when she’d first laid eyes on the kingdom’s capital city and the towering buildings with their sloping, red-tiled roofs and saber-like spires puncturing the heavens. The capital had been unreachable back then, looming above the rest of Maynara in a nebulous haze. In the provinces, people whispered of the magic permeating Mariit. It glowed brighter there than in the countryside, spilling through the twisting roots of the giant balete tree that dwelled in the capital’s sacred center, leaking through the cracks in the cobblestones and the canals, which crawled across the city like veins.

Imeria never cared much for these myths. Even when she was a child, she had seen past Mariit’s sparkling veneer. It was as ugly a city as any, bloated with half-civilized laborers who squabbled over whatever crumbs the noble families left behind. Its canals did not stream gold with power, but rather ran rust-colored from the highland runoff. And the Gatdulas, its sovereigns, were not the gods’ mighty descendants, as so many Maynarans proclaimed.