The glittering Maynaran capital, Mariit, was home to half the kingdom’s population. The streets were busy enough on a normal morning, packed with fishmongers and rice brokers and orphans with featherlight fingers and mud-streaked knees. With one week until the start of the feast days, the capital was bursting at the seams. Chaos swept through the cobblestone alleyways snaking between buildings, spilling onto the arched footbridges that soared over Mariit’s shimmering canals. Noise rang out from every street corner⁠—southern villagers, far from home, pestering innkeepers for room and board; weavers from the northern Skylands, hawking their hand-spun baskets and textile bolts.

The clamor grew as Laya and her sister approached. In the poorer, outlying districts, the royal carriage stuck out like a gold-encrusted thumb. Hara Duja’s subjects flocked to them from all sides. Before long, the crowd swelled across the entire street, blocking the carriage’s path. People stumbled over one another, most of them shouting in the heavily accented Maynaran of the provinces. They stared, wide-eyed, through the open windows of the carriage, hungry for a glimpse.

“Your Highness!” they called, their hands slapping at the carriage’s gilded doors. “This way, Your Highness!”

At the front of the carriage, the driver grew incensed. He roared at the passersby to move out of the way, pushing them back with his buffalo whip.

“Awfully excited to see us, aren’t they?” Laya said dryly.

Bulan snorted, pulling the hemp shade down over her window. “Awfully excited to see you.”

As always, Bulan spoke from the glaring chip on her shoulder. Laya was in no mood to reason with it. “They say jealousy is unbecoming,” she said. “And frankly, Bulan, now is not the time to argue⁠—”

“I imagine Luntok is excited to see you too.” Bulan’s gaze snapped to hers, sharp as the laminated steel of her blade⁠—she hadn’t forgotten.

Laya tensed. She lifted her chin in defiance. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“I think you do, Laya,” she said, her frown deepening. “And if Mother finds out⁠—”

Laya’s hands balled into fists, and the air outside her window crackled. “But Mother won’t find out, will she?”

“If she does, I will not have been the one to tell her.” Bulan didn’t stir at Laya’s thinly veiled threat. Quietly, she added, “I’m your sister. Don’t you trust me?”

“No,” Laya said in a flat voice. “I don’t.”

Bulan stared back, unable to conceal the hurt that stretched across her face. Laya tore her gaze away, but not fast enough. She couldn’t look at Bulan for long before the guilt unfurled, swift as a lizard’s tongue.