The past few times they’d come, Laya had remained silent while her sisters prayed. The gods couldn’t grant her what she wanted. That evening, however, she found herself speaking to them. She didn’t beg for her mother’s favor or Luntok’s love. Instead, she prayed for answers.

They sat there in silence for a long moment. She scoffed when the gods didn’t whisper their reply.

Eti was the first to rise and climb out of the spirit house. “I think the gods listened to me this time, don’t you?” she asked as Laya and Bulan followed her.

Laya didn’t think the gods cared for humans a single mite. She opened her mouth to tell Eti this, when the distant sound of drumming caught her attention. The beating grew closer, shaking the stilts upon which the spirit houses stood, and rattling Laya’s bones.

Eti’s face brightened. “That must be the parade. Oh, we have to go and see.”

The guard looked uneasily between them. He looked to be around Bulan’s age⁠—young and, until then, untested by the Gatdula sisters. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” he said.

“Why not?” Laya asked, crossing her arms.

She had always wanted to watch the parade, but rarely did the royal family take part. Yesterday’s dawn ceremony was for the nobles, but this celebration was for the rest. Laya loved how the city transformed in a matter of hours. During the parade, joyful shouting and colorful masks flooded the streets. Warriors showed off for the swooning crowd in the central square, and every merchant decorated their storefront with towering chandeliers made of crispy cassava wafers. At sundown, star-shaped lanterns lined the canals and Mariit burst into song, with music and dancing everywhere.

“Spirits will be high tonight,” the guard warned. “It could get dangerous.”

It was not Laya who spoke this time, but Bulan. She placed a hand on the hilt of her sword. “With all due respect, I think we’re more than capable of protecting ourselves.”

“I don’t doubt that, Dayang.” Still, he spared a wary glance at Eti, the smallest and gentlest out of all of them. Laya stifled a laugh. She forgot how Ojas’s men admired her. They saw Eti as an ethereal, absent-minded goddess. Mostly, they feared the other Gatdula sisters.

“I suppose there’s no harm in a bit of extra protection,” Laya said, to put his mind at ease.