“Maynara boasts no shortage of pretty girls, but only one will be my queen,” he said, choosing his words with care. It was a half promise, half joke. Around him, the warriors broke out into triumphant roars. Although the inn was far from the Gatdulas’ lackeys, and they were safe there among kin, none dared utter the truth. Luntok was born to take the Maynaran throne and honor his family’s legacy. To become the king the southerners hungered for⁠—that became his fate the moment Imeria Kulaw granted him his great-great-grandfather’s name.

But to utter the truth was to commit the highest treason, and the feast days had scarcely begun. The warriors toasted to their future king in silence. He was Luntok the Second, a young man swept up on the wings of his own destiny.

The sole Kulaw a Gatdula could trust and love.

When Luntok returned home that night, his mother was not sipping wine on the veranda as he’d expected. He slid open the capiz-shell screen. A second later, their maid, Huna, swept past, bearing a tray stacked with dirty dinner plates. On a table in the entryway stood a fresh bouquet of scarlet lilies. Their petals spilled over the edge of the vase, which had been empty when Luntok left for the tournament earlier that afternoon. The signs were telling. Imeria had just received a visitor.

“I wasn’t aware we were entertaining guests this evening,” he remarked.

Huna froze in her tracks when he addressed her. She’d started working for the Kulaws the previous season. Luntok forgot how skittish she was. Her previous employer had been a vicious old nobleman from the north. He was notoriously cruel to all his servants, but he reserved his most creative abuses for those of southern origin. On countless occasions, the nobleman ridiculed the maid’s accent and subjected her to the most demeaning tasks⁠—from plucking a sackful of rice off the kitchen floor grain by grain, to polishing the banisters wearing nothing but her underthings. Desperate, the young girl had pleaded her case to Datu Kulaw, begging for a position in her household. And, just this once, Imeria gave in.

Offer favors sparingly, she’d warned Luntok once. Your benevolence won’t always be rewarded.

Huna had gotten lucky⁠—to work in the Kulaw household was no small favor. Unfortunately, Imeria couldn’t extend the same favor to every southerner struggling to find dignified work in the capital. There were hundreds of Hunas in Mariit, not all of them equipped with the discretion required for the post. The Kulaws thus selected their servants with painstaking care. The same held true for each guest they invited into their home.

“Datu Kulaw received Datu Gulod this evening, my lord,” the maid informed him. “He couldn’t stay long, but he sends his regards.”