“He died?” I hadn’t meant to act like I cared, but it came out anyway.
“Yes, first mate. He died. His life flowed into the stone. That’s what makes them so beautiful, you know. All that human life trapped in such a small space.”
Find the princess’s starstones, the Wizard Eirnin had said, and hold them, skin against stone.
Skin against stone.
I scowled, though I eased up on my knife a bit. I’d be damned if I let Jeric yi Niru know what I was thinking. “Sounds like Empire trash to me. Let me guess: the woman in the story was above his station and the man had to be punished for chasing after her? Half the Empire stories I’ve heard end like that.”
“No,” Jeric yi Niru said, “that isn’t it at all.”
“Jeric!” Marjani’s voice cut across the ship. “Ananna! What the hell are you two doing?”
“We were talking, Captain,” Jeric yi Niru said.
Marjani gave him the iciest glare I’d ever seen her take on. “Nothing’s ever just talking with you, Jeric. If I hear one word of trouble from you, you can stay behind in Arkuz in your Empire robes when we make sail.”
That shut him up. The people of the Free Countries don’t take too kindly to Empire soldiers milling around their cities, even a turncoat like Jeric.
Once the boat was secure enough for Marjani’s liking, she led me and Naji off the docks and through the hot bright streets of Arkuz. I kept a big space between me and Naji cause it seemed easier that way, but the whole time I was thinking about that stupid story Jeric yi Niru had told me. The task was impossible not because starstones are rare, but because touching ’em killed you.
I glanced at Naji out of the corner of my eye, but he stared straight ahead, his face covered with a desert-mask that drew more looks from the Jokjana than his scar would’ve. It marked him as Empire, since there are no deserts in the Jokja. I wondered if he’d ever heard that story. Probably. He’d been pretty quiet on the subject of the starstones. It was mostly Marjani plotting everything out, bringing us here to Jokja. And I knew that didn’t have nothing to do with Naji’s curse or rocks that can destroy you at the touch.
My thoughts churned around inside me like a sickness.
We walked on and on, far enough that I lost the scent of the ocean and caught instead the rainy damp scent of the jungle. Arkuz reminded me of Lisirra, cause it was big and sprawling and crowded with street vendors selling spiced fruit and charred meat wrapped up in banana leaves, and shops full of spices and jewels and fabric dyes and precious metals. And everybody looked like nobility, the women in these long fluttering dresses, their shoulders bare and their wrists heavy with bangles, and the men in tailored slim-cut cotton shirts.
I speak a bit of Jokjani, enough to understand the vendors trying to entice me to come buy something from them, but not enough to have any idea what Marjani said to the guard at the entrance to Azende Palace once we finally arrived. He used a different dialect than I was used to, and Marjani matched it. For a while it didn’t look like he was gonna let us pass – he was courteous enough to Marjani but kept glancing at me like I was some street rat trying to make off with his palace-issued bronze dagger, and he was obviously trying his best to not even look at Naji.
Marjani was getting more and more annoyed, I could tell, her hands clenching into fists. The guard kept shaking his head and saying something in Jokjani that I knew wasn’t no but sounded close. Then Marjani took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and told him her name. Her full name, her old name, not Marjani of the Nadir but Marjani Anaja-tu. A noble’s name. I’d never heard her say it.
The guard’s eyes widened.
“Do you recognize that name?” Marjani asked. Her voice trembled a little, and I tensed up my arm, ready to grab my sword if anyone made a grab for her.
The guard answered with something that sounded like another name, and this time it was Marjani’s eyes that got wide.
“Really?” she asked. Then she straightened her shoulders and said something I couldn’t catch. The guard responded. I got you and palace and something about time and nothing else. Marjani didn’t look upset though, which was a good sign. Then she said, “Take us to her.”
The guard scowled and gave her this insolent little bow.
Naji frowned. “Was that true?” he asked Marjani in Empire.
“Every word,” she answered in Jokjani. “Don’t speak Empire here.”
Naji glared at her. I wondered how much of that courtship story got related to the guard.
The guard led us through the palace gate and then through a garden laden with flowers and vines and palm fronds, like the royal family thought they could corral the Jokja jungle for their own use. The air smelled sweet and damp, and women in thin silky dresses looked up from their books and paintings as we walked past. All of ’em were pretty the way nobility always is – it’s a prettiness that’s painted on, not in-born, but it still made me nervous, the way they watched us with their polite, silent smiles.
The palace was open-air, the scent of the garden drifting into the room where the soldier left us waiting. “I’ll alert the queen to your presence,” he said to Marjani before he turned on his heel, footsteps echoing in his wake. Naji and me both sat down on the big brocade-covered chairs set up next to the windows. Marjani stayed standing.
“Are they going to arrest you?” I asked.
“What?” Naji asked.
Marjani didn’t answer.
“That is what you told him, right?” I asked. “That story about what you told me–”
“No,” Marjani said. “I didn’t tell him the story I told you.” Her fingers twisted around the hem of her shirt.
“Then what–”
“If you spoke better Jokjani,” Marjani said, “you’d know.”
That stung.
“Arrest her?” Naji asked. Marjani ignored him, and he turned to me, which made my heart pound for a few annoying seconds. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” I snapped. “My Jokjani ain’t good enough for me to know anything.”
Worry lines appeared on Naji’s brow.
The door banged open, and the sound of it echoed across the huge, empty room. A pair of guards came in – these had different uniforms from the one at the gate, and they carried swords instead of spears. Marjani straightened up. She didn’t say nothing to me or Naji, just stood there smoothing her hands over the fabric of her shirt, all wrinkled up from where she’d been clutching it.
The guards walked across the room and stopped and turned to the door. And then two more guards walked in, and then a trio of pretty young attendants and then this graceful woman with dark brown skin and a halo of black hair. Figures she’d be beautiful.
“Saida,” said Marjani, her voice husky.
The woman stopped. She lifted one hand to her mouth. “Jani?” she asked. “No, it can’t–”
Marjani nodded. I realized her hands were shaking. The woman – Saida, the woman from the story, the princess, the queen – rushed forward, the soles of her shoes clicking across the floor.
The guards didn’t even move.
“I thought you were dead!” She threw her arms around Marjani’s neck and buried her face in Marjani’s hair. Marjani scooped her arms around Queen Saida’s waist and her eyes shimmered. When she blinked a tear fell down her cheek.
Naji looked back and forth between the two of them and then over at me.
Queen Saida kissed Marjani, and they stayed that way for a long time, like they’d forgotten what kissing was like. When they pulled apart, their hands stayed touching.
“You’re queen,” Marjani said, her voice full of wonder. They were speaking Jokjani, a dialect I had an easier time understanding.
“I am.” Queen Saida gave this little bow like it was the other way around, like Marjani was the queen and not her. “Were you so far away that you couldn’t hear news from Jokja?” She smiled. It made her light up like she was filled with stars.