I let out a deep breath, and I realized I was shaking.
The sun room was filled with the orange and pink light of the sunset by the time I dragged myself up there for dinner. The windows were all open-air and gauzed with fine white netting. Flowering vines traced along the walls, growing out of carved stone pots. There was a table in the center of the room stacked high with food: charred meats and fresh fruits and crusty fried breads, along with more bottles of that sweet sugar wine.
Marjani and Naji were waiting for me when we walked in, but there was no Queen Saida yet. Naji sat up straight in his chair and didn’t look at me. Marjani seemed distracted.
I sat down at the table and poured a glass of wine.
“You shouldn’t start yet,” Naji said. I glared at him.
“This isn’t a formal feast,” Marjani said. “It’s dinner. She can have a glass of wine if she wants.”
Naji gave her one of his looks, but she didn’t notice, just kept staring at the door. I drank my wine down, poured another glass.
We hadn’t been waiting long when a pair of guards marched into the room, and then another pair, and then Queen Saida, fluttering behind them like a flower. Her attendants weren’t anywhere to be seen, but I guess she couldn’t ditch her guards that easily. She smiled at each of us in turn and then sat down at the head of the table and plucked a mango slice off a nearby platter.
“Eat,” she said cheerfully. “The cooks have been slaving away since this morning, I’m sure. I’d hate to tell them their efforts were wasted.”
Didn’t have to tell me twice. I scooped up a big pile of carrot salad and a lamb chop and took to eating. It wasn’t quite like carrot salad in the Empire – they used some different sort of spice I didn’t recognize – but it was still delicious.
For the first part of dinner, Queen Saida asked me and Naji a bunch of polite questions about our “journey”, like we’d been onboard some passenger liner and not a pirate ship. She asked about the manticores like they were Empire nobility. When I told her about the Isle of the Sky, she sat there with her pretty head leaning to the side, her eyes on me the whole time I was speaking. I was halfway through talking about drying out the caribou meat when I realized I’d just spilled half my life story to this beautiful woman.
I took a big bite of lamb to shut myself up.
“And you, Naji of the Jadorr’a,” said Queen Saida. “How did you come to know so much about… what was it called, caribou? Caribou preservation?”
Naji took a drink of wine. “I had a different life before I joined the Order.”
“Of course.” Another polite smile. I frowned. She was just so easy to trust.
I snuck a glance at Marjani. She’d stuck a lamb chop on her plate and pulled some of the meat away from the bone, but I could tell she hadn’t eaten hardly any of it. She kept her eyes on Queen Saida the whole time, following the movement of the queen’s graceful hand as she lifted spoonfuls of cream pudding to her mouth.
I wondered if Marjani was ever gonna ask about the starstones. Probably not. Probably Queen Saida didn’t even have them, Marjani just wanted to come see her now that she had a ship and a crew that’d listen to her–
Queen Saida set her spoon down beside her plate.
“Alright,” she said. “What is it?”
“What is what?” asked Marjani, though she flinched.
Queen Saida smiled. “You’ve been coy all day, dearest. You want to ask me something.”
Naji took a long drink of wine. His face had turned stony.
“I don’t know how you do that,” Marjani said. Her expression was serious and concerned, but her eyes lit up like she thought it was funny.
“Intuition. Now spill it.”
Marjani sighed. She tugged on the end of her locks.
“We need to borrow your starstones,” I blurted out. “Naji has to touch them.”
Naji let out a long sigh.
“My starstones?” Queen Saida laughed. “Is that why you sailed halfway across the world to see me?” She rested her chin in her hand and gazed at Marjani, who looked down at her lap like she was embarrassed.
“Don’t be absurd,” she said.
“It’s for Naji,” I said. “He has a curse.”
“Are starstones a cure for curses?” Queen Saida turned to Naji. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about magic.”
“They are for this one,” Naji said.
“I thought starstones were dangerous, though? The court wizard never let me near them.”
“Your court wizard was correct.” Naji glowered, his scar turning him menacing.
“Oh.” Queen Saida frowned, and Kaol help me if it didn’t make her look even lovelier than when she smiled. “Well, I would be glad to help you, but I’m afraid I don’t have them anymore.”
The room got so quiet and so still I swore I could hear everybody’s hearts beating.
“You don’t have them?” Marjani said. “But they’re priceless–”
“They were stolen!” Queen Saida threw up her hands. “By members of your lot, in fact. Pirates.”
“They are not my lot–”
“Oh, I was teasing, dearest.” She looked back at Naji. “I’m truly sorry. Father kept them in the armory and during the last sacking… Well, that’s always the first place pirates go.”
“How could they take them?” Naji’s voice had gone quiet and angry. “What pirate would possibly possess the knowledge–”
“Why were they in the armory?” I asked, cause I didn’t feel like listening to Naji rant about the idiocy and unworldliness of pirates.
“Because Father thought of them as weapons.” Queen Saida looked at me and I felt myself blushing under her gaze. “Not that he or anyone else could ever figure out how to use them as such. Not even the wizards would touch them without special gloves.”
“Oh yes,” said Marjani. “The gloves. I remember now… What was that lord’s name, the one who always paraded around with them…?”
Queen Saida laughed. “The Lord of Juma. That was his title, anyway. I don’t remember his proper name. But he was always showing off.” She laughed again, and Marjani glowed. If the two of them were gonna be like that the whole time, we’d never get anything done.
“What pirates stole ’em?” I asked. “Were they Confederation?”
“Confederation?” Queen Saida furrowed her brow. “I’m not certain. They were pirates.”
I frowned. “You didn’t see their colors?”
“She means the flag,” said Marjani.
Queen Saida shrugged. “I didn’t see them. I get whisked away at the slightest hint of danger – you can ask the captain of the guard.” She smiled at me. “Are you going to track them down, like in a story? I’ve heard some of the Empire stories about the starstones. You ought to be careful.”
“Naji needs those stones,” I said.
Naji looked up at me from across the table. I turned away.
“Gero!” Queen Saida called out. A man in bronzed armor detached himself from the wall and bowed. “I know you heard the question. No need to pretend in front of me. What do you remember about the ships that stole the starstones?”
Gero nodded again before he started speaking. “They were Confederation, my Light,” he said.
“I still don’t know what that means.”
“Confederation pirates sail under common laws, although individual ships and fleets remain independently captained,” Gero said, which wasn’t quite true, but I didn’t feel like correcting him. “I don’t remember the flag, however. I’m sorry. It wasn’t one I recognized.”
“Who would you recognize?” I asked.
Gero turned to me. “The Lao clan,” he said. “And the Shujares. The Hariris. The Liras.”