Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

San’s wall is a solid brick formation, traditional and archaic in ways that the twin cities themselves have long surpassed. The buildings inside rise with steel and plastic and machinery, blinking with neon lights that would blind the rest of Talin. In a way, the wall is not protection against the outsiders who flock en masse into the twin cities, but for these outsiders, to spare them just one second longer from laying eyes on the ruin within.

No one wants to move to San-Er. No one prefers to be kept awake at night by persistent clanging and neighbors arguing and brothels screaming, especially not after living under the quiet skies in rural Talin. But with peace comes quicker starvation; with open ground comes no money. It is either their children’s graves lined up one by one outside the willow trees or a factory job in San-Er, and the choice is easy. Rural civilians make the slow shuffle through the guarded gates of San-Er, clutching their citizenship passes to their chest and blinking in awe at the colossal mess that awaits inside.

People starve in San-Er too, but at least they can say they tried.

From the top of the wall, August looks out into the provinces. Early morning draws its pinkish colors across the sky, and at such a height, the cold breeze finds him quickly, swirling around his arms like it wants to strip him bare. The smoke from Eigi’s capital has cleared. Construction has already started on their security base.

“All right.” Galipei clambers over the top of the ladder, short of breath. He exhales when he sees August, as if afraid that in the twenty seconds he was gone the crown prince could have somehow been abducted. “I don’t think there is anyone running patrol nearby. You’ll be undisturbed.”

“I told you we weren’t staying long,” August says.

Galipei comes to where August is standing, to the walkway that runs along the top of the wall. They are both pressed as close to the barrier as they can get, leaning upon the raised metal that serves to prevent patrol guards from accidentally tumbling down the wall if they misstep. There’s enough space up here for two people to be running patrol in each corridor, to walk past one another without trouble when they swap places at the watchtowers, which segment the wall into eight sections. The wall does not run in a straight line; it curves in and out at different places, a convex structure that tapers off at each end into the sea. Guards in the other sections cannot see into neighboring corridors, which means no one will mind August and Galipei while they are here, so long as they leave in the next fifteen minutes before shifts change.

And so long as neither of them steps outside the wall.

August takes the ornamental crown off his head with a sigh. Without its weight, he runs a hand through his hair, tugging at the knots that have formed in the wind, easing the tension in his scalp. He doesn’t protest when he feels Galipei drop a hand onto the base of his neck. He tips his head down, letting Galipei work his fingers instead.

“Number Thirty-Nine was taken in and put into the palace cells last night,” Galipei reports.

“They decided to go after him?” That’s a surprise. “The girl survived, didn’t she?”

“She’s in the hospital recovering. Councilmember Aliha is making a right fuss, though. Kasa’s not going to go upsetting him.”

The brightening morning illuminates the dirt roads that lead toward the wall, where there will be shipments from Dacia coming in later. With one councilmember designated for each province, their power is limited to their province borders, but that is considerable power nonetheless. If Aliha is grumpy that his daughter was injured in the games, he won’t say it outright, but Dacia’s imports will suddenly get a little messy, a little delayed. King Kasa must punish the player who was foolish enough to invade the body of a councilmember’s daughter to make it right. The official rules make it very clear: jump if you want, but no harm is to come of nonplayers. Though the palace hand-waves its own edicts for the rest of the city, opting to foot the hospital bills instead of filling up the prison cells, it will not hand-wave where the nobility is affected.

“Kasa has bigger problems, if you want my opinion.”

Without prelude or context, Galipei seems to read where August’s mind has gone.

“There were more?”

“Numbers Eighteen and Forty-One were found dead last night on private properties, burned from the yaisu sickness and positioned in the Sican salute.” August speaks in the perfect imitation of an automated machine, no inflection or emotion in his words. “King Kasa insists that nothing is wrong.”

“You actually talked to him about it?”

August’s grip tightens on his crown. The spires and whorls sting his palm. This is a charlatan’s crown. This is a crown that does nothing, that gives him enough jewels to be allowed in and out of the palace but never to say anything of substance. “As soon as Leida brought in the news, I asked for permission to see San-Er’s entry and exit records. His Majesty says that I am making something out of nothing.”

The ladder rattles from the wind. Reaching up, August sets his other hand over Galipei’s, stilling his bodyguard. The sun has poked itself over the horizon, but San-Er’s sun these days doesn’t look anything like the images in their history books, nor like the scrolls of art left over from earlier reigns. It is a mere patch of light that moves along the sky according to the hour, too obscured by whatever has gathered up in the atmosphere to see any clear shape or outline.

In other parts of Talin, farther out into the kingdom, the sun shines clearer and the sky stretches with a more proper blue. But San-Er’s towering wall marks the limit for residents inside it, and so this dreariness is the most that city occupants are capable of seeing. The council has inquired before whether King Kasa might consider expanding the capital city. Extend the wall outward and add some of Eigi’s land to San to redistribute the population. The answer is always a resolute no —it would be harder for the palace guard to keep peace; every new street corner would require surveillance and cameras; water, sanitation, electricity would need to be spread outward too, and how are they to afford it?

The palace can afford it just fine. King Kasa chooses not to.

“He doesn’t believe you,” Galipei states.

“When does he ever? If he can’t see it, it’s not happening.”

“He can’t deny that something is happening. These aren’t casualties of the games. No player could avoid surveillance like that.”

But then, who is targeting them? Sican agents in the city is not only a far-fetched idea, but one with no discernible endgame.

August slots his crown back onto his head, and Galipei’s hand drops. Immediately, his neck feels much colder.

“Come on,” he says, starting for the ladder.

After she awakens from a restless sleep, Calla calls a meeting with August. Or rather, she summons him to her, demanding his presence within the hour, or else. She doesn’t know what the “or else” is; she just knows that August will come.

She awaits in the Magnolia Diner, already on her third cigarette. From behind the register, Yilas waves her hand to disperse the smoke, wrinkling her nose.

“What are you so nervous for?”

Calla glances at Yilas with a start, stubbing her cigarette out. “Who said I was nervous?”

Yilas picks up a dishrag. Eyes narrowed, she wipes away the ash that has dropped on the counter. “I was your attendant for many years. I do know your tells, believe it or not. You always had those weird habits.” She prods Calla’s elbow, asking her to move as she wipes. “The others thought you believed in rural superstitions, but I knew you were just strange.”

The door to the diner opens, and Calla swivels around fast, her body tensing. Her reaction is an overkill. It’s only a little old lady with dark-purple eyes, pausing to type her identity number into the turnstile.

Calla sighs, adjusting on her seat again.

“I’m half-afraid that I’ll be hauled in at any second,” she admits.

“Didn’t you resolve that issue? With the Weisanna who knew your identity?”

Calla resists the urge to light another cigarette. “Someone else knows now.”

“You’re not very good at this, are you?” Yilas baits, a quirk to her lip.

“It’s not my fault,” Calla grumbles. “I’m recognizable.”

Her former attendant watches her for a long moment, her expression turning very serious. Then: “You could ditch the body.”

It’s not the first time Yilas has suggested this. In the palace, Calla’s apprehension against jumping was the norm, in line with the belief among elites that their bodies were sacred. It was an insult to themselves if they jumped into normal civilians and an insult to their fellow nobility if they were to borrow each other’s bodies. After she fled the palace and sought her former attendants’ help in San, however, her refusal to jump became a topic of contention. Yilas couldn’t understand why Calla wouldn’t commit to this new identity when she was putting Chami at risk by using her number. Take over another body—or buy an empty vessel, if she didn’t want to invade someone already occupied—and the palace would never find her while she lived as Chami. Her eye color would be the last marker of her identity; given that others in San-Er have similar hues, it would be near-impossible to use that alone to prove she was Calla Tuoleimi.

“I’m not ditching the body,” Calla says wryly.

“Cal—”

The door opens again, this time bringing in an unfamiliar man holding an umbrella, which is hardly necessary in San. Most rain gets caught along the sides of the buildings before it drizzles down to the ground, but anyone who walks the streets ends up mildly damp anyway from the leaking pipes.

The man looks up. For a fleeting moment, Calla sees his black eyes and is certain that Anton Makusa has come to hassle her again. Then she remembers that Prince August has an identical color from afar, and walks to meet him just outside the diner’s turnstile.

“Come for a walk,” August says simply, inclining his head toward the door. He turns and exits without waiting for an answer.

When Calla emerges from the diner, there’s someone else waiting with August, an umbrella in his hand too. The rain is so light, Calla hardly feels it.

“Galipei,” she crows, throwing an arm over his shoulder. In his birth body, he is taller than she is, so it is a formidable task, but he has always been large, and Calla has always been willing to irritate him. “I haven’t seen you in an eternity. Of course, someone with very familiar eyes did try to attack me a while back…”

Galipei tries to shrug her off. Calla’s grip tightens.

“August,” he croaks in complaint.

“No, no, don’t look at August,” Calla says. “You were so tough when you were running from me—”

“I only sent him to confirm your identity,” August cuts in. “He never intended to attack you. Leave him be.”

Calla purses her lips, then glances at Galipei. She brings her arm down and threads it around his. “Shall we walk?”

August leads them past the row of shops while Calla makes Galipei increasingly uncomfortable. By the time she’s exhausted a list of his family members—rattling off all the Weisanna names she can recall until Galipei has a bead of sweat coming down his face—most of the commercial district has been left behind, and San has settled around them.

Calla lets go of him abruptly and joins August under his umbrella. August doesn’t startle at her sudden movements. He is very rarely startled.

“I gather you got your wristband back?”

She lifts her arm, showing him the evidence. “I’ll give you one guess as to who took it.”

Though August keeps onward in his stride, he turns to look at her.

“Just one guess?”

“Black eyes, left the palace about seven years ago. Any names come to mind?”

No response. But it’s clear that he knows exactly who she’s talking about.

“He’s asked me to team up with him for the games,” Calla continues. “I’m going to do it.”

August’s brows shoot right up. Even in this stranger’s body, his dark eyes swallow up his face, widened in disgust.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Unless you have a convincing reason against it,” Calla adds promptly. “What do you know about Anton Makusa that I don’t?”

“Quite a bit.” There’s a pause as August looks forward again. Calla would wager that he’s calculating how much to tell her, giving just enough information to satiate her curiosity but withholding the rest. August isn’t one to play too much of his hand for no reason. All royals are the same. No free niceties.

“But I suppose there is one matter I should share. There weren’t many other children in our palace, you know. Anton and I ended up very good friends despite our difference in age.” A heavy drop of rain strikes his umbrella. It moves down the side like sludge. “Years later, we grew so tired of San-Er that we tried to leave it together.”

Calla knows that they were friends, of course, but this part about their mutual escape plot is new. The rain starts to splatter harder, and she sticks her hand out from under the umbrella to catch the droplets. If this drizzle can get past all the awnings and clotheslines looped from window to window, it must really be coming down.

“And that’s how Otta fell sick?” she asks. When the news traveled into the city, it only described a conflict with King Kasa.

August shifts his grip on the umbrella, shielding Calla’s hand from the rain with an annoyed tut.

“Anton, Leida, and I,” he says when Calla begrudgingly returns her arm to her side, “were planning to raid Kasa’s vault and flee into the countryside with money and false identities. Leida could bypass security through her mother; I could gain access to the innermost rooms. Had we been successful, it was a scheme that would make us richer than the victors of the games.”

“Sounds foolish.”

“I know. We backed out.” The umbrella teeters to the side as August loses his grip on it. He moves his hand and rights it again. “Anton wanted to bring Otta along. Leida and I thought it was too dangerous. We were going to regroup and draw up a new idea after the school year, but Anton and Otta got impatient. They went forward with it themselves.

“The two of them getting together was a train wreck waiting to happen. Both were obsessive and all-consuming enough on their own—put them in collusion, and at the first sign of danger, it’s their lives over everyone else’s. You remember Otta, don’t you?”

The memories are fuzzy now, but how could Calla forget? Where Calla and August chatted politely by the children’s table, Otta was laughing too loud and pretending to knock over a teacup so a servant would sweep it up. Where August once offered to give Calla a tour of the guest wing while the adults were busy talking, Otta got in Calla’s face and asked her not to touch anything, lest she leave grubby fingerprints.

“The royal guard caught them in the middle of their scheme. Otta fucked up—I don’t know what was going through her head, but she tried jumping into one of the Weisannas, and it didn’t work. She tried again and again, a different guard each time, and kept getting shoved back into her own body. I would have been surprised if she hadn’t caught the yaisu sickness.”

“Otta is still alive, is she not?” Calla asks, though she already knows the answer. They saved her in time—or rather, they put her on life support and froze the onset of the sickness, though Otta Avia has not since awoken. “You’re keeping her alive.”

A sudden laugh from August, which surprises Calla so much that she almost jerks away. She hides her twitch by turning to face Galipei and finds shock in his expression too. Prince August does not laugh. Even made in mockery, the sound is incongruous with his expression. The sound has enough venom to blister.

“We washed our hands of her years ago,” August says. “ Anton is the one keeping her alive.”

Calla stops walking. August follows suit, though he has already stridden two steps away, and now Calla is without the cover of his umbrella. She feels the dirty rain hit her neck and slide under her coat into her camisole, growing sticky against her skin.

“So that’s his motive for the games,” she says. “He cannot possibly afford to keep her at the hospital like that all these years.”

“He’s been in touch several times, asking for money,” August confirms. “He knows his own criminal status, and that he’s not supposed to bother the palace. But he does so anyway, because Anton Makusa does not care for the rules.”

Calla’s mind is still whirring. “What’s the point? There’s no coming back from the yaisu sickness. Does he think she might wake up?”

“I doubt he thinks much at all,” August replies. He tilts his head to summon Galipei. In response, his right-hand man hurries forward, boots splashing into the puddles, slathering mud up his black trousers. “He can’t let go of her, and we have to suffer for it.”

Calla raises a brow. “How romantic,” she says wryly.

“It’s the very opposite of romance.” August turns away and starts to walk, Galipei close behind. “Collaborate with him if you want. But don’t be surprised when he stabs you in the back.”

“You can help with that, no?” Calla calls after him. “Hey—”

Before she can negotiate further, however, her wristband is trembling. Calla glances down at the screen, irritated with its poor timing.

August and Galipei are already exiting the alley. They do so casually, uncaring that Calla is no longer following them, the conversation having come to an end.

With a disgruntled mutter, Calla turns and runs the other way, drawing her sword.

One would think that the palace surveillance room of all places could afford to fix the broken air conditioner in the corner, yet there it sits with its front half missing, the room growing muggier and hotter around it.

Pampi squints at her monitor, fanning herself with her hand and following the players in her assigned area with keen eyes. Eighty-Six is fast, and two different dots on the screen blip out in rapid succession. Other players don’t have the same efficiency, though that’s through no fault of their own. San-Er is too dense, and the statistical probability of players naturally congregating in the same area is low. Of course, when location pings push two or three together within the same block, they’re already gearing up for a fight, and it’s either a fast battle where one ambushes the other, or there’s no battle at all because one player has slunk away and run out of range before they could come into contact with the other.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s this?”

Pampi draws away from her desk, glancing three cubicles over. A colleague jumps to her feet, hands held up.

“Hey! Hey, can someone look at this?”

Like everyone else nearby, hungry for some drama, Pampi hastens to the desk. Movement flashes on the screen. Pampi has to bite her lip to keep her smile down.

“What are we looking at?” someone else asks.

“Bottom left corner,” the woman answers. She points to the screen too, but as soon as she has directed their eyes down, it’s difficult to overlook what is happening.

Number Five, matched to the bright dot on the corresponding screen. But Five isn’t moving. Five stands there, surrounded by various garbage bags near the edge of a rooftop, drenched in rain as the downpour continues on. The footage is blurred, affected by the weather conditions, and the woman at the desk types commands into her keyboard in an effort to sharpen and enhance the image. It doesn’t do much. San-Er’s technology is prototypical to begin with, and sometimes signals do not connect to deliver its demands. Top-of-the-line companies with a councilmember on their board will always offer their products to the palace first and take royal investment, but even then, there is only so much these companies can manage when research moves slowly and advanced resources come in short.

“Did Five jump out?” another voice asks, leaning as close to the screen as he dares. “I didn’t see anyone nearby.”

“I suppose we can rewind the tape later,” the woman answers. “I was switching through cameras quite fast, but then I stopped here a few minutes ago… the scene has yet to change.”

The surveillance room fades to an eerie quiet. The other desks have noticed the crowd gathered at the back. Though they don’t know what so many of their colleagues are enraptured by, a sense of ill ease has creeped in.

“Someone’s coming,” Pampi says suddenly. She cannot help herself.

A figure has walked onto the screen. Given the camera’s high angle, their features are obscured by the deep hood over their head, but surveillance wouldn’t have picked out more than two pixels of a face anyway when the rain is pouring down. Pampi clears her throat, glancing at the adjacent smaller screen. She motions for those around her to look as well. No dots near Five. This is not another player.

“Call the palace guard,” she says evenly.

The woman hesitates. “I mean, we wouldn’t want to bother them for—”

Five crumples to the rooftop floor. A collective inhale travels through the surveillance room, and no one exhales as the hooded figure strides forward, pulling at Five’s limp arms. Though the rain pelts down at blurring speed, Five’s skin is visibly darkening to a gray shade. The cameras cannot pick up the light of jumping, but the decaying body tells them that it is being performed before their very eyes—again and again, in and out of Five at rapid speed.

“It’s another one,” someone in the room says breathlessly. Pampi does not know which of her colleagues it was. They blend together, each voice merging with the next.

“Another yaisu sickness kill?”

“But that’s not possible. There are only the two of them there. Why isn’t the killer burning up too? Where else can they jump to?”

“It must be some sort of foreign attack. We don’t know what they’re capable of.”

“Look! Look what they’re doing!”

The figure with the hood hauls Five’s arms all the way up. The Sican salute.

“Surely now,” Pampi says, “we call the palace guard.”

Calla dreams of invasion.

She dreams that she is stuck in the ground, buried up to her ankles. Though she struggles and strains, she is stationary while streams of villagers run past her, fleeing their province as it burns, soldiers moving in and taking position outside each stout house.

Help, she wants to scream, but no sound comes. She knows that she is somewhere near the mountains, that she has to leave, that she must move if she is to keep her life. The soldiers are coming, their clothing as black as the night and their swords as bright as the stars. They command her not to resist. They say that the throne of Talin has arrived. That this is salvation; this is the moment they have been waiting for, plucked out from the harsh rule of anarchy at the borderlands and welcomed into civilization—

Calla wakes with a scream in her throat, biting back the sound just before it can escape. She lurches upright, jostling Mao Mao, who was resting peacefully on her lap. Her hands are shaking. As she does each time a nightmare shakes her awake, she reaches out to pet her cat, burying her fingers in his fur. Seconds pass. Her heartbeat starts to stabilize.

Outside, it almost sounds like the screaming from her dream is still going, but the noise is only drunken glee from patrons of the nearby restaurant, as per usual. Calla shifts Mao Mao gently to the bed and shuffles onto her knees, moving her pillows aside so she can see out her window. She pulls a gap in the blinds, then wipes her fingers on the glass to clear the condensation. The blots of neon color immediately crystallize into real shapes, revealing a couple ambling along the alley outside her bedroom. The sight is a far cry from the images still pressed to the inside of her eyelids, to the fields burning and blood running.

Calla releases an exhale. The people inside the twin cities are suffering. But they cannot even imagine how much worse those in the provinces have it. And so long as it is a competition, the blame will only circle around and around instead of going to the top, where it belongs.

The blinds snap back, blocking out the stream of light. Calla pulls the blankets over her head, determined to finish her sleep.

Tonight is for rest. When morning comes, she’ll find Anton Makusa, and they’ll turn the games into a frenzy.