Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

You set me up.”

August doesn’t bother denying it. He leans on the cell bars, arms folded across his chest. Beside him, Galipei hovers at the ready. No other guard has been allowed into the cells, not even another Weisanna, in case Leida tries jumping. They occupy unknown terrain with Leida Miliu now, watching her in the corner of the cell with her blindfold taken off, her legs propped up and her arms resting on her knees. After all that Leida has taught the Crescent Society members, who knows what else she’s learned to do? Perhaps she really can invade a Weisanna.

“You’re a fool,” August says. Since all the other cells are cleared out, he’s not afraid to continue: “I already had a plan to depose Kasa. I was already on it. Why would you feel the need to intervene?”

Leida flexes her hands. Most of the glitter around her eyes has smeared off. The few specks that remain are light on her skin, making her face look mottled and bruised.

“You’re not endeavoring to depose him,” she replies quietly. “You’re endeavoring to replace him. You will take the throne, and nothing will change.”

August scoffs, backing away from the bars. “You think I would let the people starve? You think I would throw banquets while the provinces suffer drought after drought?”

“I think you would fix it for a year or two.” Leida’s voice remains faint. “I think you would smooth over the holes you saw appear while King Kasa was on the throne: feed the people, dissolve the councilmembers who were not governing their provinces well. Then other holes would appear. The outer provinces will want independence. San-Er will want the wall to come down. And you will not want it, you will think it useless.”

“Stop,” August says.

Leida does not stop. “The years will catch up. You’ll start to resent those who are loud about their demands. You punish them by withholding resources and food. Poverty will strike. Balance will shift again. Before you know it—”

“Shut up ,” August demands. “I mean it.”

“—you’ll be a tyrant, just as King Kasa is. It might not even take years. It could be mere hours after he’s deposed, when you feel the power at your fingertips and realize your armies will do whatever you say as long as you wear the crown.”

Leida finally stops when Galipei slams an arm against the cell bars, shaking the whole wall with a metallic clang. She doesn’t look frightened, only tired: her eyes narrow, her gaze downcast.

“Of all people close to August, you should know better,” Galipei snaps.

“I do, Galipei. I do know August.” She straightens one of her legs out, rolling her ankle in her boot. “I could have incited an open coup, but I didn’t. Why do you think I bothered with this facade, training an entire temple of Crescents to use qi tactics that have long been forgotten in the royal books? Why invent a storyline about Sican intruders? This was never supposed to end with your head under a sword. I wanted this reign to topple quietly. I wanted to start with the monarchy’s power diminishing.”

“That’s not separate from me,” August counters tightly. “I am the monarchy.”

“And you could let go of that. But you won’t. Do you think you can fix this by taking power?” Leida shakes her head. She is smiling, though the expression has no humor. “Either you’re fooling yourself, or you’re trying to fool everybody else. No king is selfless. No throne is built on bloodless ground. There can be no freedom until the crown is broken.”

August turns to leave. He has no interest arguing about this. Somewhere along the path, he has lost Leida, and he won’t waste time trying to bring her back. He smooths the cuff of his jacket, fingers fixing the metal that holds his sleeve down.

“When my mother died, she had me promise to serve the people, not the kingdom.” Leida raises her voice now, choosing to increase her volume only when August begins to walk. The echo bounces on the stone walls, trailing him like a wild animal. “The people , August. The guard was not formed to conquer land and territory. The Weisannas were not born to protect one pitiful royal from the consequences of his greed.”

August keeps walking. Galipei is close on his heels.

“Half of the provinces in Talin have their own language. Did you know that? Did you know? They don’t want your benevolent rule, they want freedom ! We are not a kingdom anymore—we have long been an empire, and you are to blame if you won’t acknowledge it!”

Her voice cuts off abruptly as August and Galipei emerge from the cells, slamming the security door shut after them. A glance is exchanged between the two, no words spoken before they proceed down the hall. August nods at the guards standing afar, signaling that they may resume watch.

He stays quiet even when the guards are out of earshot. All down the palace halls and corridors, the hard soles of his shoes make a thunderous sound, beating a rhythm through the floors. To his own ears, each step is in careful harmony with his steady, even heartbeat.

Leida is never going to walk out of that cell. Ever.

“You’ve been staring at that wall for an hour now.”

August barely stirs at Galipei’s voice, not acknowledging that he’s heard him. His eyes stay pinned on the glistening golden wallpaper in his study, face turned toward the open window where the warm evening air floats in. He’s thinking about Leida’s capture, about how easily she let them take her down. But that’s not the detail that has snagged him: it’s Calla.

“I deactivated Six from the games,” August says in lieu of a reply. “We are down to five players.”

“Oh, so we’re just bringing up random matters now?” Galipei jibes. “Very well. My second cousin reassigned the palace guard into new units, in case there was further collaboration with Leida inside the ranks.”

August’s attention snaps to him. “Is there a power vacuum opening up?”

“No, don’t worry.” Galipei leans back onto the desk, his legs crossing at the ankles. “The heads of each unit will simply report to you now, I suppose. Unless you are opposed.”

“No,” August says. “I’m not.”

A loud ruckus floats in from the window. They’re clearing out the market below, getting the coliseum ready to be used for the approaching Juedou. The stalls nearest the center can remain functioning until the last minute, but the ones on the outer circle must move so the palace can set up the audience ropes. A final battle needs its spectators. What fun are the king’s games if not witnessed by all, plucked straight from the reels and pushed into reality?

“You’re still looking rather pensive.”

August clasps his hands together over his stomach. Tightness thrums there—this unsettled feeling is not new, but it is more prominent today. Five players left. There is only so much time before the games wind down, before Calla takes her victorious title, before she is brought into the palace and fulfills August’s plan.

She needs to fulfill his plan.

“I’m concerned,” August admits.

Galipei uncrosses his ankles, pushing off from the desk. He walks over to where August sits and crouches beside him so they are eye to eye.

“About Calla,” he guesses.

August nods. “She’s too attached to Anton. She thinks she can avoid killing him.” He tips his head up, lolling his neck onto the plush chair. “He may kill her instead, and then where will we be?”

The question is rhetorical, but Galipei thinks it over nevertheless.

“You said Calla proposed a different plan.”

“It won’t work. Especially now, with the palace guard so on edge. She cannot possibly bypass them to get to Kasa.”

“She could jump. She’s royal blood. She’s strong.”

August sighs. For whatever reason, Calla Tuoleimi has always refused to jump. He used to think she was brainwashed by the palace’s teachings, yet from what August had witnessed, Calla never regarded the palace’s other rules that highly anyway. She would smuggle food to her attendants when she thought no one was watching; she would be handed the responsibility of sorting through petty theft charges in Er and shrug indifferently when whole piles of claims went missing. Her refusal to jump is a mystery, but August supposes it doesn’t matter much. If one could get away with killing King Kasa by jumping into the throne room, he would have done it a long time ago. The king has Weisannas surrounding him at all times. The only solution would be jumping into Kasa himself and using Kasa’s own hands to take a knife to his throat, but August doubts even he has that ability.

“It won’t work,” August says again. “Nothing will, except the plan we started with: Calla winning the games and brought in to greet a willing king.”

They won’t be expecting her. With her face obscured by a mask, she presents as just another one of the masses. And as far as the rest of San-Er is concerned, Princess Calla Tuoleimi is dead. Number Fifty-Seven is only an extremely rule-abiding civilian who has played heartily for the kingdom’s greatest monetary prize.

The marketplace outside hushes in volume, more of its groups ushered away to make space. Galipei taps his fingers on the armrest, mulling over the matter. August, on the other hand, has already considered it thoroughly. He has pondered every angle and come to one conclusion.

“She’s going to disobey me. I know my cousin.”

Galipei looks up sharply. His jaw tightens. “Do you want me to put a stop to it?”

After a pause, August nods.

In synchrony, Calla’s and Anton’s wristbands begin to tremble.

They jump up from the shop stoop they were resting on, weapons raised in seconds, looking around wildly. But there is nothing on their screens. No directions, no display of how far away the approaching player is. Both wristbands shake against their skin, first at a light scale, then so vigorously that Calla wants to tear the thing off.

“Finally,” Anton says. “I was starting to think these things were broken—”

“Anton, to the right!”

Calla rushes forward to block the hammer from swinging down on him. The player appeared out of nowhere, leaping off the second-floor balcony that juts out above the shop. With a vehement push, she deflects the hit, the blade of her sword whistling through the air when she brings the weapon close to her chest again. A breath in; Anton is getting into stance again. She throws a glance back, and with a single nod, he darts left, knives going up as Calla ducks low, rushing for the other player’s legs. She cannot remember the other numbers that are left. Number Thirty-Three? Number Fifteen?

The hammer comes down, and Calla allows the hit to land, catching her hard in the shoulder so that Anton has an opening to push a knife into the player’s back. The player grunts, folding down where the wound was made. Calla’s entire right arm has gone numb, but it’s easy to transfer her sword into her left hand, easy to make a cut—albeit clumsier than usual—and fold the player at the knee by opening a gash in his thigh.

“Throat,” Calla wheezes. “The throat.”

Anton cuts the man’s throat. Blood spurts wide, dotting his face and decorating Calla’s neck like abstract art. The player gives his last exhale, pitching onto his side. Calla releases her breath too.

“That was close,” Anton remarks. “They’re getting too fast.”

“We’re almost at the end,” Calla replies tiredly, closing her eyes to rest. They sting terribly, as if they had dried out completely in the span of that fight. “It makes sense that the best players have made it to this point.”

“How did he last so long with a hammer? How do you kill with— augh! ”

Calla’s eyes fly open at Anton’s sudden muffled shout. She blinks to clear her eyes, right in time to catch someone hauling Anton off, a cloth clamped over his mouth and an arm around his middle.

“Anton!”

A hard thud lands at the back of her own head. And without any chance to fight, Calla crashes to the ground, her forehead smacking concrete.

Her eyelids flutter open slowly. They’re as heavy as steel, heavier than if something had sealed them shut.

Calla coughs. She manages to turn onto her side, one of her hands snapping forward and splashing into a dirty puddle. The other stays splayed underneath her, gripping the concrete. She is exactly where she fell, or perhaps two feet to the left. Some passerby probably kicked her out of the way when she was blocking the path.

Her head is ringing.

Anton. Where is Anton?

Calla scrambles upright, her lungs burning with effort. She releases another cough, and then she cannot stop, as if all the weight in her chest is trying to make its way out. She tries to recall what she saw in that flash of a second before Anton was grabbed. Someone tall, clothed well. A thick jacket, purchased with good coin.

A palace hire. It has to be.

She turns out of the alley and onto a minutely wider street. A man with a flour sack over his shoulder shuffles aside when she pushes by, then almost misses his next step when he turns to look at her. It takes Calla a second to attribute his reaction to the blood she has dripping off her body. Her collar is soaked. As are her fingers, stained in red up to her wrists. How long was she knocked out for? Surely no more than half an hour, since the metallic stickiness has not yet dried. Surely not long enough for Anton to be in serious trouble.

Her fear, in honesty, is not that he’s in trouble. Her fear is that they did not take him to kill him, but to save him. To keep him alive until the other players are eliminated, so that Calla has no option but to fight him in the arena, so that Calla cannot yank him by the sleeve and hide him, store him somewhere safe while she rips King Kasa apart.

“I know this is your doing, August,” Calla mutters under her breath. She draws her sword despite the crowded streets, making her way toward the palace. “This is your doing, and you will answer for it.”

The civilians of San-Er notice her and start to scramble away. She is a sight: she looks exactly as she does on the reels. Now that the games are winding down and so few players are left, there’s no purpose to being subtle anymore, no purpose slinking around the cities in fear of an encounter. Everyone should see her. Everyone should shrink out of her way and out of her path.

Calla’s eyes lock on the dental shop to her left. She pauses quickly, then tries to play off the moment as if she’s eyeing the dentures in the window display. It isn’t the dentures that caught her attention. It is the flash that came off the reflection.

Calla ducks fast. The throwing star embeds into the window instead of her head, fracturing the glass. In seconds, another joins it, and Calla whirls around, her heart thudding at her throat. Her sword is already drawn. She merely needs to lift it while she searches the startled crowd.

Where is the attack coming from? Calla’s grip tightens on her sword. She isn’t sure if there are three players left or four. If it’s three, then they’re closing in on the very end of the games.

Instead of searching for the combatant player in the crowd and taking the risk, she turns on her heel and starts to run in the other direction.

The throwing stars follow her immediately, one skimming her arm, one slicing along her boot, and another barely missing her square in the back as she swings around a corner and flattens against the wall. For a perilous moment, she can’t see anything, dropped into darkness under a drove of drying laundry. Then her eyes adjust to the alley light, and Calla inches her head slowly around the corner again.

This time, she doesn’t have to search for her combatant. A woman steps into view in the middle of the road, waiting to be sighted. She smiles and gives a small wave.

“What the fuck?” Calla mutters beneath her breath.

The woman doesn’t move.

Slowly, Calla inches out from the alley. “What do you want?” she calls over.

The woman doesn’t say anything. She waves again, but this time with her other arm, revealing her wristband, which shines with 12 on the digital screen. Streams of people flow around her on the street because of her inertness, but she doesn’t notice. They grumble and shuffle; they exclaim, Hey, can you not block the path? but the woman only stares at Calla, and when Calla takes another step forward, she sees the woman’s eyes.

Weisanna silver.

With a gasp, she pivots fast and tries to run again, but the woman is too close. No more throwing stars—the woman simply pounces on Calla’s back and slams her down, knocking into a little wooden stool that some street seller has left behind.

“Kill me,” the woman hisses. “Kill me, and play the games right.”

Calla kicks away, flipping off her stomach. Just as fast, the woman has her pinned again, knees on her legs and knuckles gripping her shoulders ferociously. The pain is agonizing, pressing bruises into her body. When Calla cranes her neck, trying to lift her head away from the sharp gravel, she spots a surveillance camera above them, and another not three paces away. The people want their show. The reels want to capture every final hit.

“I don’t know if it’s you, Galipei,” Calla spits, “but this is fucked.”

“Kill me,” the woman wails, as if she didn’t hear Calla at all. Her hands come around Calla’s throat in one fast motion, fingers pressed around her windpipe. Though this is a scheme, though Calla knows that August has decided to interfere, panic slams into her bones, her tongue restricting and her lungs begging for air.

Pinpricks of purple dance in her vision. No one comes to her aid, not a single one among the hundreds in the vicinity. They watch her like there is a screen between them. They watch her like this is already a program on replay, stored in the video companies’ data systems and ready to be spun around again when a new customer makes the purchase.

Calla stretches for her sword. Her fingers make contact with the grip. And on her last snatch of consciousness, she makes the plunge, shoving the blade into the woman’s side.

The woman stiffens. Her head jerks up, her iron grip around Calla’s throat loosening. There is only satisfaction in the woman’s expression. This was exactly what she wanted.

Calla pushes the woman off, the tail end of a cry caught in her bruised throat. She’s not surprised when a blinding light pierces the space before her, darting into the crowd. She’s not surprised when the woman sprawls onto the gravel, head lolling up to the sky, and in death, shows eyes that are dark brown instead of silver.

“Please,” Calla whispers. “Please, don’t be—”

Her wristband begins to whine. The moment the sound echoes into the night, she knows the plea is for naught. It is the same sharp, dissonant tone played in unison every year, broadcast directly from the palace, interrupting the television programs and news anchors to bring its important message.

The announcement of the last two finalists. The games have reached the Juedou, the grand finale.

She looks at her wristband screen. The text runs slowly, as if to emphasize every word. Across every screen in San-Er, stills of Anton and Calla appear side by side, along with their numbers.

Congratulations, 57! Your competitor is number 86. Please proceed to the coliseum immediately.

“No!” Calla drops her head into her hands. “Fuck.”