Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

Chami and Yilas have drawn Calla a rough map. Though she insisted she could memorize the route, it was too hard to explain with words how to get to Big Well Street as efficiently as possible, and her two former attendants brought out the pens instead, sketching the streets and running a thick red marker where she needed to go.

Big Well Street—unnecessarily long, perpetually busy, and crowded with establishments one atop the other—lies on San’s side of the Rubi Waterway, but in these recent few years, access has been blocked off on either end by wooden slats and crisscrossed pipes meant to keep the palace guard out. Sometimes they still barge in for inspection, but it would be plain exhausting to keep at it when the people inside rebuild the barriers every time they’re torn down. For regular folks trying to visit, the best course is to enter Er first, then take one of the bridges back into San, which drops smack-bang into the middle of Big Well Street.

Calla smooths out the map, glancing quickly at the markings before she chooses a bridge into Er. She should be more aware of how these city routes run, but it’s hard to feel comfortable spending leisurely time out and about when she’s a criminal who’s supposed to be dead. Even when she was princess, she never spent long walking these alleys by herself. She knew the major buildings, the financial districts, and the meat market districts, could even label the places where most of the crime was and where the palace guard went the most often. But that was not the same. That didn’t have the smell under her nose and the jolt in her boots as her feet strike against the muddy ground, coming off the bridge and into Er, where the shift between the two cities is tangible.

Calla pauses at the head of an alley. The shiver that dances down her neck is immediate. From where she stands, a thin shaft of sunlight from the day’s last setting rays pierces her eyes directly. There is always less noise in Er. Which isn’t to say it is a peaceful haven, only that the street hawkers are replaced with businessmen, the prostitutes at the corners with schoolteachers trying to grade essays while they walk. The alleys are paved, not quite wide enough to qualify for a road like those in the provinces, but enough that Er’s residents will ride around on bicycles instead of skirting trash bags every moment as the people of San do.

Calla looks up, bringing a hand over her eyes. The sun disappears and drops Er into dusk. She’s always been good at sensing aberrations. Now, her every nerve tells her that she is being watched. Her qi is stirring—better at hearing than her ears, better at feeling than any part of her skin. When one of the electric boxes on the wall bursts with a sudden spark, she draws her sword, dropping into a combative stance just before a blur of motion comes hurtling from the end of the alley.

An uncomfortable prickle strikes her chest, then a fit of nausea. Calla almost gasps. She hasn’t felt this sensation in years. It fades as quickly as it came, but she has no doubt that someone just tried to invade her.

They have failed. They will always fail.

Calla is ready. That blur of motion comes closer, shoulder pitched down, not a single feature visible in the falling darkness. It doesn’t matter: as soon as they are near enough, Calla kicks a foot onto the alley wall and somersaults, avoiding their hit and moving to land behind them. She doesn’t crane her head to see; she only guesses. Her sword goes straight down her attacker’s back—through the neck, then through the spine—before she has fully landed upon the ground yet.

Her boots thud heavily into the mud. She tugs her sword free. The attacker drops.

But… her blade comes out clean.

Calla blinks, uncomprehending. The prone figure on the floor is no longer moving. She waits, wary in the event of a fake-out. Almost a minute passes before Calla inches toward the body, daring to investigate. Her breath held, she grabs a fistful of clothing and turns the attacker over until their face is no longer pressed to the ground.

“What the fuck?”

Their eyes are blank: no irises, no color. This is an empty vessel.

Calla rests her hands on her knees. How is that possible? She didn’t see any light. There was no one around for the attacker to jump into. August’s warning about agents from Sica flashes in her head, but the thought is so preposterous she can’t even begin entertaining it. Have Sicans developed a new way of jumping ? Into bodies that aren’t within sight? Without their qi flashing visibly?

Shakily, she can only bustle back a few steps to pick up the map she dropped and hurry away, leaving the bloodless vessel in the alley. Someone will find it and take it, she’s sure. There is very little that can leave Calla stunned, but seeing an empty vessel—occupied with qi while they were lunging at her seconds ago but void of it when she was sticking a sword through their neck—is high on her list of unfathomable sights.

“Compartmentalize,” Calla orders herself. She scans the walls, squinting to read the directional street markings. She can hear the Rubi Waterway getting fainter, so she’s going the wrong way. She turns and follows the sound back to the bridges. “Focus on the matter at hand.”

Really, she isn’t sure what sort of matter entails a random attack from a possible Sican agent. There are far too many people in San-Er for it to be a coincidence that they came after her. Were they hunting a player of the games at random? Or were they hunting Princess Calla Tuoleimi? She knows there are certain groups in San-Er that are convinced she’s alive, but those rumors surely have not traveled past Talin’s borders.

Calla makes it to the bridge, fingers tracing the dusty side barriers. She weaves in and out of the groups congregated on the thin stone structure, ignoring the dumpling stalls and the purse sellers with their wares laid out on a big red rug. As soon as she steps onto the main street, she knows she has arrived at the right place. A clump of middle-aged men squat outside one of the doors, so much cigarette smoke around them that it makes a visible gray cloud. While they shout at one another in conversation, she circles around them and ducks into Snowfall, Big Well Street’s primary brothel.

Snowfall. Named for the blinding white that blankets the provinces when the seasons turn cold. San-Er has not seen snow in centuries, which makes the concept all the more exotic.

It’s pandemonium inside, pumping with low bass music. Blue and neon-pink lights flood the walls at random intervals, then drop into complete darkness for a flash of a second. Calla nudges her sword behind herself, keeping the sheath tucked under her coat. She has already spotted the staircase that goes up into the rest of the building, but she doesn’t follow it. The moment anyone narcs and Anton Makusa runs, she will lose him. She was a princess once, after all—she knows how to read people, can see that the bar attendants and dancers started eyeing her the moment she walked in. None of them will talk to her if she asks what they know about Makusa and where he is, but if she acts normal, they’ll brush her off as merely another strange customer and let her do as she wishes. Then maybe she can poke her nose around Makusa’s apartment to gather more information. She only needs to make sure she’s in the clear first.

Calla looks down at her arm. Even if she still had her wristband, it wouldn’t indicate another player’s presence unless it was triggered by a location ping. Without it, there’s no way of knowing which face Anton Makusa wears. It’s the fun of King Kasa’s games, the reason why civilians are glued so thoroughly to their television screens every night, why some of them will crane their necks and gape at a player in the flesh despite the danger of hovering near an active fight scene. When players can jump at any moment, one cannot easily stalk opponents and cut them down one by one. There’s only chance and following the wristbands.

The analogue clock on the wall is creeping near seven in the evening. Calla holds her knuckles to her mouth, pressing hard as she thinks. At this point in the games, the palace isn’t trying to rush their progress yet; they’ll do one ping daily, two maximum, and always during waking hours while their surveillance room is well staffed. Everyone’s wristband must have gone off once already today, but it’s not late enough to mark off the possibility of another and not early enough to retire. By all logic, Anton Makusa shouldn’t be at home. Either he would be somewhere around San-Er or…

Calla’s gaze snags on a private table in the corner. A man sits with his scribbling pad, his fingers splayed in front of him as his mouth moves, talking to himself. Where others in the brothel have their eyes pinned to the writhing bodies dancing onstage, the man is concentrated on his work, pausing on occasion only to stare into the distance, like there is something in the smoke that no one else can see.

…or Anton Makusa would be here , near enough to his residence that he can rest once the time passes for a second ping, yet still occupying a public space in case the ping does come.

Calla reaches inside her coat, tearing at her own shirt while she watches the man. A waitress sets a drink down before him, and he thanks her with an old familiarity. The wad of fabric in Calla’s hands rips easily.

“Can I borrow this?”

When the same waitress passes Calla, she has no time to respond before Calla is plucking the serrated steak knife off her dirty tray. The waitress raises her brow, bemused, but does not protest. She continues into the kitchen; Calla quickly wipes the blade clean, then hides it within her wad of fabric.

Her pulse surges to a steady thud, keeping in accompaniment with the bass-heavy thump of Snowfall’s music. She strolls toward the private corner table. In her hand, she holds the steak knife carefully, making it appear as if she’s clutching nothing but a handkerchief.

Calla climbs into his lap with a smile. When the man’s gaze snaps up, a swoop of dark hair falls into his eyes. Black eyes, reflecting back the neon flashing around them. He’s quick to return her grin, hands coming around her hips.

Then she leans in, lips against his ear, and presses the tip of the knife into his throat.

“Hello, Makusa,” she whispers. She feels the serrated edge pierce skin. “I want my wristband back.”

Beneath her, Anton Makusa freezes, his expression turning stricken. Blood begins to trickle into his collarbone, staining his white shirt.

“Okay,” he says. She has to strain to hear him over the music. “It’s in my pocket. You’ll have to ease up an inch.”

Calla does not ease up. She only flips her hair over her shoulder, shifting her weight to her left side.

“Slowly.”

“I’m going slow,” Anton insists, putting his hand in his pocket. He pauses. In that split second, Calla knows instantly he’s about to try something.

“Don’t you—” She shoves half an inch of the knife into his throat; he tugs a collection of objects out of his pocket and throws it across the room. By the time Calla hisses a nasty insult, a flash of light has blinded her. She whirls around. The light ends in the body of another man across the room, who swoops for the fallen objects and runs up the stairs.

“Hold this to the wound,” Calla says to the man who startles awake beneath her. She tugs the steak knife out and shoves the wad of fabric to his throat. His eyes are jade green now, blinking back shock as Calla launches off him and books it up the stairs, narrowly avoiding collision with a waitress.

On the second floor, Calla pauses, listening for the direction of Anton’s footsteps. She has no desire to walk blindly into a trap, so she draws her sword, closing in on the third floor by following sound instead of movement. There’s no room for maneuvering here, only the thinnest stairwell with overturned filing cabinets and half-broken shelves shoved into the corners. The paint on the walls has chipped so severely that the floor is dusted with flecks.

One of the apartment doors on the third floor is wide open, its interior dimly lit. Calla adjusts her grip, stepping in warily. She passes a ragged couch, then a miniature adjoined kitchen. There’s a bedroom to her left, as small as a closet, crammed with objects.

Anton is hiding in the apartment. She can sense presence , feel with certainty that someone else’s qi is within jumping distance.

Calla enters the bedroom. And the door slams closed after her, dropping her into darkness.

“Hey!”

“Wait! Hear me out, hear me out,” Anton shouts from the other side.

The handle doesn’t budge when Calla gives it a push. Locked. What kind of sicko has a door that can be locked from the outside?

“I’ll hear you out,” Calla says brightly. She shoves her sword through the door, and Anton yelps, startled by her blade piercing clean through. “I’ll hear your pleas when I skewer your—”

“Princess. I can help you.”

Calla pauses. Being addressed by title does not necessarily take her by surprise, but it’s still strange to her ear. “You recognized me? We never met back then.”

“How do you know my name, Princess Calla? I’ve done my research too.”

Irritation and flattery battle for a hand in her response. He sounds smug for making the discovery; still, if he put the pieces together after their encounter, he paid attention to details that the rest of San-Er has overlooked for five years.

Calla yanks her sword out of the door and examines the steel. “Shouldn’t you at least buy me dinner before trapping me in your bedroom?”

“Calla. May I call you Calla?” He ignores her mockery, his voice getting closer to the door. “You and I are the most likely victors of these games. I have a proposal.”

“Oh?”

He clears his throat. “We team up. Take everyone else down and get to the end faster.”

Anger flares hot in her stomach immediately. She barks out a laugh. “It is so typical of a palace brat to think cheating the games is that easy.”

“Who said anything about cheating?” Anton shoots back. “Collaboration isn’t against the rules.”

Indeed, there are essentially no rules governing the games. Players can do whatever they like, but the thought of collaboration is absurd, because first and foremost, collaboration requires trust, and trust gets you killed in San-Er.

“You’re asking for trouble.” Calla rests her sword against the wall, where there’s already an indent. “Give the palace a reason to disqualify us, and they’ll take us both out.”

There is a moment of quiet on the other side of the door. Then: “Princess, there’s already reason for them to take us both out. We won’t be giving them trouble—we’ll give them the entertainment they want. It is a worthy exchange for letting us stay at the top.”

Calla purses her lips. The outlaw and the exiled, teaming up as allies—it’s almost a laughable thought. But he’s right on one thing. A collaboration will catch the attention of the reels for sheer entertainment value. If they play nice otherwise and keep their identities concealed, King Kasa may just allow it.

“Why are you trying to get to the end so fast?” Calla asks plainly. “Are you in such a rush?”

“Yes,” Anton replies without a hint of hesitation. “I’m impatient and tired of how slowly the games are moving.”

It has only been a few days. Some rounds in previous years have gone on for months. Curious, Calla turns and starts to peer around Anton Makusa’s bedroom. Her eyes have adjusted enough to catch most of the details: the pictures on the walls and the papers on the desk. He was the one who locked her in here. He only has himself to blame when she goes poking through his things.

“By your logic, we will end up as the final two in the Juedou,” she says, walking to his wardrobe and idly browsing through the shirts hanging there. The games open with the Daqun and end with the Juedou, both in the coliseum. Every year, the Juedou is turned into a spectacle, the coliseum lit up as a true arena, lights glaring down on the final two players as they battle to the death. “But only one of us can win.”

“Are you afraid you can’t win against me, Princess?”

Calla picks up her sword again and returns to the door, shoving it through a second time. Anton shouts a curse.

“Listen,” he says, an edge to his voice now. Though he cannot see her, Calla smiles, finally liking where this is going. There’s a hardness to his tone, a sense of ferocity that has been whetted into a weapon. This sounds more like someone who could be a victor of the games. “You’ve seen my kill numbers. My ability to jump. You know that I’m an asset to have on your side. We can work together, then break our alliance at the end. Only at the end.”

A book on his bedside table catches Calla’s attention. When she leans over and flips it open, angling the first page into the light coming through the window, there’s a photograph of a boy with black eyes and a girl with the same. She doesn’t recognize the boy, but it has to be Anton’s birth body, the image captured at the Palace of Earth before he was exiled. The lean shoulders and messy hair suit him. Anton Makusa was born the tousled sort of beautiful, tall but always slouching, perfectly set features obstructed by a heavy frown.

The girl to his side, however, Calla recognizes immediately. Her tiny nose and perfectly brushed hair. Her calculating smile, invariably scheming away at something.

With a quick motion, Calla closes the book.

“What if you put a knife in my back before the final battle?” she asks, recovering before he can note the pause in conversation.

“Why would I?” Anton retorts. “I’ve seen your numbers too. I’ve been holding on to your wristband long past the time it was supposed to deactivate. You have some sort of advantage, and I want in. Can I open this door now? Are you going to skewer me?”

“Eventually, yes,” Calla mutters. Just as she is adjusting the table so that it looks untouched, the door opens, and Anton Makusa steps in. The light of the living room streams in too, making him appear larger than life when he stands under its glow.

“I wasn’t wrong, was I?” Anton says. “You have an advantage in the games. What is it? A revolution plot? A foreign-funded conspiracy?”

Calla does not answer. Instead, she says: “Okay. I’ll team up with you.” Her gaze darts to the book again. “On my terms.”

Anton throws something in her direction. Calla’s hand lurches out and snatches her wristband from the air.

“What are your terms?”

He receives only a theatric air-kiss in response. Calla snaps her wristband back on, then sheathes her sword. She knows she should be careful, but he won’t attack her now. Not after all that.

“I’ll drop by when I know.” She skirts by him, heading for the exit. “Stay out of my way in the meantime.”

Anton lets her leave. Perhaps he’s taken by surprise, perhaps not. Calla could be making a mistake for not taking the chance to kill him. If he changes his tune and so much as breathes a word toward the palace, then the twin cities will know Er’s criminal princess is alive, and they will come after her.

Calla bites her nail, hurrying out of the building. Her boot lands in a puddle; she swerves quickly to avoid running into an elderly woman hauling a bucket on her shoulder, filled to the brim with water from one of the public taps. She won’t deny that it would be useful to double her kills and speed up the timeline, bring herself closer and closer to the moment she can take King Kasa’s head off. But doing so requires trusting Anton Makusa and having faith that he’ll keep his mouth shut about her identity. The only thing she’s banking on is that he must hate King Kasa as much as she does.

Because the girl in that photograph was Otta Avia, Prince August’s half sister.

Anton’s former beloved, who is as good as dead now, all because of King Kasa.

Pampi clocks out at nine on the dot, leaving the security room with her bag looped over her shoulder and a folder clutched to her chest. Her heels click down the palace tiles, then echo loudly into the night when she exits through a side entrance. Before long, her steps are drowned by the marketplace’s roar.

Her route through San is familiar. She does not go home. She straps her wristband back onto her body, winds through the alleys, and reaches the Hollow Temple.

“You are entirely too confident for someone so new, you know that?” a voice greets when she comes through the doors. It’s after hours at the temple, the hall empty except for a single figure at the front. She approaches him, her pencil skirt keeping her movements small.

“I gather you’ve never had someone so new do so much,” Pampi replies easily. She throws the file onto the pew. Its papers skid out: maps scribbled with pencil markings, tracing the players across the city. “How are we progressing? Good?”

Woya doesn’t answer her immediately. He stares at the papers and makes a noise beneath his breath. The Hollow Temple bristles around them, one of many beating points around the city that make up the network of the Crescent Societies. Each temple functions on its own, led by one cleric. Though Woya holds power within the walls of the Hollow Temple, the Crescents forgo hierarchy any higher than that, choosing to keep their factions working in tandem instead. Different temples manage business and recruit members in different territories of San-Er; if they start doubling up on any streets, members meet to trade information and decide who will take what.

Violence is saved for outsiders. Once a Crescent is sworn in, they regard other Crescents as family.

“Depends on what you mean,” Woya finally says. “The killings? They’re successful. Passing them off as the efforts of Sican intruders? Eh, could be better. Destabilizing King Kasa’s regime and throwing San-Er into anarchy?” He looks up, orange eyes narrowing. “The rest of the temple don’t quite see how it will succeed when we’re up against the whole guard and then some.”

Pampi smiles. Sometimes she feels a thousand years old, like an ancient god who has been sleeping in wait, ready for her moment to come. Her mother called it narcissism, but who’s the one still around? The temple responds to her, whispered to her and urged her to become its leader as soon as she stepped in. She brings a knowledge that no one has seen before—at least not here, and it’s here that they want it most. The darkest crevasses of San-Er, where the currency most in demand is ownership over yourself. Life is meaningless if you can be shut down at any point, consciousness kicked away because a stronger individual has invaded.

“Someone taught me a most extraordinary thing the other day,” Pampi says.

Woya lifts an eyebrow. Half of it has been shaved off, the other half dyed white. “Oh?”

Talin believed in gods once. But San-Er worships technology and productivity in their modern age, so household shrines have become mere aesthetics, and temples alone perform the twin cities’ reverence. The Crescent Societies believe that jumping is a gift one cannot take for granted. That the gods gave them this ability and the gods play favorites, listening to the commands of some and ignoring the commands of others. Those who make the right prayers can gain better control, might even perform miracles when it comes to jumping.

Pampi knows how to pray. Under her collar, there are two parallel lines of dried blood, drawn thickly across her chest.

The blood isn’t hers. Praying isn’t enough. Now she knows how to sacrifice too.

“Would you like to see?”

Pampi throws her hand out. With the motion, Woya goes flying, his back thudding against the temple wall, the impact so hard that it snaps every stick of incense planted nearby. The figurines and the paintings of deities all shudder too, as if they have recognized one of their own among them.

Her qi pounds through her bloodstream. She can feel it: each speck of her inner spirit, merging with her body, merging with the physical world. This is how it is supposed to be. This is the power she always should have had.

“How was that?” Pampi asks.