Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

The first attendant that Calla runs into tells her the gala is starting soon, so the palace nobles will be gathering in the banquet hall.

“Ridiculous,” Calla mutters to herself, pushing her sleeves up while she storms forward. As far as the rest of them are aware, Leida Miliu is loose in their corridors, and they have decided to go ahead with this frivolous display. They would probably keep holding galas if the seas swept in and flooded the cities, if a new round of influenza breezed in through the ornate doors and infected everyone within.

A patrolling guard startles at the sight of Calla turning the corner at high speed. When he calls out, asking if she requires assistance, Calla fires back a fast “It’s fine!” without pausing. She has no time to waste. She needs to find Otta Avia, preferably before the gala starts and every aristocrat in this palace bears witness to Calla throttling her.

Main atrium. Calla’s jaw makes a noise when she lifts her head and gauges the fastest route up the stairs to the banquet hall. Her teeth are clenched hard enough to hurt. In an attempt to look less frazzled, she scrapes her hair back while she climbs the stairs, tying everything high upon her scalp and out of her face.

A decade ago, she used to stomach every lofty remark Otta made within earshot of these rooms. They have renamed these long arches and tall atriums the Palace of Union, but the echoes of its origins remain. The velvet-green color schemes, the gold-threaded curtains. Alas, most of its undercoat weighs far too much now, and Calla finds the space even less tolerable than before. The corners sprout electric wires; the walls jam together as a palimpsest, so tightly crowded with costly decoration that each section overgrows into the next. There is no union, only half a capital refusing to give up the whole it has bitten off, stuffing itself far beyond capacity.

Calla rears to a stop, pausing for a brief moment to catch her breath at the threshold into the banquet hall. A guard steps forward. He says, “Your Highness, you’re not dressed correctly.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

She’s sighted her target. Before any guard can move to stop her, Calla surges forward and pierces the edge of the crowd. This banquet had been decorated for its last revelry merely weeks earlier, its space filled with excited palace nobles celebrating the conclusion of San-Er’s games. Each corner was illuminated with an open bulb, leaving it only to chance that King Kasa didn’t recognize his long-lost niece when she walked in with half her face obscured.

The lighting is dim tonight. In the Hollow Temple, there was a red bulb just like the ones dangling above Calla as she picks her way forward. It illuminated the Crescent Society members while they were marking themselves with blood, wearing vials of deep crimson like regalia. The light was the perfect shade to blend together the bodies of their victims, their hearts carved out and left to rot as vessels clumped in the middle of the room.

Calla makes it through half the crowd. They’ve brought in a large rug for the center of the hall. No amount of scrubbing could erase the stains after all that blood and gore soaked into the wooden panels, and no councilmember wanted to be the first to suggest a complete renovation of the floor where their previous monarch lost his head.

The last time Calla stood here, she was ready to die. To answer for every wrong she’d committed in the name of revenge, and the greatest wrong she had committed in that arena.

“ You .”

Before Otta Avia can turn around, Calla yanks her by the elbow, forcibly dragging her out of a conversation.

“Ow!” Otta yelps, stumbling over her feet. Though she attempts to pull away, she’s no match for Calla’s physical strength. Calla, who towers over her by a head and then some. “Let go of me! What do you think you’re doing?”

She hauls Otta through a side exit. The banquet hall chatter fades as the smooth door closes with a thud, camouflaging back into the floral wallpaper. This is a servants’ passage, made for quick movement in and out to serve food. Calla releases Otta, if only to push her onto the carpet.

Otta lands with a disgruntled wince. Unlike Calla, who isn’t dressed correctly, Otta very much is. She’s changed out of her extravagant red getup from earlier. Her new dress is noiseless with movement, pale-pink silk wrapping a band around her chest before a darker sheer fabric flows to her knees in a triangle. Aristocratic isn’t the right word anymore. She looks as delicate as a petal, and the thought practically grinds Calla’s molars to dust.

“Can I help you?”

“I tolerated you all through our childhood, Otta,” Calla says coldly. “But propriety isn’t going to save you this time. Leida Miliu has named you as her source. She says she learned everything she knows about qi from you .”

Otta lets out a single laugh. Though she remains sprawled on the carpet, she props an elbow behind her, lounging with no hint of discomfort.

“Do you have any evidence? Or are you working off the baseless accusations of a woman imprisoned for treason?”

“Surveillance in this palace certainly goes back seven years.” Calla’s eyes lift. Even here, there’s a camera blinking above them. “Do you want me to look? I’ll have them find every bit of footage capturing the two of you together.”

“You are so insufferable.” In a smooth motion, Otta stands again. She dusts off her skirts, sniffing when she finds creases marring the silk. “If her claims are true, then it’s not like I taught her on purpose. Go look through the footage—you won’t find anything. She was the daughter of the captain of the guard. She must have been spying on me.”

Calla can’t believe what she’s hearing. So Otta is admitting to it. Long before Leida started spreading impossible practices across San-Er, Otta Avia knew how to do it first. Some part of Calla still doubted it, despite her rampage to confront Otta.

Seriously? she can’t help but think. The same Otta Avia who calls for servants to hold up a straw so she can have her hands free from the glass? The Otta Avia who gave herself the yaisu sickness from being stupid enough to attempt jumping into Weisannas?

“If you were a little nicer to me, I’d teach you.” Otta bounces on the tips of her toes, just like she did to get closer to Anton’s ear during the meeting. “Too bad.”

Something in Calla snaps. Her hand plunges into her pocket. Barely enough time passes for her to process the gesture herself, never mind for Otta to realize what she’s doing and get out of the way. Logic kicks in at the last millisecond. Just as the knife whips out of her palm, she jerks her wrist, redirecting it to draw a bit of blood rather than embedding somewhere more serious.

But that turns out to be for naught.

Her knife doesn’t land.

Calla watches with absolute incomprehension as the blade pauses midair, hovering a second in front of Otta’s face before falling to the floor with a lackluster clatter. A shudder moves through the passageway. A strange smell sears Calla’s nose, like burning rubber.

“Oops!” Otta says brightly. “You’re losing your touch, aren’t you?”

What… the fuck.

The side door slams open. In that moment, Calla is so taken aback that her mind falters. August has entered the servants’ passage, half bathed in shadow; the words are already forming on her tongue to demand he get his sister under control. Then he comes closer, and the sight of him gives her a physical jolt. His eyes catch the light; she remembers. August isn’t here. This is Anton, training his gaze on Otta with a concern that Calla has certainly never seen.

“What’s going on?” he asks evenly.

“Your hair ,” Calla exclaims, as though this is the most pressing matter at hand. The freshly dyed black makes August’s face look shrewd again, in a manner that didn’t photograph well when he was younger and new to the palace, in the way that other noble children didn’t like the look of for a reason they couldn’t explain.

“Otta?” Anton prompts. “Are you all right?”

At the other end of the hall, a cluster of servants have arrived with plates, but they come to a quick stop upon seeing the passageway already occupied. A few of them scramble to turn around and get out of sight. Others stand and wait, watching. Anton has noticed too, his attention flickering over, then back. Despite the easy demeanor of his words, his shoulders are stiff underneath his black jacket. He’s also changed since Leida’s interrogation. August has never worn these clothes, so it must be brand-new from the tailor.

“Would you like to tell him?” Otta asks. “Or shall I?”

“Rincun,” Calla says. She pretends Anton isn’t there, forging on with her interrogation. He’s doing a mighty fine job doing the same to her, anyway. “Did you have anything to do with it?”

“Whatever could you mean?”

Calla’s eyes narrow. A finger of cold has started to trail down her spine. “The massacre there,” she says in a low voice. “Last week.”

“Oh, silly me,” Otta says, examining her nails. “Of course not. Why would I know anything about a massacre in Rincun ? May I be excused to make a toast, Majesty?”

Anton doesn’t immediately grant her permission. He tilts his head, catching the same tone in her voice. “Why did you say that? About Rincun.”

Otta strides to the door. She brushes by Calla, their sleeves grazing against each other with all the friction of sandpaper. “I have something to announce. May I go?”

“No.” Calla throws her arm out, blocking Otta’s path. “You may not.”

“Majesty?” An edge has entered her voice. This time, when Otta calls for Anton, it is nonnegotiable, and Calla understands why. Otta knows.

“Remember,” Otta goes on, “I’m doing this for you.”

This isn’t the voice she would use with August. This is the expectation that Anton ought to be standing up for her, and when Anton’s mouth simply opens and closes, he’s taken too long. A flash of anger darkens her gaze.

“Enough.” Otta smacks Calla’s arm out of the way. The contact stings much more than Calla would have expected. Though she’s quick to recover and shoves her arm out again, Otta is equally prompt. She catches Calla’s wrist and bends it backward.

“Ow, ow ,” Calla says before she can stop herself. Where was this strength before, when Calla was dragging Otta across the hall?

“I can’t work out exactly who you are,” Otta hisses, “but it’s only a matter of time. You’ve already burned your palace down. This one is mine.”

Otta releases her grip, pushing away. While Calla is still wincing, grumbling profanities under her breath, she feels a faint, cool sensation on her wrist. There’s a small blot of blood. Quickly, she lifts her sleeve and inspects her arm, searching for a cut, but no source appears. Otta left the mark there—it’s almost the perfect shape of her finger.

Calla chases through the door at once and presses back into the rumble of the banquet hall.

“Galipei,” she mutters out loud. “Where is Galipei?”

“I would like to make a toast!” Otta declares at the front, stepping onto a plush chair.

Calla scans the space, her heart kicking up a cacophony beneath her ribs. Otta is going to do something destructive. She can feel it, just as she can smell a bad monsoon before it comes down. The lights are turning brighter, each bulb showing the wire aglow inside and shining onto the crowd. There’s Rehanou. Mugo. Venus Hailira, shifting uncomfortably. Finally, closer to the other side, she spots Galipei Weisanna, and he’s already watching her. Get her, Calla mouths, pointing aggressively at Otta. Stop her!

Galipei moves in an instant. His silver eyes flash, and then he parts the crowd like string through gelatin, pushing cleverly at every loose pocket.

“Calla.” Anton appears suddenly from behind, grabbing her arm. He’s followed her out. “Leave her be.”

She tears her arm out of his grip. “Don’t touch me.”

“I am delighted that we could join together tonight after so much strife,” Otta bellows. She clasps her hands in front of her. “The annual gala was always my favorite event.”

Above the heads of other attendees, Galipei meets Calla’s gaze again, pausing near a cluster of councilmembers to maneuver around without jostling anyone. She sees him clearly mouth: What the fuck is she talking about?

I don’t know, Calla mouths back.

“Before I fell ill,” Otta goes on, “I found something monumental in King Kasa’s vault. I kept it to myself out of fear, but with him gone, I think it is about time the kingdom and the council know the truth. I don’t know how it has escaped notice for so long. Perhaps each royal advisor has run their eyes past this finding and chosen to keep quiet.”

At this, several people nearby turn their attention to Calla. Curious. Wondering.

“Calla.” Anton’s voice, beside her.

“If she’s about to tell the whole kingdom that they can jump without light and invade people at a moment’s will, I’m going to kill her here and now,” Calla hisses back. “It’s going to tear the masses apart —”

“There is an object out in the borderlands, imbued with enough qi to annihilate a village with a mere wave of the hand,” Otta says. To her left, Galipei has finally made his way to the front, but here he halts, equally perplexed as the rest of the room. Though Calla gestures him forward, asking him to shut Otta up, he isn’t looking in her direction anymore.

“As a matter of protection, it was hidden at the site of the first battle when the war began with Sica. Once Talin won, we never went back for it.” Otta pauses. The hall is silent. Confusion has settled thickly like a blanket over these aristocrats, keeping their movements confined and responses muted.

“The divine crown in San-Er is a fake. Talin’s true crown remains in the borderlands, and each reign since the war has been a lie. We have not tested any ruler by its mandate since then.”

Of everything Otta could have said, Calla did not expect this. A beat passes, utter disbelief reverberating through the crowd of nobles like a shock wave.

Then the banquet hall explodes with noise.