Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

Did you know she was going to do this?”

Her question catches Anton off guard. The very situation catches Anton off guard, because he’s dropped his usual flat imitation of August. His current expression belongs wholly to himself, and Calla knows this because she can catalogue it against the other times she’s seen it. The last instance was the arena, when they pulled that bag off his face and he found himself surrounded by spectators, forced into the final battle.

At the front of the banquet hall, Galipei Weisanna marches forward and plucks Otta away, both hands on the sides of her arms to steer her firmly toward the exit.

“Of course I didn’t,” Anton hisses. “I would have had to know about the crown first.”

Give it ten more seconds, and the demands coming at them from all directions are going to get out of control. Calla can pick out the bits and pieces from the nobles nearby, the councilmembers who are pushing toward Anton to get his ear first for their recommendations in light of this news. Even if it isn’t true, even if the Palace of Union tries to deny the proclamation and write Otta Avia off as a madwoman, they will need proof to claim otherwise. And somehow, Calla doesn’t think Otta is lying.

“Come with me,” she says.

Anton’s face changes. He snaps out of his stupor and smooths his features down, trying to decide how August would act here. “I need to respond to this.”

The voices press in. Heaven’s mandate is only determined with the crown… This has been a scheme all along… We knew the crown was supposed to reject someone outside the bloodline… If those outside royal lineage are made fit to rule, then what is stopping the kingdom from swapping rulers over and over again—

Calla doesn’t have the patience to argue. She takes Anton’s elbow and escorts him sharply toward the exit. By some miracle, he doesn’t resist. Her focus locks into place, and she navigates through the obstacles before her as she would any strategic encounter in battle. They’re out the door and past the guards. Down the hallway, left then right, into the first sitting room she finds.

Empty. Good. Calla slams the doors after them.

“Explain. From the beginning.”

Anton drags his hands through his hair. There’s no sign of August in this room anymore, the act vanishing the moment they came through.

“She said she was going to do something. I didn’t think it would be this .”

Calla watches Anton repeat the gesture. His black hair parts down the middle, falling in soft curls. This must be a nervous habit, yet it’s somehow the first time she’s seen him do it. She hasn’t known him long, after all. Whatever love existed between them, it had a limited run before taking a tumble into damnation.

“Is this some ploy for your attention?” she taunts. “You haven’t spent enough time with her, so she’s forced your hand. She will inevitably lead the delegation out to fetch it, and your attendance will be mandatory.”

Anton shoots her a glare, but he doesn’t deny it. She’s guessed correctly: Otta Avia has already figured out that Anton is Anton—if Anton himself wasn’t the one to tell her.

“Not that I have to explain myself to you, but I didn’t imagine Otta possessed such information. Nor was I prepared for her to make a scene. There’s nothing to be done about it. She’s always been this way—we can only minimize impact.”

Calla crosses her arms tightly around her chest. There’s cold air coming in from the windows, and she doesn’t want to resort to shivering. She bites on her thumbnail instead, clamping her teeth tight.

Anton is trying to make this sound simple, as though Otta’s attitude is only a personality flaw, but Calla doesn’t buy it. I can’t work out exactly who you are, Otta said to her, but it’s only a matter of time. Those aren’t the words of another haughty aristocrat playing palace politics. That’s the threat of someone who knows the truth, or at least has an inkling of it.

“Who is Otta Avia, Anton?” Calla asks lowly.

“The fuck kind of question is that?” Anton fires back. “She’s August’s sister. The second child to the Avias. Entirely ordinary, if it weren’t for her aunt marrying into the Shenzhi family.”

The council will be scrambling to verify Otta’s claims. Calla can imagine the current pandemonium in the south wing: they will bring out the divine crown, perhaps test it on some prisoner who was already due for execution, and when the heavens don’t strike them down—because surely the heavens would not allow a convict to possess their approval—they must determine that Otta has told the truth. In a kingdom that made the divine crown their very basis of monarchy, they cannot brush this matter aside, or else their monarch is as common as a factory worker plucked from the streets. Without the divine right to rule, the king has no legitimacy. Without the king’s legitimacy, no councilmember has been rightfully appointed either, nor their hold over any province in Talin guaranteed.

“She’s not ordinary.” There’s a ruckus coming down the corridor outside. “I watched her freeze a knife in midair.”

Anton frowns, uncomprehending. “She caught it?”

“She froze it. With qi.”

“That’s imposs—”

“ Don’t say impossible ,” Calla interrupts. “ Impossible is jumping without light. Impossible is qi swapping bodies at great distance. Yet somehow it keeps happening in this city, doesn’t it?”

A funny look crosses Anton’s expression. He must realize there’s a jab in here for him too, a question that Calla has been wondering about since he survived the arena. Clearly, he doesn’t consider it the time for those answers, because he refrains from a rebuttal. He turns and paces a few steps. His hand trails along the surface of a wooden table beside him, marking lines in the thin layer of dust. Three lines. Different from the ones the children drew, but the very reminder turns Calla cold nonetheless.

“Why are we in here arguing about this?” Anton asks slowly. “You spent the entire games working with August to put him on the throne. You were going to coronate him. If you could be blamed at any point, it would’ve been pertinent for him to mention to you that the crown was fake, don’t you think?”

“You don’t know if August knew,” Calla returns.

“Calla. Be serious. What did August not know in this palace?”

New voices advance in the corridor outside. Calla strains to catch the commotion. It’s a guard, giving orders to keep the nobles in the banquet hall. The Weisannas are going to try to stop the news from spreading. While Calla and Anton attempt to make sense of the situation, the kingdom is about to go to shit, because once the greater provinces find out, it’s not only the palace that’s going to want the divine crown in its possession. The crown, after all, promises to confirm a righteous ruler. There will be people wanting to put it on; there will be people wanting to find it and sell it on the black market, auction it off to the highest bidder. Then the crown might end up right back in San-Er, but in the hands of a councilmember launching a coup.

They’re about to go up against every person who might want a chance at being Talin’s ruler, every person who knows being accepted by the divine crown means a change in the centuries of Shenzhis and Tuoleimis ruling the kingdom.

“Where is this coming from?” Calla’s anger gives way to frustration. There is no reason for them to be at odds. No extenuating circumstances, no rules set upon them. They could simply choose to stop being at each other’s throats. “What is your problem with August?”

“You are more alike to me than you are to August,” Anton replies. “Yet you insist on being his mouthpiece. You stormed the Palace of Heavens, Princess. Where did that Calla go?”

Calla flinches. “Don’t.”

“Oh, sorry. You’re just some poor orphan from Rincun putting on a performance. Are you going to be giving that body back anytime soon?”

It was inevitable that he would take the argument there, yet Calla is shocked all the same. Her limbs lock; her lungs seize. The fear of being caught, of being dragged before the palace and executed, sweeps down her spine as muscle memory from her earlier years in this body. Anton may as well have swung a knife at her for the response he’s triggered.

“Don’t forget,” Calla says icily. “You’re not guaranteed to survive this. August might be too powerful. The longer you stay, the more likely it is that you could start to merge.”

“Or maybe he’ll disappear. Doesn’t that sound terrific?”

“He was once your closest friend. Does that mean nothing— ”

The door shudders. Calla’s gaze whips over to it, but she must have locked it from the inside when she closed it. After another failed push on the other side, someone clears their throat in the hallway and calls:

“Your Majesty? Are you in here?”

Anton sighs. “And what about it?”

“We need a statement,” the muffled voice continues.

“Seiqi, I am consulting with my advisor,” Anton says. He pulls at his hair again, though it’s more subdued this time.

“With all due respect, there are other royal advisors waiting for you in the war room, as well as the entire council. Could you perhaps continue the conversation there?”

Calla remains silent, watching Anton for his response.

“I’ll have Seiqi escort me to surveillance to get a handle on the situation,” he decides, heading toward the door. He’s not waiting for Calla’s per-mission.

“You don’t have to do this.”

She’s dropped to a whisper. Seiqi Weisanna won’t be able to hear her outside, but with the way Anton stops, he certainly does.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You could jump out. This is August’s problem. The throne’s problem. So why are you tending to it?”

Calla has always wondered why the crown would claim someone like Kasa, someone like her father. She suspected it called to a specific familial qi instead, that the palace had lied about what the object was supposed to do and drawn up its own mythos to support their royal family.

If the real crown is still out there, then it could truly function as it is said to. A Shenzhi or a Tuoleimi could be struck down. A peasant could become the next king. This goes beyond the scope of what game Anton is playing on the throne.

Seiqi is knocking on the door again. “Your Majesty? The news is going to spread through the cities very soon. We need to act before—”

“Are you afraid that I’ll expose you, Highness?”

“I don’t care ,” Calla hisses. “Expose me! Go on.”

“—there are going to be riots, we will need to disperse guard units—”

Anton spins around. “Don’t tempt me.”

“I mean it.” There’s no doubt that Seiqi can hear some argument going on inside now, but they’re keeping their volume so low that their words slur even to Calla’s ears. “What do I care? The council is waiting for a chance to get rid of me anyway. Tell them—they may decide to investigate you while they’re at it.”

From the very beginning, their alliance was built on a terrible foundation: the outlaw and the exile. Two people on the precipice of falling off the very world, holding on to each other for balance. Now they are both planted too firmly, leagues of land and sea under their feet. She can’t give Anton Makusa a simple shove anymore to get him out of sight; they can only continue this bizarre dance to see who can send the other teetering closer to the edge.

“I loved you,” he spits, “and you chose to kill me.”

“You wouldn’t run with me,” Calla returns in kind. “We could have left. You chose not to. What alternative would you have preferred? To kill me instead so you could live happily ever after with Otta Avia? I’m sure you wish I wasn’t the one here right now.”

“—open gaps at the wall,” Seiqi continues, “and there are plenty of rural dwellers camped—”

Anton strides back. In two steps, he’s before her, his jaw tight. A flush of red has started along his neck.

“How dare you.”

“You are so selfish ,” Calla goes on, though she knows she’s crossed the line. These are her darkest thoughts, the accusations that stem from their worst clashes. “All you wanted was your own little haven with Otta, and you couldn’t give that up for me. I had the kingdom at stake. So yes , Anton, I chose to win.”

Anton chokes out a laugh. The sound must be distinct enough to travel through the door, because on the other side, Seiqi Weisanna stops trying to summon his presence. She goes still, listening, and Calla shoots Anton a warning glance. He ignores her.

“This is rich,” he hisses. “You replaced an ugly tyrant with a prettier one, Calla. One who will smile and shower pleasantries about your health, then release a brigade of soldiers to burn your village nonetheless.”

“Shut up.”

“Did you think King Kasa’s only problem was being sadistic enough to let his civilians kill each other in his annual games? You don’t think it might be the provinces he continued to starve for his wealth? The noble families he wiped out as soon as they disagreed with him? You didn’t save the kingdom, Calla. Unless a new throne means Talin splintered back to its original form, your victory didn’t change this kingdom at all .”

Calla staggers back. Her throat is closing. She doesn’t register her legs moving, nor does she notice she’s still trying to make distance until her neck is cold and flush with the wall. Her hands grope around to get her bearings. She buries her fingers into a tapestry, feeling the threads dig into skin.

“If you are so righteous,” she gasps, “then why don’t you do it? Pluck out the royal soldiers in each province. Stop taking their crops, stop collecting taxes. Let San-Er produce its own blood.”

It’s dangerous to say this. Someone like Anton might do it simply to prove a point. He will raze a trail wherever he flits and leave those remaining afterward to deal with the fallout.

“I don’t want to,” he replies easily. “Unlike someone”— August ; he speaks of August, but he knows that Seiqi might hear him—“I can admit that I prefer it when everyone answers to me. I have everything at my disposal.”

Calla releases the tapestry in her hands, forcing her posture straight with conviction. The fibers have carved markings into her fingers, drawing a map of mourning. Quietly, so quietly that she can barely hear herself, she says, “You don’t have me, do you?”

Maybe there would have been a time when that meant something. Anton pauses, and he must know what she’s saying. He must hear that she would still run with him now if he was willing; he must feel that her anger exists only in the space they’ve made before them.

“I should condemn you to execution.” He turns away. “But I think it’s better that you suffer the consequences of your actions. Open your eyes, Calla.”

He yanks the door open. Seiqi Weisanna immediately scuttles back, trying to act like she wasn’t struggling to make out what was happening in the room.

“Your Majesty,” she greets. She peers over Anton. “Princess Calla, are you coming too?”

“Go ahead without me,” Calla says.

Seiqi doesn’t waste any time. She ushers Anton off, and then Calla is left alone in the sitting room, listening to activity rumble through the palace—through the walls, the floors, the ceilings.

She looks down at her wrist again. Otta’s splotch of blood has dried, barely larger than a thumbnail.

Images of the Hollow Temple play again before her eyes. The bodies that the Crescent Societies had stolen, stacked, and sacrificed.

I want her heart, Pampi Magnes says in her mind’s echo. It is a very special one.

The arena, then, flashes in vivid memory too. The body that Anton was wearing, bleeding out under the plunge of her knife. It was barely comprehensible in Calla’s overwhelming grief. She shouldn’t have needed to do it. She wouldn’t be arguing with him now if they had left before the arena.

Calla scratches at the blood drop. It comes off easily, flaking to the carpet.

It’s not fair, she wants to scream. Why? Why her ?

How strange it is if their bodies have always had the ability to use qi like this. How strange that ordinary civilians haven’t stumbled onto it if that is the case. Instead, it’s fucking Otta Avia who can freeze a knife in midair.

Resentment trickles down Calla’s throat like a syrup. Once the council debates the severity of having a false crown, they are most certainly going to go looking for the real one. Calla needs her sword back. She needs answers.

Making up her mind, she zips up her jacket and storms into the hallway, in the direction of her rooms.