Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

The story goes like this.

There was a queen, many years ago, who didn’t accept death for her final fate. Time has lost track of whether she was a Tuoleimi or a Shenzhi—the two family lines have been interchangeable for a while now, long enough that no one remembers what color eyes the Shenzhis might have started with before being swallowed up by Tuoleimi yellow. The Dovetail tell this story to the children they’re teaching to jump when the gene kicks in. Don’t envision the limits, they say. The moment you expect a ceiling, your head will bump against it.

Each time Bibi overheard the Dovetail embellish certain details for atmosphere, she had to hold in her laugh. The provinces don’t have any grasp of the palace or what it is like. There are some details they make up that are entirely preposterous—toilets made of gold or crystal-studded windows. Machines that wait on royalty hand and foot or all-knowing sentience by the guards who patrol the hallways. Details aside, though, the larger story does the trick. The children stop believing what the kingdom says about mortal limitations.

Once, a queen knew that death was coming for her. Depending on who tells the story, it was either an early ground invasion from Sica or an internal coup from those she trusted most. The enemy was creeping closer, and she was out of time. She had always had the favor of the gods. Her qi was powerful—enough to fight at the front line when there was conflict between the unconquered provinces, enough to lead her soldiers herself and crush them to dust if they stepped out of line.

She prayed to the gods for the most defiant feat she could imagine. Forget jumping without a flash of light. Forget sending out a blast of qi as a mode of attack.

The queen wanted to be reincarnated after her death.

Bibi pauses at the end of the palace corridor, stopping to check her bangs in the reflective surface of a flower vase. Two attendants pass in the other direction without offering her a second glance. She proceeds onward.

This part of the story is what makes it believable. The Dovetail have always frowned upon violence as a method of sacrifice. They’ll go as far as to say that if the sacrifice is unwilling, the gods refuse to listen. But Bibi knows. Death, no matter how it is dealt, is enough to catch a god’s attention. Their ego comes first, and they’ll smell blood the moment it splatters. When the queen conjured the prayer for reincarnation, she asked an entire village of her civilians to sacrifice themselves. Her life—it mattered to preserve it, she argued. There was no entitlement in the request. She had the privilege of being their queen, so she also had the burden of seeking their last route to victory. She would isolate the spirit of her qi and ask the gods not to let this be the last time she could fight for them. If they loved her, they would do this.

They did.

Hundreds of villagers laid themselves to rest, quietly going into the night. Their graves were dug, their gravestones carved by their own hands. When the queen’s enemies came for her, she didn’t resist. Our victory is slated for the future, she promised. I will return, and your sacrifice will be worthwhile.

A life is short. Legacy is forever.

The story doesn’t really have an ending in any version that the Dovetail tell. Some conspire that she never came back; others swear they have heard accounts that she was reborn a generation later and wreaked havoc on her enemies. A few, even, have speculated that Princess Calla Tuoleimi is the reborn queen—though the terms of her sacrifice were that she would maintain her qi and the memory of her past life, so that doesn’t hold water, short of being a rather interesting conspiracy. Surely Calla Tuoleimi has never heard this story before. When the wall was built, it didn’t only keep out the province migrants. City civilians were banned from telling such frivolous stories about the gods.

Bibi reaches the surveillance room. How advanced the technology in the cities seems again, after she has spent so long in the provinces. Bright color created by pixels and movement mimicked in captured light. Wondrous.

“I will return,” she whispers in echo.

“Excuse me. Did you need something?”

The summons draws her attention away from the large display screen, and she remembers where she is and what she’s doing. There’s a food tray in her hands. She has come to distribute bowls of rice for the palace employees working in surveillance, and Bibi hurries to get back on task.

“So very sorry,” she says brightly. “I’m new.”

“Are you?” The employee at the cubicle takes the bowl offered to him. “I thought I saw you last week too.”

“That’s still new. At least give me a year before expecting me to know my way around.”

The employee quirks a brow, then turns back to work. Humming under her breath, Bibi finishes distributing to one row of cubicles, then circles around to the other side. The air conditioner in the corner of the room chugs heartily, struggling to keep up with the humidity building outside. She eyes the machines blinking against the wall, counting how many access ports each face has. The funny thing about the Palace of Union is that it possesses far more capabilities than it ever uses. King Kasa liked the ability to see well if he needed to, and he rarely needed to.

Bibi plugs a memory stick into an access port when she passes by. She continues distributing rice.

“… don’t think this is evidence? This screams suspicious !”

“It’s a guard forgoing his identity number, Matiyu. No one is going to take that as evidence.”

Bibi slows, drawing nearer to the cubicle that sits second to the end. A palace employee is leaning close to his screen. A woman hovers over his shoulder, her lips pursed. They both have the same jade-green eyes. Siblings.

“Why didn’t he type it in, then?”

“He clearly knows the guard keeping watch. It’s laziness, not a murderer in the palace halls.”

Oh, dear. Bibi shuffles just a bit closer and carefully sets down a bowl of rice in the cubicle next to the siblings. Her eyes swivel. She can’t be too obvious, lest they realize she’s spying.

“Yilas, I swear—”

The woman—Yilas—pushes away from the cubicle. “I have to get back to the diner. I’ll keep trying the signal to Calla’s phone, but I think we should leave out this stuff about a fake guard. She’s going to think you’re making it up.”

“What!”

The seated employee spins too fast. Just as Bibi is leaning over to set the rice down, his elbow knocks into her, and the bowl goes flying. It isn’t as bad as it could be. Yilas lunges forward to catch the bowl before it smashes to the ground. Half the rice stays inside.

“Oh no!” Bibi cries.

“You’re fine, don’t worry.” The siblings are quick to grab a tissue and scoop up the discarded rice. Bibi extends her tray, and the brother—Matiyu—places the tissues on it.

“My fault,” he says. “Thank you.” To Yilas, he adds, “I’ll search further. Maybe I can find more before tonight.”

Yilas nods. While Bibi moves on, dropping the tissues into the trash can in the corner, she keeps track of which direction the woman is going. She counts a few seconds. Then, she circles back to the memory stick, plucks it out, and exits the surveillance room with her tray beneath her arm. She’s supposed to find a new body now, make a quick exit out. She slips the memory stick into her pocket.

Around the next corner, she catches up with Yilas.

“Hello.”

Though Yilas turns to look, her stride doesn’t slow. Her bangs are dyed purple, nudging into the green of her eyes at every small movement of her head.

“Can I help you?”

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard a bit of that conversation back there,” Bibi says, keeping up with Yilas’s pace. “When you said Calla , I don’t suppose you were talking about Her Highness Princess Calla, were you?”

Yilas furrows her brow. “That’s none of your business.”

“Come on,” Bibi whines. “Do you know if she’s single? I only want to ask if she would go for a drink with me.”

“She— what ?”

The look that overtakes Yilas’s face is full of such absurd disbelief that she forgets to be suspicious. Bibi is in.

“I suppose it’s fine if not.” Bibi sighs. “Maybe you would like to go for a drink instead?”

“For a— no! ” Yilas splutters. “I have a girlfriend.”

“Oh. A shame.”

Yilas glances over her shoulder, as though she’s checking whether anyone can overhear their conversation. The corridors around surveillance tend not to be busy. Nobles don’t like how loud the wires are. They’ll steer clear unless there’s something they need.

“Who are you?” Yilas asks. She’s recovered her hard expression, but it’s too late. She’s already confirmed to Bibi that she is in contact with the princess. “Your eyes. They’re familiar.”

Bibi shrugs. “Black eyes aren’t uncommon.”

“Don’t tell me you’re related to the king,” Yilas continues pressing. Perhaps she aims to redirect the conversation. Scrub over what she admitted and hope that Bibi didn’t take note. “I didn’t think His Majesty had any more relatives.”

“No. I’m not related to August Shenzhi.”

Bibi slides a note out of her sleeve and passes it to Yilas. The moment Yilas takes it, hesitantly, Bibi stops walking and pivots. She’s needed in the east wing. New body. New mission.

“For you. Consider it, would you?”