Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

After the attack, Otta is unusually quiet through the remaining carriage ride.

Anton doesn’t notice at first, and in all honesty, he’s busy enough trying to decipher what the fuck just happened. The delegation rides frantically through Leysa Province, aiming for Lankil Province across the long Jinzi Bridge before nightfall. Their original plan for the evening was to turn west and cross between provinces, where they could find lodging at the house that Councilmember Diseau owns in Janton Province. Given the possibility there were more attackers in the vicinity, though, it felt worthwhile to travel north quickly rather than stay in the area.

They’re almost to the Jinzi River. Anton risks a glance through the window. He catches flashes of movement, but they’re going at a pace fast enough to render riders and horses blurry with the burgeoning night. The sky is awash with deep orange—the horizon’s setting sun slowly suppressed by the burgeoning dark.

He should have swung the sword.

Calla had been at his mercy. Her weapon was down. She’d practically begged to answer for her crime, palms open.

But if he wanted to, he could have put in the command days ago. The moment he found himself in that throne room, gasping while his qi settled into August’s body, he could have ordered that Calla stay locked up and ready her execution. He didn’t. Of course he didn’t.

It’s not that he wants her dead, not really. He wants her on his side.

Anton’s eyes flicker across the carriage seats and land on Otta. Their vehicle lurches, the terrain changing from rough dirt to even stone. The bridge across the Jinzi River has stood for longer than their kingdom keeps records, built in the earliest years the moment there was travel between the north and the south. When the wheels lurch again and run onto smooth ground, they’ve finally found themselves in Lankil Province. The upper half of Talin, which the Palace of Heavens used to govern.

“You’re staring.”

Anton, slowly, reaches over. He loops his finger into Otta’s sleeve and lifts it slightly to show her the small blot of blood there.

“You really shouldn’t have entered the fight.”

“This again.” Otta rolls her eyes. “Relax, Majesty, I wasn’t intruding on anyone’s commands or anything of the like. You needed the help.”

“I didn’t. I don’t need anything.”

In fact, his bitterest innermost voice says, you’re supposed to need me.

The carriage slows. Before it’s pulled to a stop entirely, Anton gets to his feet and flings open the door, drawing protest from the two guards inside. The air is cool on his face. His neck has flushed underneath his jacket collar, sweat sticking to the nice fabrics.

Upon sighting him, the nearest Weisanna outside hops off his horse. The second carriage is immediately a frenzy when the door opens and the occupants bring out the injured. Most of the guards who fought against the attack will be fine. Scrapes and flesh wounds that need cleaning and wrapping.

“Talk to me,” Anton says to the Weisanna.

“We have six casualties.”

They counted five guards dead at the scene of the attack, but a sixth was bleeding out. Though the provinces are often short of resources, where there is a yamen, there must also be a healer. They’d hoped that he might hold out until they reached the yamen in the center of the province.

He didn’t make it, then.

Anton tilts his head to the trees. “We’ll dig graves. Bring them this way. Get them out of sight from the attendants; I don’t want anyone fainting and hitting their head.”

The Weisanna nods and disperses the instructions. The shield of night should give them an advantage when making camp out in the open. Though the delegation debated whether it was safe to find a random clearing off the main road after they crossed into Lankil, the numbers were on their side, and it was unlikely any rural group would best them in outright confrontation. The palace had brought almost double the number of guards as they had charges who needed protecting. Eight councilmembers, eighteen staff. Fifty guards, down to forty-four, ten of whom are standing in for the usual royal guard to accompany the king at all times. It ought to be perfectly fine. The only other option within traveling distance was an abandoned city that used to function as Lankil’s capital, and the likelihood of getting crushed by prewar infrastructure while sleeping there overnight was far higher than getting attacked by a province group in the open.

Anton starts to trudge toward the trees. He feels Otta slinking up beside him before he hears her; the goose bumps at the back of his neck raise in warning before she actually curls her hand upon his shoulder.

“I’ll say a few words,” she says, “to lay them to rest.”

“That really isn’t necessary.”

“Of course it is.”

He had seven years to lay her to rest. If he had done so earlier, perhaps he wouldn’t remain beholden to her now. Perhaps he would have found some other purpose in exile and never met Calla in the games either.

The guards begin to dig graves in the soft soil around the trees. To ensure their safety overnight, the Weisannas are surveying the perimeter, and Anton can see their movement through the thicket too. The councilmembers, meanwhile, remain in conversation at the roadside—something peculiar must be visible along the horizon, because they’re whispering about how much they miss San-Er and how much they hate seeing this space go to waste. It’s good that Lankil’s councilmember didn’t attend the delegation, or else they would be furious hearing these suggestions that are clearly economically infeasible.

“That should be fine,” Anton says when the graves are deep enough.

The guards go to fetch the bodies. Otta turns absently to watch them push back through the trees. She hums a tune under her breath until they’ve disappeared. Then, she says:

“You should sacrifice them.”

“I’m sorry?”

She tilts her head to the graves. “You managed it in the arena. You must know the power it can offer you.”

Anton raises his fingers to his temples. He presses hard, applying the pressure to think, but it’s also to get Otta out of his view, to use his hands to shield her away until he can resist the urge to snap at her.

“I’m not going to do that.”

“It’s lucky that the attacking group wasn’t using their qi. If they strike again, you should know how to combat them. Once you have the crown, it’ll give you inhuman strength. I can teach you more then.”

“Otta.” Anton faces her firmly, putting his hands behind his back. “This isn’t… I don’t think we’re after the same goal here.”

Otta’s looking at her sleeve. She tucks it in once, then again to hide the stain. “How do you mean?”

The guards haven’t returned yet with the bodies. The trees are whistling in accompaniment to Otta’s jaunty tune from before, their flowering branches waving with the wind.

“I was hardly aware you knew this much about qi,” he says, “and suddenly you’re promoting yourself to my teacher. That’s not going to work for me.”

“You have no choice,” Otta replies easily. “August is too strong. If you don’t make the active effort to combat him, he’ll overpower you with time.”

“He’ll over —” Anton cuts himself off, refusing to parrot her in his bewilderment. “Enough. If what you say is true, the crown will give me unlimited power. I require no additional teachings.”

Now Otta is frowning. Her eyes swivel fast—the guards are returning. She has less than a few seconds to get her retort in before they are overheard.

“Why are you being stubborn about this? You didn’t used to be this way.”

“Yes, I used to listen to every word out of your mouth,” Anton returns. When he thinks back to his last memory with Otta, she still looks the same. Yet when he looks into a mirror, he has changed countless times over. “Then you left me. I went into exile because of you, and you don’t think that takes a toll? I can’t be with you as we were, Otta. I won’t ever be again.”

Six dead bodies from the first half of the journey. The provinces are dangerous. People used to the comfort of the capital could never make it out here alone.

Otta stares him down. He expected a volatile argument, but there’s barely any reaction save for a small frown turning down the corners of her pink lips.

The guards come back and settle the dead into their graves.

“Fine,” she says. “I planned otherwise, anyway.”

Before Anton can ask what on earth she is talking about, Otta pivots and flutters out from the trees. He lets her go.

Lankil’s former capital looms in the distance.

Calla bites on her thumbnail, suppressing a sigh. She wants a cigarette. She should have bought a pack before they left San-Er, because heavens knows where she can find any out here. Certainly not in what used to qualify as cities in the provinces.

Wind blows into her eyes, harshly enough for her to tear up. The moon clears behind a cloud. Silver glitters along the horizon.

There remain ten or so abandoned cities in provincial Talin: prewar settlements that were evacuated when or shortly after Sica invaded. This city in Lankil doesn’t appear to have collapsed entirely, but it cannot have withstood the test of time either. Before the war, there was at least one city in each province, if not multiple in the provinces that were wealthiest. When Sica invaded, civilians either fled to San-Er, the last stronghold, or moved to the rural villages, where lifestyles were simpler. The luxuries of a city were too expensive to maintain—they couldn’t keep the water pipes or electricity grids going. After the war, there simply weren’t enough people left in the cities to rebuild.

Late-night documentaries in San-Er will sometimes run footage of abandoned cities that travelers took decades ago. Calla has watched a few in her sleepless hours, squinting at the screen with Mao Mao in her lap. They always seemed so uncanny. San-Er might have looked like this too, once. Buildings that rose proud with natural materials: browns and reds and yellows absorbing blue skies and rays of sunshine. Trees planted by the sidewalks. Grand arches and paved roads, a bird’s-eye view that made sense when overlooking the city. While these places were left to languish, San-Er took all of their burdens. San-Er was forced to grow new limbs that festered between old ones, replaced warm wooden beams with harsh, unyielding steel. It braced its favored ground for people, for people, for an unending influx of people, and it has become ruination in the process.

Calla bites harder on her nail, staring intently at the shape of the city from afar. It does little to soothe her tension. She has so much volatile energy that she would chew off her own hand if she could, but that probably wouldn’t grow back in the same way her nails will.

Who were they? Why launch an attack in the forest, of all places?

If Calla hadn’t caught the telltale whiff of their presence, she doubts that they would have succeeded in killing a king—if that was even their goal—but they would have taken out a lot more of the delegation than six guards. Situating themselves on the curve of the road meant they were waiting for the delegation to pass by. It would have been difficult for the numbers at the front to see anything if the back had been attacked. The group was trying to incite chaos, rather than snatch the grand prize. Everyone knows royalty travels at the front.

They could have chosen somewhere with wider ground. Why hide in the trees, disguised with a camouflage veil?

“I can help you with that.”

Calla doesn’t turn her head, recognizing the voice. She swivels only her eyes to find Otta Avia holding a roll of bandages, standing much closer to her side than she would like. Ugh. She wishes she had accepted Joselie’s earlier offer to dress her wounds.

“I’m ever grateful for the offer,” Calla says, tugging her sleeve over the blood on her arm. “But I can find a healer in the next village.”

“You’ll bleed out before we reach the next village. I heard the Weisannas saying it will take another day of travel.”

Much as Calla could keep refusing, Otta Avia must have some motive for approaching her. Better to hear this now than await a lingering viper. Silently, Calla pulls her sleeve up, offering the wound.

“How can I thank you?” she asks wryly.

“You’ll find a way.” Otta reaches into the small fabric bag she has hanging from her shoulder. It wasn’t there earlier, at the scene of the attack. She pulls out a bottle of antiseptic.

A few moments of silence pass. Otta pours the liquid. Calla stoically bears the sting.

“So,” Otta chirps, “I don’t suppose you know why we were attacked?”

“I’m still not convinced you didn’t have something to do with it, Otta.”

Calla doesn’t bother mincing her accusations, but she has to admit that said accusations are losing steam. It takes more energy trying to be nasty and pushing blame Otta’s way than it does applying a neutral logic to the situation: Calla doesn’t quite understand what Otta would have to gain when she’s the one directing the delegation through the borderlands, and she’s the one who claims she overheard enough information from King Kasa to find the crown.

“I don’t know why,” Calla says, answering properly when Otta doesn’t return the dig. “All the bodies were collected, but there’s nothing of note. Our best guess is an anti-monarchy guerrilla group. Nothing confirms it was the Dovetail.”

“Of course.” Otta unravels a length of the bandage. “Pockets of rebels have always existed. The king making a visit out into the provinces is sure to attract them.”

“Did they seem like rebels to you?”

“They were definitive threats to our monarch. So it stuns me that you would let one come close on purpose.”

Calla shifts. Her sword clatters, brushing against both her leather trousers and the fabric of the coat she’s tied around her waist. Her head hums with noise.

“That wasn’t what happened,” she counters.

“Really?” Otta, with her clean robes and clean hands, keeps her tone as sweet as honey while she places one end of the bandage over the wound. “It certainly seemed so. Forgive me if I misjudged you.”

Otta couldn’t have caught much of the scene before the man was rushing at Anton, or else Calla would have spotted her presence through the trees. How much did she see? How much did she hear?

“You seemed perfectly capable of incapacitating the attacker, anyway.”

“I shouldn’t have had to.”

“No,” Calla agrees. She holds back a wince as Otta wraps the bandage over itself, tightening its hold upon her arm. “Because there was never danger to begin with. You’ve never seen your monarch fight. You’ve been gone so long that you have no idea how things have changed. He would have handled it fine.”

“And what if he had been injured?” Otta returns. She looks up. Her eyes are pools of black, identical to the shadows darkening with the hour. “It’s an age-old advisor tactic, I understand. He becomes bedridden, in need of rest. You prevent anyone else from coming near him so he has only your ear for guidance.”

“You’re paranoid.”

Otta smiles. While her hands still, a small breeze blows her hair out of her face, letting the wisps fall into a perfect frame. “Aren’t you?”

There’s a commotion where the delegation is making camp, and they both turn to see the guards shooing off a councilmember who is trying to open the final carriage. By the king’s orders, it is to be left alone. Even discounting the busyness occupying the rest of the delegation, Calla and Otta are far from anyone’s hearing range. Still, Calla drops her volume when she says:

“You should stop trying to wage war against me, Otta. We don’t have to be enemies. We are hardly even competitors.”

“Oh, I know.” Otta ties a bow on the bandage. “ Competitors would be a terribly inaccurate word. You aren’t even close to holding equal footing with me.”

Is she fucking serious?

Calla yanks her arm back. Enough. She is wasting time arguing with Otta, as though they are schoolchildren sniping over the best toy on the playground. Otta lets her stride away, feigning innocence over why Calla would have reacted so suddenly.

“I am only doing you a favor by warning you,” Otta calls after her. “You cannot keep what isn’t yours.”

Calla grits her teeth. A new headache is starting. Before Otta can piss her off further, she skirts around the carriages, making for the bags to help with unloading.

“Hello, Highness,” Joselie greets, already building a tent. “You’re looking a little pale.”

“I’m fine,” Calla says. She gestures for the rest of the pole. “Let me help.”

There’s brutal annoyance stirring in her chest, but beneath it, there’s also clarity: the first indicator that maybe Calla has misunderstood what prowls before her. Here is where Otta has misstepped; here is the injured limb that she has put weight on during battle, exposing her weaker parts without knowing. If this were about Anton, she wouldn’t speak about him so demeaningly. He is not a puppet on strings that Otta and Calla can take turns tugging. He is a player forceful enough to hold a throne—and Otta in her fancy sleeves and beautiful gowns must know that is not merely something to keep .

Calla looks up at the burgeoning stars. If she squints, she can imagine how the province dwellers see a pantheon in their shapes. She can imagine why they might believe in gods who live in the heavens, looking over mortal lives and injecting unnatural force into their qi when they commit sacrifices in their patron’s name.

“Your Highness, you’re turning the pole the wrong way.”

Calla stops. She clears her throat. “You know what? Hand me the hammer and nails instead.”

Almost an hour after they’ve entered Lankil, Galipei announces that the perimeter has been thoroughly examined and they should settle into camp for the night. Anton hears it through his thin tent fabric while he’s in the middle of inspecting a map he requested from one of the guards, shining an electric flashlight.

He’s warned the guards that he will be resting. They are not to let anyone in. Not Calla, not Otta. It doesn’t matter if they say the entire kingdom is burning down; it can wait for tomorrow when they’re on the move again.

When the zip opens, he shouldn’t be surprised that it is Galipei who has managed to enter. Anton cannot exactly lock the doors on a tent, as he can in his palace quarters to avoid Galipei.

“I had quite specific instructions for the guards out there,” Anton says dryly.

“From experience, the guards know that instructions don’t apply to me,” Galipei replies. “It’s strange. They must be wondering why you have forgotten.”

Anton doesn’t like where this is going. He turns his map facedown.

“Maybe it’s time you stop expecting that you’ll receive special treatment, Galipei.”

“Given that I am the head of your royal guard, usually that’s called around-the-clock security .”

The electric flashlight in his hand wavers. Instead of turning it off, Anton aims it directly at Galipei—a warning, a line drawn in caution. The guard barely flinches. He shouldn’t be able to see anything past the glaring beam, but he stares straight at Anton.

“Did you need something?” Anton asks.

“I’d like to know if there’s anything you wish to tell me.”

The tent shivers. Its center pole clanks against a loose screw at the top, keeping in tune with a high-pitched cry that sounds across the camp. While the southern provinces are effectively barren of wildlife, overhunted with the intent of selling meat into the twin cities, the northern provinces stir with animals of the land. Lankil isn’t as woodsy as Leysa, which means there’s more open space, more room for sound to travel on each gust of wind.

Anton doesn’t know how to respond. He can only assume that Galipei’s suspicion has come to a head, and he needs to deal with the problem before it grows unmanageable. Still, Anton must take too long trying to decipher the tone of this confrontation, because Galipei strides forward without waiting for permission. His hand closes around the flashlight; he pushes it up to get the beam away, lighting the top of the tent.

Something is happening. Where Galipei’s fingers overlap Anton’s, he loses sensation. His arms weaken, as though he has pinched a nerve. His left ear goes out, then tunes back in with frantic buzzing.

It’s August. He’s fighting for control.

“I saw the letters in your study before we left for the delegation,” Galipei says carefully. “So I want to know what exactly happened back there.”

Even if Anton wants to lie in that moment, he can’t. If he opens his mouth, someone else will speak.

Back there… back in the palace? Or back at the scene of the attack?

Anton grits his teeth around a section of his inner cheek and bites down hard. A metallic taste floods his mouth, blood dripping down his throat. The pain shoves him back into the situation—and feeling returns to his fingers. Though he tries to pry out of Galipei’s grasp, Galipei takes that as a challenge and turns the beam on him.

“Enough!”

Anton tosses the flashlight to the side. Though it clatters to the tent floor and rolls hard enough to dislodge the battery, flicking the beam off, the light has already seared an imprint into his vision. He blinks rapidly to clear it.

“I don’t know what has gotten into you,” Anton says, trying to summon force into his voice. “But this is out of line.”

He expects Galipei to argue. To press further until he breaks past why exactly Anton has no idea what he’s talking about. Instead, Galipei turns on his heel and exits, whacking the tent flap out of the way.

Which is arguably much worse, because that means Anton has already lost the charade.

Shit.

He’s in trouble.

When nightfall comes, the voices begin.

… don’t… it’ll work… listen to me… Sinoa, no, no—

Calla squeezes her eyes shut, bracing her head in her hands. She keeps hearing that name. Again and again, whether the words draw nearer or flitter farther, she’s hearing the same name. Sinoa .

Across the tent, Joselie is fast asleep. Calla pushed all the pillows at the old woman and took station in the corner, sitting with her arms propped on her knees. Joselie—thank goodness—didn’t bother protesting and promptly went to sleep.

… lose… can’t defeat me.

Calla gets to her feet. Enough. She isn’t so much of an idiot to think she’s conjuring a name out of nowhere, so it can’t possibly be delirium without cause. Every spasm at the base of her head prompts a hiss of voices, and each time they get louder, she has the peculiar sense that they are memories she’s forgotten about.

This wasn’t her original name, though. No way. She would know if it was. She would recognize it. The more she tries to bear it, the more she’s certain these voices aren’t talking to her. Certainly not the little orphan girl she would have been when she possessed a different name.

Calla tries to stretch out her arm. The wound complains as soon as she moves and, registering the feeling of the bandage soaking through, she winces and goes to undo it. Underneath, the cut has mostly stopped bleeding. Changing her bandages once more should do the trick to soak up the rest of the goop.

Calla stops. She leans back, putting her arm in the lantern light beaming through the tent fabric from outside. It’s too dark. She tosses the bandage onto the floor and leaves the tent, goose bumps rising on her arms immediately.

With better light, she eyes the smear of blood below her puckered wound. She feels deranged at first. The voices continue whispering in her ear—she must be searching for a place to put blame. But this isn’t conjured. The smear of blood makes one straight horizontal line, then a double loop upward. This isn’t an inadvertent stain. This is another sigil.

A new burst of pain explodes behind her eyes, as if confirming the realization. Stumbling, Calla goes back into her tent and grabs her sword, leaving her attendant to sleep. She moves quick and low, keeping out of the eyeline of the guards. Calla reaches Otta’s tent in seconds, opens the flap before lunging in.

The tent is empty.

Calla pauses, drawing to a stop and recalculating. She scans the neat pallet and finds nothing of interest. It’s not like there is anywhere on the campsite that Otta could go. Any guard who spots her would politely ask her to return to her tent.

Sinoa… now… now …

She reverses back out through the tent flap. There must be rainfall nearby in the province. Mist hovers low to ground, painting the surroundings with a gray haze. The voices echo, again again again, and by some instinct, Calla turns and gazes into the distance, toward the abandoned city.

Now I’ve got you.

“What the fuck?” Calla says out loud. “Otta?”

Come on.

Calla waits a moment, trying to determine whether she’s hallucinating this entire episode. In her periphery, there stands a guard humming, bored, while he peruses his surroundings. He hasn’t noticed her yet. Though Calla remains where she is, a terrible twisting sensation funnels up her nose, presses at her eyes, illuminates the space around her. She almost gags when she blinks and finds yellow light pressing behind her eyes.

“Shit,” she spits. She clamps her arms around her head. The night tilts; the world tilts. All her other cheap tricks aren’t working this time—when she tries to throw her hands out to push the feeling away, nothing ejects. She is an animal sealed inside a glass cage, shaken by a giant’s hand for amusement.

“Stop,” Calla gasps. She scrabbles for her collar. Maybe if she scrubs the sigil off, this will all be over. Maybe if—

The light in her eyes flares to an intolerable point. The moment the nearest guard turns away, Calla breaks into a dead sprint, heading for the city.