Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

By the first rays of morning, they’re almost at the other end of long, curvy Lankil Province. They’ll pass into Laho shortly, which shouldn’t take more than another day to cross. Laho Province is shaped like two rectangles pressed together—a common feature among most of the provinces deeper inland, where they neatly sectioned the land apart for ease of governance. Provinces that formed around natural rivers and mountains must draw their lines accordingly, but Talin’s north is smooth land and flat desert terrain, fit for straight borders. It causes spats between councilmembers sometimes when their generals slack off and don’t patrol all the way to the edge of the province, assuming the neighboring soldiers will pick up the extra work.

Calla rides in the second carriage, digging through Galipei’s bag. She’s not a fan of sitting upright in his body. The carriage is past capacity, and she’s jammed in tight with the other Weisannas working the councilmembers’ protection detail. With his height, his head brushes the top of the carriage every time there’s a pebble on the road and the wheels jostle, which is starting to cause static with his hair. Her hair. Whatever.

Calla pulls out a digital watch and turns it around in inspection. The numbers aren’t moving, permanently stuck at 05:27. She doesn’t know why Galipei is carrying around a broken watch. Maybe he stopped it on purpose at some point or another to track their journey. After Laho, there’s Actia Province, known for being half sand. Some of it spills into Rincun to its north too, but Rincun’s elements are harsher with the borderlands on its other side. Rather than sand, it is stone; rather than dunes, it sees cold steppes.

Three more provinces, Calla tells herself.

Her hand clunks against a cellular device at the bottom of the bag. It is small, like the one she keeps on herself too, tucked with her body stored in the last carriage, so she doubts it’ll work in the provinces. Still, out of sheer curiosity, Calla plucks the phone out and pulls the cellular antenna to see if it will connect. Galipei’s stupid thick arms make it so that she has to squirm against the guards on either side of her, and across the seats, Councilmember Mugo gives her a funny look. Calla ignores him.

No signal.

At that moment, there is another chirping sound in the carriage, though.

“Hello?” Mugo answers, practically yelling into his phone. His is larger, the size of his head. Made to pick up signal in the provinces and transmit all the way from San-Er. “Speak up. The cell towers are miles away.”

Every passenger in the carriage turns to follow his conversation. It can hardly be helped when he’s speaking at such volume.

“What?” He pauses. Before their very eyes, Mugo loses blood in his face, turning washboard pale. “Why would— goodness . I can inform His Majesty.”

“What is it?” Calla asks the moment Mugo hangs up. They don’t exactly have time to stop for Mugo to deliver a message.

“Councilmember Naurilus is dead. Murdered.”

Murmurs travel through the carriage. Mugo tries to lower the antenna on his phone, and it makes a sharp noise, almost snapping sideways instead.

“Has the palace caught the perpetrator?” Savin asks, leaning over from the end, where she’s seated.

Mugo shakes his head. “It happened a few minutes ago. They thought to call me first so I could speak to the king.”

Calla wishes she had kept Otta’s map on her so she could look more closely at it now. Though Otta used it to mark a location in the borderlands, the existing paper still shows the entirety of Talin. San-Er at the bottom, sticking out of the southeast. The provinces spreading past the wall: Eigi, encompassing most of that land border, giving way to Cirea on its immediate right. Cirea, which Councilmember Naurilus governed.

Calla reaches around the other guards and yanks the window curtain aside. Though there are occasional copses of trees, they’re otherwise surrounded by green fields. It isn’t a safe place to stop.

“We’re almost in Laho,” she says, pointing to the flat land outside. “You may deliver this news to His Majesty when we make camp for the night. We cannot idle here.”

Mugo puffs up his chest. “Unchecked disruption in Cirea could severely impact the kingdom within one afternoon. His Majesty should appoint a temporary substitute immediately.”

It isn’t Mugo’s civic responsibility to report a crime. This is a quick power grab when the opportunity presents itself. He already has Eigi. Adding Cirea would practically give him a small kingdom.

“We’re about to enter the Dovetail’s home base,” Calla warns. “Stay put. No temporary substitute is going to change anything about Cirea in this current moment.”

But Mugo is already standing. The councilmembers seated along his row cluck, annoyed to be jostled. “It would assuage the people.”

“What? Knowing that one useless councilmember has been replaced by another?”

Mugo’s eyes sharpen. Calla stifles a sigh, realizing she’s giving far too much attitude for Galipei Weisanna’s usual level.

“Look,” she suggests, trying to smooth over the waves she just made. “You joined this delegation for a very important matter. We must get to the crown before Otta Avia claims it. Are you going to put that at risk to handle affairs in the capital? If Otta decimates the kingdom, your very role may dissolve, and then what?”

“Do not engage in fearmongering over how the council conducts its affairs.” Mugo pushes through the carriage. “Please excuse me.” The other councilmembers call complaints, asking him to sit back down, to calm down, but Mugo reaches for the door handle, meaning to throw it open and force the driver to a stop.

“Stop, stop .” Calla rises too. “At least wait until we’re sure we haven’t entered Laho yet—”

Before Calla has finished her sentence, the carriage screeches to a halt, the driver outside giving a shout of alarm. She swivels, alarmed, looking out the window and spotting movement in the distance.

“What was that ?” one of the Weisannas demands.

Mugo opens the door.

“Hey!”

Calla dives after him, pulling the councilmember back before he can step properly into the open. The moment she’s exposed, though, something lands in her shoulder and pierces through muscle. The sight of a metal arrow jutting from her guard uniform is more shocking than the burst of pain in her shoulder. A weapon like that must cost an arm and a leg.

Another arrow whistles through the air and strikes the side of the carriage.

“Shit,” Calla spits. “Get in ! We’re under attack.”

Civilians of San-Er, the television in the barbershop runs on a loop, this is a hostile takeover.

Councilmember Aliha rolls his eyes. He’s almost home, walking from the palace to his second home in Er for a midmorning meal, and in that time he’s passed three other screens with similar crowds gathered before them.

Look around. Is this the life that the old gods wanted for us when they forged Talin? We were born to jump, and yet the throne commands you stay on the ground.

The Crescent Societies have hacked into the palace broadcast system and connected to every channel across San-Er. It’s ridiculous. If people really believed their religious nonsense, their groups wouldn’t have been pushed to the shadows of the cities, left to practice only in the last remaining temples. Yet San-Er loves novelty, and whenever something comes along to disrupt their daily monotony, the people will give it their every bit of attention, regardless of what it is.

Aliha mutters and grumbles, pushing past the barbershop crowd. No one inside is working anymore, too fascinated with the broadcast. He’s spent this whole morning looking at export numbers from Dacia to make sure their factories can get the produce they need to sell rice, to sort seeds, to distribute accordingly on the year’s quotas, and what is San-Er doing in gratitude? Being useless and waiting on handouts from the council, of course. He’s tired of the grumbling from Dacia that they can’t meet the numbers, and he’s tired of the grumbling from inside the cities that it’s not enough. It’s not his fault the farmers are lazy. His father’s grandfather was the one who was handed Dacia Province the year the nobility were in tatters after the war with Sica. In a better world, the Alihas would have been given a more impactful province—he made a grab for Kelitu when the Makusas fucked up, but of course Kasa went with the Rehanous.

With a heft of his briefcase, Aliha ducks under a clothesline. Dirty water drips from a sock and onto his shoulder. He yanks the sock off the line and throws it onto the muddy ground, annoyed. This part of San is horrible. Full of miscreants and delinquents who will leave the windows wide open while they blast their televisions and lie on their beds the whole day. The ground-floor apartments he passes are all occupied at this hour, screen after screen after screen.

No council, no governance. The gods direct to the throne, direct to the people.

A bucket of water splashes into the alley behind him. Aliha whirls around, his curses prepared, but there’s no one on the balcony to shake his fist at, as he expected. It fell on its own and is slowly rolling to a stop by a trash bag.

“Strange,” he mutters. He’d better hurry out of here, before his daughter thinks he isn’t going to join her for a bowl of noodles. She’s been delicate since she was attacked unprovoked during the king’s games, and she doesn’t go outside anymore in fear of the danger.

The moment Aliha turns to proceed down the alley, though, he spots a man who’s slunk in from the other end, tossing an orange in his hands.

“Councilmember,” the man greets. “Do you remember me?”

Aliha frowns. If this is an attempted robbery, it won’t be long before the surveillance cameras register the impending crime and send palace guards. Besides, he isn’t carrying much cash, so it will be a lost cause.

“I’m afraid not,” Aliha replies. “If you’ll excuse me—”

The man’s arm shoots out, blocking his way before he can move past. Underneath his sleeve, there’s a crescent moon tattooed on his wrist.

A flutter of alarm shivers down Aliha’s back. He doesn’t want to risk it: he turns on his heel and moves in the other direction, but there’s a blur of movement, and suddenly someone is leaping down from the balcony he thought empty before, blocking his path yet again. A woman this time, the two edges of a crescent moon peeking over the cut of her shirt collar.

“Get out of my way,” he demands. “Who do you think you are—”

Something pierces his side. He doesn’t register the feeling at first, only that it is cold, and foreign. Then the pain begins.

“Fuck you for putting me in jail,” the woman whispers viciously. She pulls the knife out. Then shoves it in again, two inches to the left. “It was your daughter’s fault for getting in my way. I’m not surprised she couldn’t run fast when she was weighed down by five thousand fucking shopping bags on each arm. Scum .”

The knife tears out. Aliha touches the wound, holds the pouring red. If he could just get somewhere, if he could wait until the guards come…

He cries out, dropping to his knees. He’s turned his back on the man at the other end of the alley, and something has been pushed right through his back, exiting through his chest. His vision swims. Gray shadows. Gray puddles. Only his red blood offers some sort of color on the wet floor when he spasms and falls to his side, his head smashing hard into the half-ripped remnants of a trash bag.

“They should have sent me after you earlier,” the woman mutters. She wipes down her knife handle. “You belong with the trash. Have fun rotting in it.”

Councilmember Aliha hears her throw the knife beside him, the clatter of metal as loud as a screeching factory reset. Then a gurgle of blood oozes from his mouth, filling his lungs, and he hears nothing more.