Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

Anton comes to with his head pounding.

His left eye is shielded with a veil of red. A scratch through his brow, he assumes, if blood is streaming directly into his vision. It doesn’t seem like he’s been out for long. He knocked his head hard when the carriage took a tumble. They’ve landed in a ditch.

He shifts, trying to find his footing with the carriage on its side. The two guards are entirely out, heads lolled back. Alive, but they’re useless to him if they’re this slow to recover.

Anton wipes his forehead, trying to stanch the blood. He stands, then shoves his elbow hard against the window above him. It takes three strikes before the glass shatters, crumbling inside the carriage in large shards.

What happened out there? How did their driver not see a giant ditch ?

When Anton hauls himself through the window, his arm hits a net. He freezes. This is worse than he initially assumed. On the other side of the net, albeit muffled, he hears the clang of swords. He tries to yank at the covering, move it aside so that he can extricate himself, but it’s too wide. Its very purpose is to keep him in.

Shit. How many carriages hit the ditch? Did they all crash, or did the rest have time to slow by the time they saw the first driving off course?

Anton rummages in his pockets for a knife, then slashes at the net wherever he can make contact. It doesn’t cut. He tries between the lines, saws furiously at the interwoven knots, but nothing gives.

“Hey!” Anton starts shouting. “Someone—”

“ Shush! Shush! ”

A thump echoes from the carriage exterior, sounding like boots landing in the ditch. Seconds later, Galipei Weisanna appears on the other side of the net. His silver eyes scan their surroundings quickly, searching for an opening.

“Stay quiet. I assume they’re coming for you. We’ll make an escape before they get through the guards.”

Galipei has sounded strange since last night. It still hasn’t gone away. Maybe he’s plotting something too. Maybe he’s responsible for this.

“What’s going on out there?” Anton demands. The ground shudders. Was that an explosive ?

“We’ve entered Laho. I’m willing to bet anything we’re being attacked by the Dovetail.” Galipei’s voice grows muffled while he slinks around the carriage, trying to find the end of the net. “Can you… other side?”

Although Anton doesn’t hear most of Galipei’s question, he can take a guess at what his guard asked. He pulls away from the orange light of the higher window and shifts to the lower one. It’s almost pressed to the ground in the overturned carriage. He kicks it free too, letting the broken shards fall outward, then pokes his head through the hollowed window frame.

Galipei is crouching outside.

“Squeeze through.”

“In the mud ?” Anton grumbles.

Galipei rolls his eyes. Then… he blows a puff of air up, as if he’s trying to get hair off his forehead.

There’s no hair covering his forehead and falling into his eyes. Someone else, though, certainly does that often, but how could—

“Let’s go . We don’t have time to waste, and this is the only section the net doesn’t cover. I can’t lift it otherwise. They have some magnetic shit on the edges.”

Gritting his teeth, Anton lowers himself out of the carriage window, squeezing into the small burrow. Someone screams, no more than ten paces away, and Galipei sucks in his breath, glancing over his shoulder. At the last few inches, he doesn’t wait for Anton to finish crawling, and merely reaches in to yank him out and to his feet.

Shrapnel strikes the ground right beside the ditch. Dirt sprays in, and Anton flinches, uncomprehending. He’s only seen this sort of weaponry in the textbooks, in Talin’s battles with Sica. After the war was won, the palace removed everything from distribution, destroyed it en masse. Weapons remain outlawed in the capital to this day. They don’t need them anymore, after all. No use risking them being wielded against the throne once their foreign enemy was vanquished.

“They’ve got good arrows too,” Galipei supplies, seeing Anton’s expression. He points to his shoulder; now that Anton’s not looking through a net, he sees Galipei’s enormous red stain, which is steadily growing. “I think I’ve still got the arrowhead in there somewhere.”

“You should probably get that out.”

“No kidding.” Galipei waits a moment for the dirt to settle, then goes to peer over the edge. Anton is close behind him, although he has to strain to get his head—August’s shorter head—over the edge of the ditch for visibility.

“Who is doing this?” Anton asks lowly. “Same group as the one in Leysa?”

“They’re wearing the same clothes, so my guess is yes. They’ve outnumbered us this time. I only got a quick glance before ducking out of sight, but they’re jumping, which means the Weisannas either need to fight back in kind, or we’re going to be eliminated.”

“Jumping?” Anton echoes. “They can’t possibly be strong enough to invade palace guards.”

“San-Er’s bloodlines aren’t inherently stronger than the provinces—they’re palace guards , not palace aristocrats,” Galipei mutters in reply. “It seems to be working plenty well, anyway. They’re jumping in, killing us, then jumping out. We don’t have enough Weisannas to put up a good defense by mere insusceptibility. Once the guards are overwhelmed, they’ll go for the carriages and attack the councilmembers. I’m not sure the delegation will survive this.”

Weisannas. The guards. Has Galipei always spoken like that?

“We’ll take a horse and escape when the opportunity comes,” he goes on. “We don’t need everyone present to go after the crown—if anything, they’re only useless baggage.”

Anton finally spots where the other carriages have stopped, past the frantic scene of battling guards. The carriages are still lined up in an orderly fashion with the horses, relatively undamaged. The last one sits exposed, no lock on the door, no way to stop any random rural dweller from opening it and seeing what lies inside.

“No,” Anton says.

Galipei looks back at him, flabbergasted. “No?”

“No, not yet—”

Another round of shrapnel strikes the ground right beside the ditch. This time, it’s not an accidental misfire; it’s an intentional projectile, dispersing plumes of smoke into the ditch. Though Anton turns, thinking they must move now or else be spotted, it’s already too late.

A man lands in the ditch. He’s followed by ten others, each one of them clutching a blade.

“Hands up,” he says.

They’re surrounded.

Calla strains against the bindings on her wrists, but she can’t find any give in the rope. If she were in her own body, her arms would be more limber, enough so that she might be successful getting her hands in front of her. Then she could untie her ankles and run. Galipei, though, is muscular for appearance, his wide shoulders more a burden in this moment than any privilege.

“Will you stop squirming?” a voice hisses beside her.

Although Calla has been blindfolded, they set her and Anton apart from the councilmembers in a quick rush, so it could only be him telling her off. After they were pulled from the ditch, they were rapidly bound and set down. Calla doesn’t understand why they’re not being killed. She can hear one of the councilmembers near the carriages protesting: the blindfold is too tight, the binding is too tight, the ground is too hard. Whoever keeps yapping doesn’t understand that these people could take a knife to their throat in a heartbeat.

So why don’t they?

“I’m trying to get us out,” Calla replies lowly. “Maybe if you tried squirming too, you could get your skinny arms out of those binds.”

That shuts Anton up for a minute. Perhaps he’s wondering whether he ought to be offended when, technically, she’s insulting August’s arms.

“We’re about to die and you’re thinking about my arms.”

“I’ll kill you myself if you say one more word.”

Anton snorts. “Galipei Weisanna, when did you develop such an attitude?”

That jolts Calla back to her senses. She tries to push her face against her shoulder, but it doesn’t move the blindfold.

“Look,” she says. “I don’t know what they want us around for, but they won’t keep us alive long.”

There’s chatter among the attackers, somewhere in the vicinity. Laho boasts the sort of flat plains made of rock and grass. Sound travels without restriction. Though Calla can’t pick out exactly what they’re saying, she knows they’re deep in debate.

“There’s an easy way out of this,” Anton says suddenly. “Your shoulder is still bleeding. Focus on drawing qi out of the wound, and you can jump blindfolded.”

Her chest pulses. The sigil is still there. She can hear the horses by the carriages too—it would be a quick escape.

“Why don’t you do it, Majesty?” she asks. “You’re a skilled jumper, after all.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Don’t be difficult on purpose.”

“Am I? Surely you understand the hesitation to lose a powerful body, Calla.”

Calla freezes midmotion, her wrists straining against the ropes. So he’s figured it out.

“Look,” Calla says slowly. “I did what I needed—”

“Did Otta even attack you?”

“Yes!” Of course the first question he asks is about Otta’s guilt. “She lured me off the campsite, practically bashed me over the head with qi, and then left a map to a location in the borderlands. I don’t know what her goal is. But I know where she’s going, even if it’s a trap.”

Anton makes a low sound. “Classic. I wouldn’t expect anything less from her.”

That response infuriates her even more than him asking whether Otta actually attacked. Calla tugs hard once more on the ropes, but there is clearly no chance of getting free. The argument among the attackers is starting to quiet. Though Calla isn’t putting her full attention toward eavesdropping, it occurs to her then that it’s nevertheless strange she isn’t picking up anything.

They’re not speaking Talinese at all.

The field goes quiet. Something shifts. When Calla hears a rapidly nearing stride cutting through the dried grass, she knows they’re coming directly for her, and that’s before the fist slams hard into the side of her face.

Oh, fuck—

Calla bites down on her yelp, swallowing the sound. Her head strikes the grass; her shoulder crunches when it smacks into the ground. Her hands are still bound behind her so she can’t brace when she falls, nor can she brace against the next kick on her chest. She’s never been more glad to be wearing Galipei in the midst of this. That impact would have stung so badly upon her own chest.

“Was this some reverse ambush all along, then? Terribly stupid to think you wouldn’t answer for it.”

The attacker is speaking to her. Confronting her.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Calla growls back.

Maybe the confusion captures their curiosity. Suddenly, her blindfold is yanked off, and a man takes shape before her. He hauls her chin up. Checks the color of her eyes.

“Are you,” the man says, “Galipei Weisanna?”

Morning beams over the horizon. Brilliant red streaks through the skies, and a flock of birds takes flight overhead. Doves, native to the central provinces despite the unlikely, harsh environment.

“I am,” she says. “Who are you?”

It is the wrong thing to say. The man strikes his fist into her nose, and she’s entirely upside-down for a moment before realizing that her head is simply tilting upon the grass, her vision spinning, spinning—

“The one you communicated with,” he spits. “The one you made agreement with. Now, why did we bury our fighters in Leysa, huh? You thought it would be worthwhile to take out some of our numbers that way?”

“Shit,” Calla mutters.

Why would Galipei make an agreement with the Dovetail?

The man yanks her back up by her hair. She strains to catch a glimpse of Anton at her side. He’s listening closely. He must be putting it together as she is.

“For your sheer stupidity and failure—”

“You didn’t do your part,” Calla interrupts in a rush. Her bottom lip is starting to swell. If she pushes the right buttons, she’ll get answers. “The attacking group was caught early. That wasn’t the agreement.”

He throws her down. There’s blood dripping from her face, painting the grass.

“We put everything at risk. We took your information and promised safety for your king. That is more than the agreement.”

“I didn’t see it that way.” She’s scrambling to make sense of the timeline. The attack in Rincun, the attacks across the provinces. Leysa in the forest, now this ditch in Laho. “I acted accordingly thereafter.”

The man shakes his head. When he turns away, gesturing for another member to bring him his sword, Calla finally spots a small dove tattooed at the back of his neck.

“Affairs were conducted far more smoothly when we were speaking to Prince August directly. We don’t want you near divine matters.”

Divine matters. Prince August.

Her inhale lodges in her throat.

Galipei made an agreement with the Dovetail because August was speaking to the Dovetail. August instructed the attacks on the provinces; he dictated the instructions before his coronation, before Anton invaded him. It seems, in fact, that Anton interrupted a carefully laid set of plans. Send the provinces into a frenzy, blame the councilmembers, take complete control over Talin.

God. She put him on this throne.

“Anton,” Calla says suddenly. It’s the end of the line. A part of her knows that she’s exposing him on purpose. Let there be no other option. Push him into the corner that will force his hand. Say whatever it takes to lock their convict chains together. “I’m going. Come with me. I need you.”

She doesn’t wait for an answer. It isn’t the same panic that culminated in Lankil’s city, but the moment she peers inward, the sensation is waiting inside her—an abyss merely zipped away in her mind rather than sealed over. An exhale, an inhale. Blood trickles from her shoulder, leaks down her arm, into her palms.

Pain darts down her spine, flashes a burst of light inside her head. When Calla opens her eyes again, she’s staring up at the ceiling of a carriage, her body tingling with circulating blood and regained feeling. The moment she moves, she feels the grime of her dirty clothes, which are still covered with the ash of Lankil’s city.

It worked.

There’s a sound to her left. Calla is slow to turn, groggy. The last thing she expects to see is the lid suddenly flying off a long crate, and then someone sitting up inside.

“What the fuck— ”

“My god, I’m as stiff as a board. I can’t believe they left me lying around like this in storage.”

Calla remembers the photo Anton kept in his apartment, the one of his younger self at the Palace of Earth. Black eyes and tousled hair, a strong brow and perfectly symmetrical features.

“You brought your birth body along on this journey?” she exclaims. “Are you out of your mind? Have we been wasting an entire carriage for this?”

“I brought it along because chances were high that you would force me out of August before the journey was over, and I was right,” he snaps back. “Are we going? August and Galipei are waking up.”

Shit. Shit shit shit—

Calla pushes the carriage door open. Before she’s even gathered her bearings and determined which direction she should turn, she’s drawn her sword, at the ready. Her body knows to react with the slightest prompt, senses the world around them and adjusts accordingly. Her legs prepare to spring. Her fingers flex, securing a grip. She’s so happy to be back. No other body in this world is right for her.

In the bright morning light, Calla swings her blade on the rope connecting the horse to the carriage. She shoves her sword back into its sheath, then climbs into the saddle, teetering one way before gaining her balance.

“Come on!” she hisses.

With a frantic squeeze of her legs, she maneuvers the horse the other way. Anton stumbles out of the carriage; she holds her arm for him to grab and hauls him onto the horse just as there are shouts from the field. She spares a glance over.

Galipei is staggering to his feet.

“We’re going north,” Anton instructs, hands on her shoulders to veer her toward the right.

Calla nods. Before the Dovetail can start shooting their arrows, she tugs the reins and bolts away at high speed.

August Shenzhi returns to consciousness as if he has awakened from a dream.

On his first blink, he knows that something is outrageously awry. On the second, he registers the blindfold, then the bindings on his wrists.

“ Enough of this ,” he hears beside him. “ Who left? Get them back. ”

The air smells strange. Like something has burned, cradled in the sun’s touch for too long. A grunt echoes beside him, and he recognizes Galipei’s presence in an instant. Are they tied up? Are they out in the provinces?

Faintly, his memories flutter by when he tries to reach for them, but all that has happened outside of his control fades away like smoke through a sieve. His body is sore, indicating frequent movement in the last few days. He recalls nothing except the persistent tug of resentment. Though his qi was suppressed, he can feel every bit of effort it made to tear itself back to the surface, starting with the burst of rage that mottles the inside of his throat at present.

With a practiced ease, August leans his face onto his knees and scrapes the blindfold off. The people who take shape before him are entirely unfamiliar, but that doesn’t change the matter that he has been tied up, and they are looming over him with swords. August jumps and lands in the nearest man without any struggle. He unsheathes the sword hanging at his side and sticks it into his occupied body, then jumps before he feels the pain, flashing light so furiously that he hears cries when he lands again.

He’s found someone with a knife. Someone else screams, begs, “Wait, no! Stop!” and the knife is in his neck.

He moves. Again. Again.

By the sixth jump it seems most of the people nearby have fled, leaving the range of ten feet, and August wipes his hands, grimacing at how much this one is sweating. It doesn’t give him pause—he kills them, then jumps back to his own body at last.

The ground is hard and uncomfortable under him. He pats around his limbs before he dares to stand, checks his clothes, his bruises, looking for some sign to show what they’re doing out here.

“Galipei?”

His guard is woozy on his feet. In the time it took August to attack their opponents, Galipei has only just gotten his bearings. Blood smears the space from his neck to his torso. Though his hands remain bound, he is not blindfolded. When he looks at August properly, his eyes dilate, then focus, his pupils a pinprick in the silver.

“It’s you,” Galipei rasps. “August, you’re back.”

“What the fuck,” August rumbles, “is going on?”