Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

The crown has slept for well past a century, and it doesn’t take kindly to being awakened.

The last time it was worn, Talin looked different. The ocean hemmed every corner of the land, its tides brushing against the northern mountains. The provinces were tribute states, fractured in varying shapes, answering to the gods rather than the soldiers that prowled their fields. It didn’t make anything easier, but Talin hadn’t seen a real war yet. One might imagine the skies were brighter and the air sweeter.

Then the war came, and the gods angered. There needed to be natural order in the mortal world. Qi is born, and must die. Humanity may be granted blessings, but it should never think it, too, can play god.

The crown was a gift from the heavens. When its wearer dared not accept her heaven-mandated abdication, a godling of balance came down to restore order. She was so taken aback by the grievances committed that she had no choice but to curse the crown from being touched, to beg the gods to stay away. Let Talin recover. This was her terrain: balance had been upset, and she would pluck herself out of the pantheon to guard the crown for however long it took. Until the war resumed.

Deep in the mountains, the crown feels a presence draw close.

And it begins again.

The Weisannas put a temporary curfew over San-Er. All civilians need to be inside by nightfall for their own protection, because the Crescent Societies have taken to the streets.

Councilmember Aliha’s death is announced on the nighttime newsreels, the surveillance footage playing in high definition. That part of the city has recently installed color cameras. When the splatter of red hits the alley wall, the pattern resembles a bird spreading its wings.

Councilmember Bethilia of Yingu Province is attacked at the open market. Three masked figures home in on her with knives, and seconds later, she’s already beyond saving or attempting a jump while she bleeds out beside the meat for sale. Over twenty witnesses report that the attackers had crescent moon tattoos on their hands. The Weisannas announce the Crescent Societies as the perpetrators, but they don’t have further specifics on the attackers’ identities. With that many members belonging to the temples, they must arrest either all of them or none of them.

The councilmember of Meannin—to the left of Laho—survives being struck multiple times by a blunt object, but she hasn’t yet woken in the hospital. The councilmember of Ediso—atop Kelitu on the other side of the Jinzi River—has his hand amputated when he reaches for his dinner at the coliseum market, but the Crescent with the knife is already running before his stump starts spurting with blood.

It’s anarchy.

But the regular civilians of San-Er have certainly noticed that they’re not the ones getting attacked.

Yilas and Chami slink out from the back door of the diner, and no one is abiding by curfew. Faint bass music pumps from one of the facilities in the building. Chami squeezes Yilas’s hand twice, and Yilas returns the gesture, acknowledging that she also sees the three women lurking at the end of the alley. They pass by with no problem.

“We’ve done a lot of ridiculous things in our lifetime,” Yilas mutters, “but this might win a prize of its own.”

“Nothing ridiculous about it,” Chami assures her. “It’s a perfect way to get communication out and help your brother.”

“By working with the perpetrators he’s accusing?”

Chami sighs, but it’s a sound made with fondness, not exasperation. She doesn’t say more. They’ve debated this no less than eight times since the phone call last night. When Yilas tried to end the call with the woman—Bibi—by claiming they actually had no way to contact Calla Tuoleimi since her phone signal was too poor, very sorry, better luck with another avenue, Bibi cut in immediately. The Crescent Societies had the technology to improve the signal, so long as they had Calla’s phone number. That was an easy obstacle. Bibi would supply the method, and all she asked in return was to tack on her own message after Yilas communicated with Calla.

“Why… would you allow that?” Yilas asked, confused. “Do you understand the conversation you overheard in the surveillance room? My brother is trying to report you. I’m about to tell Calla that there’s a nuisance in the palace she needs to deal with— you —and then you want to hop in and say hello?”

“I trust that the princess can make an informed decision.” Bibi didn’t sound worried.

And neither did Chami, after they hung up.

“Who cares what the Crescent Societies want to say?” she asked. “Calla can let it go in one ear and out the other. She’s not going to do anything she doesn’t want to.”

Maybe Yilas is too used to chasing after Matiyu while they were growing up. Hardworking Matiyu, who did his homework and believed his classmates when they said they only wanted to see his assignments for inspiration. Easily gullible Matiyu, who willingly joined a cult after graduating from the academy because it was the quickest way to climb the ranks of the capital and make quick cash before he was fast-tracked into respectable work.

The Crescent Societies have always been the most likely contender to bring down the palace. But most likely still doesn’t mean likely. If the Palace of Union really wanted, it would take a day to tear down every temple in the capital. They’ve let them stand because the Crescent Societies would need colossal support to win over San-Er—hungry San-Er, desperate San-Er. Between a reliable next meal and revolution, the people of the cities would choose keeping their shitty job.

“Stop worrying so much,” Chami says now. “Once we’ve passed the message to Calla, it isn’t our business anymore. Especially with Matiyu interviewing in the financial district. They can burn down the palace, for all we care.”

“That wouldn’t be great either,” Yilas replies. “I kind of prefer having a functioning economy.”

Chami snorts. They proceed through San, and though it is quieter than usual, there is no sense of danger. Stores maintain the facade of closing, but their shopfront gates are only pulled halfway, letting people duck in regardless. Yilas squints through one of their windows. The Two Chicken Restaurant is certainly open: its patrons are only eating in the dark so that no patrolling palace guard tells them off.

San’s most prominent cybercafe is only a ten-minute walk from the Magnolia Diner, so it isn’t long before Yilas and Chami approach its front entrance and press their faces close to the glass door. The lights are off. Bibi said to meet here, but she didn’t say whether they were supposed to go in or hover outside.

“Hear anything?” Chami whispers.

Yilas shakes her head. “This would be the first place the Weisannas shut down, so I doubt they’ll operate openly. Let’s try the back.”

The cafe, although self-sufficient, is still located in the ground floor of a mall, and the mall’s main entrance is a creaky revolving door on Mouco Street. As soon as they approach along Mouco Street, though, sidestepping someone’s abandoned bicycle out front—did they purchase it in Er, then realize it was too hard to ride bikes through San?—Yilas figures the revolving door must be locked. Yilas shakes the pushbar roughly, as though that might loosen the structure, and Chami giggles.

“Something funny?”

“You are, my darling. I think there’s a door stopper here.” Chami kicks away a triangular block jammed under one part of the revolving door. When she leans over to nudge the pushbar again, the door starts to move. “There we are.”

Of course.

Yilas and Chami enter the mall quickly and pass the ghostly, empty stores. It is a matter of trial and error before they find themselves at the back of the cybercafe, and even then, Yilas isn’t sure if the place is actually open, given that they’ve wandered through what she thinks must be the back entryway into absolute pitch dark. Her footsteps echo. Chami’s grip on her hand tightens.

“The wait is about an hour, I’m afraid.”

Yilas and Chami shriek at the same time, whirling around. The voice came from behind the counter. Suddenly illuminated by a square of blue light, an old man stands with a bottle of soda in his hands, a straw waving out the top. Though he is well dressed, his jacket hangs off him bizarrely, the padded shoulders at odds with his thin frame.

“Sulian, they’re with me!”

That voice comes from behind the counter too, much lower to the floor. Yilas peers over and finds Bibi with her head sticking out of a square in the floor, waving happily. There’s a basement level beneath the cafe.

“Don’t I keep telling you to register your visitors’ names in advance?” Sulian asks.

“Sorry.” Bibi has already disappeared back down into the basement. “Please allow my visitors through. I’ll tip nicely. Thank you!”

The old man looks tired. He turns to Yilas and Chami, then silently gestures for them to proceed.

“After you,” Chami whispers.

“So I can get murdered first?” Yilas whispers back.

Still, she goes around the counter. Peers down the stairs into the blue basement, sniffing, before stepping onto the ladder carefully. It’s a very small space—no more than three computers in use—echoing with the clatter of rapid typing. Yilas holds out a hand to help Chami behind her. When Chami steps onto the last rung, she loses her footing a little, her elbow knocking into a divider before she regains her balance. Yilas hurries to hold the divider still, then blinks, squinting through the gaps of its foldable hinges. She was mistaken: this isn’t a small space at all; it’s only a small space reserved for the computers. Behind the divider, rows and rows of bookshelves expand onward and onward, taking up most of the basement.

“Over here.”

There are two teenagers present using the other computers, but they’ve got headsets glued to their ears. Yilas and Chami pick past them, shuffling tentatively to the computer that Bibi has occupied.

“We’re going to use a VoIP program,” Bibi says the moment they sit beside her, wasting no time for pleasantries. She clicks around on the screen, pulling open multiple windows.

“A voy-p?” Yilas tries to repeat.

“VoIP. Voice over Internet Protocol.” She looks over. Gets blank stares. “Okay. Sorry. I can run a program that dials out into the provinces. Just input the number. It won’t save it for me, if you’re worried about that.”

“Not like we would believe you, anyhow,” Yilas mutters, covering her hand to type when Bibi nudges the keyboard in front of her. She’s still not convinced that this isn’t a trap. Give it a minute or two, and there will probably be Crescent Society members running in from behind those bookshelves to kidnap her again and carve out her heart.

“I asked around the temple about you earlier,” Bibi says while Yilas finishes inputting the number. “They apologize about involving you with the experiments. Most of the members who were dabbling in that funny business are gone now. We’re not all the same… Well, I suppose we mostly want the same things, but we have different ethics in how we go about it.”

Yilas doesn’t even bother dignifying that with a response.

She’s more concerned with getting Calla’s number right, but the moment she clicks the green CALL button, it displays a connectivity error. Bibi frowns at the screen.

“Weird,” she says. “Even if it’s not going to work, it should at least try calling first.”

“Is the number right?” Chami asks, leaning closer to put her chin on Yilas’s shoulder.

“It is,” Yilas says. “I don’t know why—” It occurs to her. “Hang on. I know.”

She pulls open a browser and navigates to one of San-Er’s online newspapers. On either side of her, Bibi and Chami silently watch as Yilas scrolls through the most recent articles and stops when she finds a write-up about the divine crown. She was reading this absently over lunch. The reporter has drawn a map for them, marked with arrows that indicate the royal delegation’s route into the borderlands.

Chami points forward, understanding why Yilas is checking the delegation route.

“Try Laho’s area code.”

Yilas adds a two-digit province code at the start of Calla’s traveling cellular number. Error.

“Lankil?” Chami suggests next, more uncertain. The delegation would be going too slowly if they’re still in Lankil.

Error.

“May as well be generous about it,” Yilas says, finally trying Actia Province’s prefix.

The small window on the screen changes. Instead of a red box error, it turns into a green loading circle. Bibi sits up straight. Yilas and Chami hold very still.

It rings once. Twice.

“What the fuck ?” are the first words emitted over the computer speakers, crackling with interference but otherwise audible. If Calla’s voice wasn’t immediately recognizable, her greeting sure is. “Who is this, and how are you getting through?”

“It’s me,” Yilas says in a rush. “Are you able to speak?”

“Erm, well… sure. Anton, take over the reins, would you?”

Yilas rears back. Chami blinks. Bibi, slowly, tilts her head.

“Anton?” she echoes. “Anton Makusa? Isn’t he dead?”

“That’s a long story I can’t be getting into on the roads of Actia. This damn desert is no joke. What’s happened? Is Chami okay?”

“I’m fine!” Chami chirps. “I’m here too!”

“Calla, the Crescent Societies are starting a coup in San-Er.” There’s no point beating around the bush. Yilas doesn’t know where the microphone is located if they’re calling from a computer, so she raises her voice. “They’ve been quietly killing guards and Weisannas in the last week, but it’s escalated to a widespread broadcast calling for the deaths of the council. Most of the councilmembers who remain in the capital are being attacked.”

The other side of the line hums. The pause goes on for long enough that Yilas wonders if the connection has dropped, though the green circle is still flashing on the screen.

“That is certainly a troublesome development.” Interference over the line crackles and sputters. “But there’s nothing I can do. Otta Avia went rogue, and we’re racing her to the crown. San-Er will have to hold tight until the delegation returns.”

Bibi gives Yilas a knowing look, as if to say: See, she doesn’t even care that much.

Yilas grimaces. “One more thing. The Crescent Societies actually helped us make this call. I’ve got someone here for you.”

“You’ve got what ?”

“Hello, Highness,” Bibi cuts in. “I’ll keep this quick—I know you’re a busy person. Upon your return to San-Er, you can count on our forces behind you. We only ask that you don’t combat us. We have a lot in common.”

“A lot in common—Yilas, is this a prank?”

“I assure you the temples have reached agreement,” Bibi continues before Yilas can answer. “We’ve never wanted utter chaos. We only want the kingdom to live how the gods made us. With you on the throne as our symbol, it’ll make for genuine and lasting change.”

Calla must have pulled the phone away from her ear. There’s faint muttering, the sort that doesn’t sound very agreeable.

“The Crescent Societies are under new leadership,” Yilas says weakly.

“Sure,” Calla answers, her voice accompanied by a burst of static when she returns to the line, “whatever.”

After all those years working with her, Yilas knows what one of Calla’s brush-offs sounds like. She’s strangely relieved, even though this is exactly what Chami predicted would happen. There had been a part of her afraid to hear interest when Bibi made her proposition. Yilas can’t really explain why.

“Listen, Yilas, Chami, while I’ve got you,” Calla says. Her words are growing more and more inaudible. If she’s riding through Actia while speaking, she may be getting too far from the cell tower they’ve connected to. “Have you ever heard of a Sinoa Tuoleimi?”

Yilas and Chami exchange a look. Neither of them completed their schooling before dropping out to become palace attendants. Despite their unfinished education, though, they learned their history lessons early, like all children in San-Er. One of the first units they are taught is that King Akilas Shenzhi in the Palace of Earth led the war effort against Sica. During the war, his brother King Potau Tuoleimi manned the Palace of Heavens—though he wasn’t a real Tuoleimi, because the generation of Tuoleimis before him had no children and they moved over a Shenzhi instead.

“No clue,” Chami answers. “Was she a ruler before the war?”

“Must be,” Calla says, sounding thoughtful. “You’ve never heard the name? Maybe she was born a Shenzhi instead.”

Name swapping among the royals has always been common practice, even after the kingdom consolidated their capital into San-Er. King Kasa’s father, too, was a Shenzhi with two sons, while the other throne bore no children. King Kasa inherited San and the Palace of Earth, then Calla’s father was reassigned into a Tuoleimi for Er and the Palace of Heavens. Shenzhi and Tuoleimi were the same blood. The name was a formality to echo the palace.

“I’ve never heard of a Sinoa, full stop,” Yilas says. “What are you asking?”

“… figured it was a long shot… bizarre history…”

Calla’s connection is fading. Yilas leans forward, meaning to say something about Anton’s mother and what the Crescent Societies know about her, but then the call drops, the green circle switching to a red line.

Bibi is up and moving immediately. She ejects a disk from the computer. Loops a pair of headphones around her neck.

“This was very productive,” she declares. With a swipe of her hand across the keyboard, the screen clears and she has logged out of the system. “I have some affairs to get in order. You have my number if you need me for anything else.”

Yilas and Chami let her go. Neither says anything in the affirmative; if they’re lucky, they’ll never have to be involved in this nonsense again.

“Oh!” Bibi says, spinning around before she ascends the ladder back into the main cybercafe. “It might be good to stay indoors for the next few days. Just a heads-up.”