Chapter 33

CHAPTER 33

After all that frantic movement on horseback and all that frenzied jumping to cross an infamously impenetrable mountain range, Calla isn’t accustomed to the silence that greets them in the palace atrium. Sound caves inward here, a quiet created by deliberate muffle rather than true tranquility.

“It’s dark,” Anton comments, stopping a few paces in. The light outside doesn’t strike the windows at the right angle to illuminate the interior.

“Your eyes will adjust,” Calla replies.

Though they are moving fine, it is still deathly cold. The climate in the borderlands isn’t gentle, and Calla folds her arms tightly to preserve warmth, peering into the reflection of a vase at the entrance. There are no flowers inside, understandably. Her borrowed face blinks back at her, a long nose and teal eyes. Meanwhile, Anton’s jump brought his black eyes over with him. Her lack of moving color isn’t an effect of the sigil. Calla is just weird.

“Maybe Otta isn’t here.” Anton sniffs, craning his head to peer down the vestibule. There’s a stale smell, or a rotting one. Nothing about the low ceilings and cement floors is particularly remarkable. The design is entirely different from the palaces in San-Er: no resemblance to the velvet-green wallpapers or the intricate banisters decorated with creatures of legend. Only beiges and whites, letting the site blend with the mountains.

“I’m sure the hundred sacrificed bodies are out in the snow just for fun,” Calla replies.

“We don’t know how long they’ve been there as vessels. It could be from before Otta.”

Calla doubts it. She doesn’t say it aloud, though, opting to save her breath.

When Calla walks to the end of the vestibule—carefully, in case she triggers some sort of trap—she finds herself in a wide hall with the ceiling almost brushing her head, as if it were some underground exhibit instead of the entrance into a grand palace. What is this place? The original Palace of Heavens was destroyed in the war, but it was located somewhere near the Jinzi River anyway.

Beyond the hall, an entranceway leads to a spiral staircase. She tilts her head at Anton, a signal to hurry it up.

“Wait,” he calls. He’s remained at the front of the hall, staring up at the decorative mural covering the shorter wall. “Look at this.”

“Anton, we don’t have time—”

“We do. What does this look like to you?”

For fuck’s sake. Calla strides over, squinting up into the dark. Her eyes adjust on painted panels and dim colors, flowing from right to left. The borders bleed and intersect, drawing her attention across a coronation, then a battle, followed by a turret at the top of a mountain. It resembles the very palace they’re standing within.

“It’s like any historical mural,” she says plainly. “Birth, war, death. All hail the throne, so on and so forth.”

Anton doesn’t take any offense at her tone. He presses a palm against the wall, almost reverent in his inspection.

“Princess,” he whispers quietly. “You’re everywhere.”

There’s a line of text at the bottom of the mural—archaic Talinese, again. Most of the script is gibberish to her eye. Most, except the names, because those do not change, even when the other words move on.

Tuoleimi, Tuoleimi, Tuoleimi , again and again.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Calla says. “It was the same on the plaque outside. Talin has never expanded into the borderlands. Even Rincun wasn’t conquered until fifteen years ago, so how did they end up building something out here?”

“It’s trying to tell you, isn’t it?” Anton points to the first panel. “Birth. Three children.”

The mural shows three swaddles, golden crowns floating above their heads. Calla always hated art history lessons. The art that remained after the war was terrible at saying what it meant, and the interpretations the tutors told her never made intuitive sense.

Anton points to the second panel. “Battle.” He pauses. “Civil battle?”

The panel has the same colors on both sides. This mural actually doesn’t seem so hard to decode. A river runs down the middle, parting the battle lines. Calla leans in closer.

“I think that might be the Jinzi River.”

Anton frowns. “Surely not. What battle would that be depicting?”

The war with Sica is the only one that makes sense. The next panel shows a crowd of people witnessing an address by a royal on a balcony. It looks like… the Palace of Union, actually.

“That’s the sigil.”

Calla startles, blinking hard. She feels a peculiar flash of familiarity: some overlay on her vision, as though she’s been here before, she’s stood on the same floor, she’s heard those same words. She hasn’t. She knows that. Her entire body jolts regardless when it follows Anton’s line of sight and finds a small, familiar shape hovering over the head of the royal giving the address. Left dot. Long and slanting curve with a dot above. Another dot to the right.

A chill sweeps into the hall. Calla strains her ears, listening hard through the howl of wind outside the palace. Without saying anything, she breaks from the mural and heads toward the spiral staircase, eyeing the structure. The metal groans when she yanks off her gloves and touches the handrail.

“Something isn’t right.”

Calla turns over her shoulder. Anton can’t seem to help getting distracted by every item in the palace. He must know that she’s preparing to tell him off the moment she opens her mouth, because he waves at her frantically.

“What?” Calla, sparing one more glance up the staircase, takes her hand off the rail and hurries to where Anton stands. “What is it?”

“Tell me this isn’t the war with Sica.”

He’s found a map: a topographical map constructed to scale on a tall table. Each village is marked with a small white pin. Each mountain rises off the table surface with painstaking detail. The only peculiarity is how tiny the borderlands are. Most maps of the kingdom will depict the entire length of the borderlands, then extend the rendering to show a slice of Sica on the other side.

Here, the map ends curtly after the borderlands, as if the mountains drop right into the sea.

“This is definitely the war with Sica,” Calla says plainly. She doesn’t know why Anton would say otherwise. “Look at the arrows.”

She’s seen enough war plans during her time in the Palace of Heavens to know how to read them. Whoever was using this map last, they had arranged a configuration that shows one side advancing from the north and one side fleeing into the southeast. Certain sections have been marked with green. Others with red. Calla touches the plot of land where Ximili Province is, circling her finger along the green figurines there.

“Calla,” Anton says. His enunciation is slow, gentle. As though he’s trying to deliver bad news to her. “The colors. They’re on the wrong side.”

In truth, she knows what he’s saying, but her mind refuses to make the conclusion. Ximili is marked in green. A victory. During their war with Sica, the first territory they lost in the initial invasion was Ximili. Then they would keep losing, and losing, and losing, until the tide of the war turned with their retreat into San-Er and brought hard-won victory.

This doesn’t make any fucking sense. What could this be except the war with Sica? Yet if that were the case… this war plan is from Sica’s side.

“I keep wondering about a Sinoa Tuoleimi,” Calla says slowly.

Anton’s eyes flit to the other side of the hall, to the mural and its archaic script. “Someone erased from Talin’s history.”

Calla touches her chest. On this body, the sigil has moved over as a faint marking of light. The real sigil is painted on the body collapsed at the border of Rincun, motionless with the rest of the province. Her stolen body. Her greatest heist.

Long live Her Majesty. Long live Her Majesty ten thousand years. Long live Her Majesty ten thousand years.

“She led the invasion.”

The voices play in her mind. They have become a part of her memories, clinging like Lankil’s ash stuck irremovably to her skin. You’ll never win this war. The blood will be on your hands. The land will be lost. The south is lost. Yi has burned.

Anton’s brows disappear into his hair. She knows he doesn’t choose feminine bodies when he has the option, but he really ought to more often with how expressively he uses these features.

“For Sica?”

The pieces, at last, click into place. Calla pulls her eyes to the edge of the map, to the borderlands ending in the sea.

“Sica isn’t real.” She says the words, and the palace finally exhales in relief. One small statement, then the truth slots back into the world. “Sica is an invention to explain to later generations why the kingdom is war-torn. No foreign kingdom lies to the north of the borderlands. The crown was never hidden for safety. Talin fought a civil war, and when Sinoa Tuoleimi was vanquished, she fled here and died with her crown.”

A loud thunk comes above them. Calla stiffens, waiting for something to follow, but the sound echoes and fades, turning the palace quiet again. Anton doesn’t wait further: he runs for the staircase.

“Be careful, be careful!” Calla hisses after him.

They climb up the spiral staircase and enter a turret. It curves narrowly enough that Calla’s shoulders start to scrape against the sides, centuries-old paint flaking off and dusting her jacket. A pulse beats in her ears. It accompanies her steps; it doesn’t stop when they finally come to a halt at the top of the staircase, emerging into a cold room with glass for a sloped ceiling.

Calla tries to make sense of the scene. Before her eyes, a flare of light beams into the room. It enters the body sitting on the throne like an arrow wholly piercing into flesh, sharp tip and feathered stem alike absorbed.

The body is dead; that much is obvious. There must be some sort of qi at work, though, preserving her corpse in place instead of it turning to ash after so many years. Her skin sags broken and gray, reeking of rot. She’s covered in a thick film of dust that smothers her eyelashes and the lines of her once-bright clothing. Nonetheless, Calla still recognizes the slope of her nose and the face she’s seen for years in the mirror. However she did it, Sinoa Tuoleimi was reborn exactly as she appeared over a hundred years ago.

The only item on her body that isn’t crumbling is her crown. A band of gold metal encircles her head, etched with decorative carvings—with mythical creatures and complex sigils—across the surface. The ridges at the top curve into sharp points, dotted with turquoise green gems. For all she doubted this crown, Calla can feel its power. It lodges in her throat, trembles through her lungs. Level a city, wage ten wars—she doesn’t doubt that the previous wearer of the crown could do it.

And Otta sleeps at her feet.

“She’s frozen too,” Anton remarks.

A carpet runs the length of the room, ending at the throne seating the dead queen. He’s right, to Calla’s surprise. The rise and fall of Otta’s chest is near-imperceptible, going so slowly as to appear absent. While Otta occupies one end of the carpet, Calla and Anton hover at the other. No makeshift weapons anywhere, unfortunately.

No matter.

Calla steps onto the carpet, and perhaps Anton reads her intent in the way she moves. His hand snakes out. Catches her elbow.

“She can’t hurt you right now,” he pleads. “It doesn’t have to be like that.”

Calla doesn’t look back at him.

“You can’t have us both, Anton.” She tears her elbow out of his grasp. “Either kill me now to save her, or let me kill her.”

It won’t take much. A hard strike on the head—she won’t feel anything. Calla nears, putting one foot in front of the other, and though she is walking toward Otta, she finds that she cannot look away from Sinoa Tuoleimi the moment her eyes flicker over. The crown ripples with power. If she listens closely, she can hear it humming, whispering promises of what it could achieve. It’s not entirely selfish volition that has her pivoting, her fingers reaching for the crown. This is the one hard object in this room she could use as a weapon. If she’s going to succeed…

Calla’s fingers come down on the crown, and the room floods with light.

Qi heaves through the ceiling like the wind of a monsoon, sweeping through the glass and shattering each panel into dustlike fragments. Sinoa Tuoleimi bursts into ash, and when Calla is thrown back, thudding into the wall and staying pinned for seconds after, she knows there is enough qi swirling to kill them in an instant. It snarls and curls and grows fangs, but before the pure power can puncture through her throat and rip her apart, it dissipates, satisfied.

Calla gasps, scrambling for air the moment the room settles. The crown is warm in her hand. A droplet of blood trickles down her nose.

Sacrifice , she thinks absently, clambering upright. That explosion of qi didn’t kill them because there were sacrifices made for it to consume, plucked from the vessels outside and funneled into the room. How did Otta know to do this? Where would any of these instructions have been kept, and if Calla didn’t hear a peep as the fucking princess of the Palace of Heavens, then how else did Otta Avia stumble onto knowledge like this?

“You didn’t follow instructions.”

“Shit,” Calla mutters. She missed her chance. While the throne is only occupied by ash now, Otta Avia slowly gets to her feet at the base of it, dusting off her hands. Her clothes remain pristine when she straightens up. Not a speck of dirt or any hint that she traversed the borderlands to get here.

“What is it?” Otta asks. “You thought I was going to lie there nicely while you decided how to bludgeon me?”

At the other end of the throne room, Anton has crumpled to the floor too. The blast pushed him back, near the edge of the spiral staircase.

“Don’t be presumptuous,” Calla returns. She’s waiting for Anton to lift his head, but he doesn’t stir. “Maybe I came to wake you so you could see the surprise I brought you.”

Clearly, Otta doesn’t find her very funny.

“You’re a pest,” Otta spits. “Nothing but a child wearing shoes that don’t fit. You don’t even know what you took.”

Otta lunges. Calla spits a curse, then darts away, the crown still in her hand. It hums with every rough movement through the air.

“Tell me,” Calla taunts. She holds the crown close. “I’ve heard plenty of conjecture.”

“Not the crown.”

Otta doesn’t try to make another grab. Instead, she flings her arm hard, and an arc of light strikes Calla like a physical weapon, burning a mark on the arm she throws over her face in a panic. It takes the air out of her when she hits the floor again.

“You know what you took,” Otta goes on. “Why else did I bother getting you here? Why else would I waste so much time? You didn’t know what you were messing with, and now the rest of us have to suffer for it.”

She flings her arm again. Calla avoids this attack, rolling, but she’s getting too close to the wall. Shit, shit, shit—

Somehow, Otta knows that she is an imposter. That Calla is not Calla, but an invader from years and years previous, one who has been around long enough to snuff out the original princess.

“You’ll inflate my ego,” Calla says, trying not to sound breathless. “Don’t tell me I’m the only one who could move this crown.”

When Otta’s expression flattens, Calla knows she’s hit her mark. No one else could have picked it up. Queen Sinoa Tuoleimi was born again as Calla Tuoleimi, returned to the world for unfinished business, and then a desperate province child invaded her and absorbed all her might.

“Don’t think so highly of yourself. Your use is done.”

Otta lifts her foot, meaning to kick, and Calla takes her chance. She yanks hard on Otta’s leg, sending her to the floor. Her offensive tactic clearly has a limited run, because Otta twists before she’s fully fallen and lands on her knee rather than her full body. Calla hisses, jerking aside before Otta pivots and extends her leg in an attack. In the time it takes Calla to attempt scrambling upright, Otta throws a punch while on her knees, barely missing Calla’s face when Calla dodges.

This is a shock.

Otta Avia fights like she was taught in the Palace of Heavens.

Calla shoves hard before Otta pulls back. Though Calla lands an attack, Otta is fast to recover, rising to her feet and staggering a few steps away. The Palace of Earth liked to teach defense. It’s why August can’t fight for shit—he will invade at a distance and spill blood in gallons, but he flinches before he hits.

Calla, going off a gut feeling she can’t entirely put into words, stands and tries to jump.

Her eyes open and close in the same view of the world. She is blocked out. Otta Avia… is doubled.

Otta must feel the attempt. When she swings, Calla doesn’t duck quickly enough. She’s clipped in the shoulder; Otta swipes her feet out from underneath her. This all feels familiar; it’s all an echo of something . Calla, cursing, grabs Otta’s arm and tries to incapacitate her, but she’s made Otta angry in trying to invade her, and when Otta slams her head into hers, Calla flinches.

She can’t give up the crown.

Calla twists around. In the corner of her eye, she finally sees Anton stirring. She doesn’t give him any time to recover. She shouts, “Anton, catch!” and she throws the crown at him. In the same gesture, she lets her fury surge, and when her arm swings back around, she aims at Otta. Light unfurls from her hand in an arc, slamming Otta back.

It feels like firing energy out of her palms. As though she’s turned herself into a weapon that uses gunpowder, exploding outward upon impact. But Otta is clearly better versed in this sort of maneuver. She wipes her face hard.

When she lifts her hand and clenches her fist in midair, Calla can’t breathe.

“This could have been so easy,” Otta says. She steps closer, her fist still extended. “You could have returned what you stole. We could have all gone about our merry way.”

Calla pulls at her neck. Her nails are scratching lines down her throat, but she cannot get air.

“What I don’t understand is how you did it.” Otta is within reach. Black spots are clustering into Calla’s vision. “Who are you? Do you yourself even know the answer? I gather not.”

“Otta, stop.”

When Otta turns toward Anton, her fist loosens the barest fraction, and Calla gets a gasp of air in. Anton has staggered to his feet by the staircase. One side of his temple is bruised red. His arm is bleeding from the shattered glass, smearing blood onto the crown he’s got in his hand.

“Trying to come to her rescue?” Otta snaps.

“No,” he replies, holding the crown up. “But I’m sure the heavens will when they strike.”

Otta understands what he’s doing a second before Calla does. Her fist releases its hold. Calla heaves and chokes to fill her lungs, the black spots in her vision darting away. By the time Otta throws her arm at Anton, meaning to attack him, it’s already too late.

Anton puts the crown on his head, and the room floods with white light a second time.

Calla can’t have lost consciousness for more than a few minutes. When she comes to, her ears are picking up only a high-pitched whine.

It takes several more seconds for her vision to return, and then she sees Anton at her side, the crown sitting on the floor. She puts her hand on his neck. It’s an unsteady pulse, but it is a pulse nonetheless.

She tries to lift up onto her elbow. Her muscles shriek, protesting with such calamity that Calla collapses back down. Her eyes flit sluggishly. There—Otta has been thrown near the throne. She stirs, raising a hand to her face.

Anton bought her enough time to even the battlefield. She has to end this.

Calla, carefully, eases herself to her knees, and remains steady. When she tries to reach for excess qi, for something to throw, she comes up empty. That flare from the crown did something: wiped everyone clean. There’s no time to forge a new sigil.

She runs her palm along the glass shards on the floor and picks up a fragment with a particularly sharp point.

Anton’s body jerks. He gasps for breath, his eyes flying open. He’s trying to say something, but Calla focuses on getting to her feet. She can’t hear anything. Her ears are taking a while to recover. Perhaps they’ve been blown out entirely, the eardrums ruptured by standing that close to the blast.

When Otta rises, she doesn’t immediately shift into defense. She turns her back on Calla—even seeing what Calla holds, even knowing Calla’s objective—and staggers to the window. It’s not fear in her expression. It’s steadfast resolve, as though this encounter has ended here and she’s made up her mind about it.

The whine in Calla’s left eardrum fades. The moment she picks up the first clatter of footsteps in the palace below, Calla knows what Anton was trying to say, why Otta is readying to flee. Calla’s hearing returns like a jammed lock finally turning, and shouting floods the throne room, movement pouring from the stairs and surrounding her. They’re quick to act. Before Calla can scarcely turn around, a blade flies through the air and embeds in her shoulder.

Weisannas. Calla searches through their faces desperately, trying to make sense of what is going on, and she understands. August’s guards chased them through Rincun and the borderlands the very same way Calla and Anton traveled, then invaded the vessels outside the palace. Of course they did—the moment the guards caught up to their bodies collapsed by the border, they must have understood their tactic in an instant. One among the group marches forward, and she recognizes Galipei’s gait.

“Wait,” Calla says, her voice faint. “Wait—”

Galipei picks up the crown. He waves for his guards to surround Anton. Gestures for the others to get her, and though Calla tries to lunge away, three Weisannas converge upon her, holding her down. Despite their assorted, randomized bodies, their training moves with their silver eyes. They are too strong, and she is still too weak from the blast. She can do nothing except watch as Otta steps out from the window at the other side of the throne room. Before any of the guards can get to her, she drops silently into the snow below.

“No!” Calla rasps. She lurches her shoulder hard. It doesn’t do anything. “Don’t let her go! She’s—”

“Bag over her head,” Galipei instructs, coming in front of her. “Bind her tight, and for fuck’s sake, knock her out.”