Chapter 38

CHAPTER 38

Anton dreams of Calla surrounded by fire.

It’s a restless sleep. One where he’s right on the cusp of waking, fighting to surface while the dream holds him by the ankles. He reaches out his arm. His fingers brush the red-hot flames. The thick smoke floats up to form the clouds. There’s the distant crash of the sea too, its waves rising higher against the rocks. If they don’t move soon, the tide is going to take them. Ships loom on the horizon, pressing closer. It’ll trap them with no route out.

Turn around, he wants to say. Calla, turn—

“Wake up.”

Anton jolts out of sleep, his eyes flying open. His world is unbalanced. Some result of the dream, he’s sure, but even as he rockets upright, reaching for Calla’s elbow while she hovers over him, his sense of reality feels hazy.

“What’s going on? Where did you go?”

“We’re leaving.”

Calla takes shape before him while he adjusts to the dark room. Her yellow eyes, her pink mouth. Her crown, bleeding metal down her forehead and clinging to her hair as though she had been born with it fixed onto her head.

“Shit, Calla. What gives?”

She offers a small smile. It is far from the appropriate time, but he’s taken aback by the sight, that they are in the midst of what must be an active revolt on Calla’s part and she affords this gesture at him. If there’s anything about Calla Tuoleimi that he loves and despises in equal measure, it’s that she’s impossible to read.

“You wanted this.”

“I didn’t realize you’d act this soon.”

“It was now or never. I couldn’t let August tell lies to San-Er first.” She turns over her shoulder, inspecting the open door. He thought it a remnant of his dreams, but there really is shouting coming from around the base. “I’m willing to bet he’ll focus on keeping us out of the city and leave few guards behind. We might be able to get there before he situates himself fully.”

Anton is barely blinking back the sleep in his eyes. Calla hauls him to his feet, and he shoves on his boots, pulls a jacket over his shoulders. An alarm screeches down the hallway as they hurry out, looking up and down to find empty corridors in both directions. They make it all the way outside the building. The sun floats directly above the horizon, an angry red ball that has been plucked from its hiding nook. A crossbow bolt flies directly toward them.

Before Anton can think to move, the bolt freezes on its own at the peak of its arc. It clatters to the ground. Calla watches it roll away.

“I wasn’t aware you could do that,” Anton remarks casually. The rapid clicks of other crossbows being loaded echo through the scene. Calla doesn’t look concerned.

“It’s the crown,” she says. “Reach down.”

Another guard takes aim closer. Calla bends down and kicks his legs out from underneath him, swinging her arm and yanking his sword off his belt without touching him. The sword skids through the dirt and comes to a stop by Anton’s hand while he swoops to grab it. He unsheathes, then reverses his hold on the weapon. Before the guard recovers from kneeling to the ground, Anton rams the blunt pommel into his temple, and he goes down.

Then the remaining three guards rush in at the same time.

“You can’t immobilize them?” Anton calls. He swings fast, but he can hardly combat in unison. A blade narrowly misses his ribs. Another fist catches him by the ear before he ducks and rolls.

“I don’t know how. I can’t concentrate on that many things at once—”

Calla emits a pulse of energy. It pushes the guards back a few paces, and she’s on the move without hesitation, yanking hard at Anton’s shoulder.

“Come on. That’s only going to work once. Over there.”

They run, heading for the pathway out of the security base. Calla’s stolen a sword too, though it might as well be decoration compared with the metal on her head. She’s got her eyes pinned on the group of guards lined up on their horses in ready defense, and Anton doesn’t quite understand the plan until she says, “Go left. Break them apart.”

“Oh, so I’m bait. ”

“Anton!”

He pivots fast, following instructions despite his back talk. While the guards expected the two of them in dual combat, he makes it appear that he’s charging away from the line. One of the guards scrambles after him, steering the horse away from the cluster. Anton can’t outrun him, so he veers until he’s put enough distance from the other guards, and then he lets the guard catch up, acting as though he’s growing winded. The guard leans down, reaches with his arm, wanting to make a grab.

Anton pitches into his path, ramming hard into the side of the horse.

The guard jostles. Before he’s secured his balance, Anton grabs his foot and throws him clean off the horse. In an instant, Anton has latched on to the reins and gathered the momentum he needs to swing himself into the saddle.

He turns the horse around, searching the distance, and finds Calla in the midst of the other guards.

“Princess!”

The morning shines bright over Eigi, turning its plains into endless fields of gold. She looks up, and through the blood splattered down her face, she is the most glorious vision across Talin, second only to the sun.

Anton reaches his arm out as the horse dives into the gathering of guards. His hand grabs Calla’s, their wrists meeting before he hauls her off the ground and into the saddle too.

“Go,” Calla urges, her mouth near his ear, her arms curling around his shoulders. “Until we reach San-Er.”

San-Er’s wall materializes out of nowhere, a mirage in the distance made of real stone and steel.

Calla gasps, holding tight when Anton pulls to a halt. With the guards in pursuit behind them, they’ve been going at a speed that could tear a rip through the ground. As soon as they see the forces around the wall, though, it’s clear there isn’t a visible way in, and Calla squeezes his shoulders once, signaling that they must stop.

August waits with his guards. Galipei is nowhere to be found, but the other silver-eyed Weisannas seem to be doing a fine job holding their stances in front of their king.

“Enough, Calla,” August says. His voice is quiet. Calla glances to the side and finds regular palace guards lining the scene too, holding back the rural dwellers who camp outside the wall. With the ruckus, many of them have emerged, wanting to see what is going on. She knows they see what is on her head. Even outside the wall, removed from newsreels and slow-loading web articles, they have heard about the divine crown and the delegation that went out in search of it. The citizens of Talin know that their throne is contested.

Calla must emerge victorious in this encounter. If she doesn’t, August will kill every person camping out here to erase the evidence of what passed through, to hide that Calla can wear the crown without being struck down by the heavens.

“I’d like you to step aside,” she says.

The frantic pursuit has settled. The guards chasing from the security base warily form a semicircle, blocking her and Anton in.

“I can’t do that. The two of you are a threat to San-Er.”

Anton moves to get off the horse. Calla grips his hand quickly, stopping him. For as long as they’re on equal height with the guards behind them, they can’t be ambushed with a quick swing of the sword. Before the crown, August would have preferred to keep her alive to prevent the Crescent Societies from thinking of her as a martyr. Given current circumstances, she wouldn’t put it past August to hack her head off here and now if it means getting the crown back.

“Are we a threat?” Anton calls in return. “Calla has been divinely chosen. If she is a threat, then the gods desire a threat, and you are nothing but a usurper. No royal blood. No heavenly approval.”

August’s expression grows tighter. There are more spectators gathering.

“Don’t make this difficult.”

Anton pushes them forward. The horse takes a step. Instantly, the Weisannas in front of August prepare to engage, and Calla reaches for the reins. She won’t fight them at once. It is too risky, especially for Anton. One careless slip of a blade, and the mortal body crumples.

“You will take off the crown,” August instructs. “You will return it to me.”

“No,” Calla says. “You have failed your kingdom, August.”

August scoffs. He is, without charade, genuinely confounded that Calla would accuse him of wrongdoing. August Shenzhi has spent his whole life splitting apart what made Kasa terrible and what he will do differently. He thinks he knows what sets him apart from his adoptive father.

“Do you see me in lavish fabrics?” August asks. “Or holding feasts while the people starve?”

Calla almost feels pity toward him.

“You may not be a greedy king,” she returns, “but you are still a hungry one.”

When she and August were young, Calla’s first real impression of him formed around that shattered vase. The servant broke it, King Kasa came in, and August accepted the blame. King Kasa’s anger deflected; August wiped the blood off his arm like nothing. No one was punished that day. The servant lived blameless. How worthy August was, she used to think. Never mind that they could have brushed away the shards after the servant took responsibility for breaking it. Never mind that it was King Kasa at fault, not August in the right. She has given him so much credit for acting well, but he built a world where the sole choice was between him and Kasa, and of course she chose August.

“What is that supposed to mean?” August asks calmly.

It means that between two tyrants, Calla may as well become the third.

“The crown has chosen me. I am the rightful heir to the Palace of Heavens, and an inheritor of San-Er.”

Anton pushes the horse forward another step suddenly, and half the Weisannas flinch. They are unsure if they should continue following instructions to attack.

“I invoke my claim to the kingdom of Talin,” Calla bellows. “Every province shall swear their loyalty to me, and then I will free them from the throne. Surrender now. You have no other choice.”

The spectators cry out. Exaltations. Hails.

Prayers .

“You cannot.” August lifts his chin. “You will not.”

“Cousin,” she says. “You should know me better.”

The crown pulses on her head. It tells her, Go on. In the Palace of Heavens, Calla could feel every spray of blood, could count each forced entry of metal cleaving into flesh. This time, it’s so much easier. This time, she doesn’t hold in the qi wanting to burst from her chest, and with nary a movement, she’s slit the throats of the Weisannas in front of August, spurting carnage onto the ground.

There are screams from the spectators. Calla hears them as if the sounds are far in the distance. Most of the spectators, however, stay quiet. Most are watchful, waiting.

August stands surrounded by blood. He stares at his feet. Even with such posture, he looks every bit a royal, disgraced from a pedestal by force.

Please, she pleads silently.

Calla doesn’t want to kill him, after all. Easy as it would be, she still sees him as her cousin, and she doesn’t have any more of those ties left in the world. She has the blood of her family smeared up to her imposter elbows. It would be so tragic to add more.

Please.

Slowly, very slowly, August Shenzhi steps back. Surrenders.

They waste no time. Anton pushes the horse forward, taking them to the gate and through the thin open section. There is no safety until Calla occupies the palace and makes a proper bid for the throne, but the moment they enter San-Er, there is clearly something wrong. A plume of gray smoke rises from the distance. From the center of the city, where the Palace of Union stands.

“Be careful,” Calla warns, letting Anton slide off the horse first.

Together they dive into the alleys, sprinting fast through the streets of San-Er. They have practice from the games, from the mornings they spent flitting through these shadows avoiding being seen and coordinating an attack on their next opponents.

“What the fuck is happening?” Calla asks. In the main thoroughfare, there are people running away from the palace, holding bleeding limbs and ash-smeared faces.

“Crescent Societies,” Anton answers. “I would bet anything.”

By the time they have made it to the Palace of Union, there isn’t any further clarity to the situation. The turnstiles at the main entrance have been blown clean out of existence. Crescent Society members guard the front, holding swords for weapons. No palace guards to be seen.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Calla whispers when they duck out of sight, taking a moment to hide behind a shop’s front sign. “Even if they managed an attack, where are the guards?”

Anton grimaces. “We might not want to know the answer to that. How do we get in?”

Calla considers the matter of brute force. It would be straightforward enough to march right through, to push back anyone who comes toward her. Still, as she rises carefully, she recalls Yilas making contact, what she said about the Crescent Societies. If there is something expected of her here, she doesn’t want to be making a greeting from the very front of the palace.

“I know a way in.” Calla tilts her head left, around the coliseum and into the alleys. “Follow me.”

The back alleys are quiet. Either the people have evacuated, or they are unmoving inside their apartments. Even the rats have stopped scampering around the trash bags. Nothing moves when Calla kicks aside some particularly bulky ones, clearing the space in front of the hidden door.

She doesn’t know what Matiyu’s identity number is, or any other number that should activate the panel to open the emergency passage, but the moment she touches the keypad, she finds it is unnecessary. The panel has been unplugged and hangs from the wall off a half-broken wire. Confused, Calla prods the door, and it opens on its own.

This passage was used for entry to attack the palace.

Calla steps in first, grimacing at the puddle her foot dips into. Anton is close behind; he attempts to close the door after him and finds the lock doesn’t click anymore.

“Where are we going?”

“Throne room,” Calla answers. Her original objective was greeting the cities from the throne room balcony. Seeing the state of the palace, she supposes their destination doesn’t change. If there is any objective to an attack on the palace while its monarch has left, it is in the throne room.

They emerge from the passage. South wing. The throne room is close, but she doubts the palace will stay behaved through their entire route.

She’s mistaken.

The first people they come across halt instantly. They stare, in the manner of a child caught with their hand in the candy jar rather than a threatening anarchist cult. Anton tries to ask what has happened, but Calla tugs him to keep moving. There are crescent moons tattooed on the inside of their elbows. As strange as the situation is, the Crescent Society members simply leave them be when Calla and Anton turn the corner. They proceed onward. Up the stairs and down the stairs. Through the smoky halls and around the shattered chandeliers.

It appears they may be in the clear to approach the atrium into the throne room, but another group awaits, lined up vigilantly. Calla braces. Her hand flies up, prepared to counter an attack.

But they do the opposite.

The Crescent Society members see her, and they drop to their knees.

“What the fuck,” Anton says, “is going on?”

Silently, Calla continues onward, making sure Anton stays in her periphery. Her hands flex at her sides. They proceed through the line of Crescents, passing under the arch of the throne room entrance. Without any sound to her steps, Calla enters to find the throne room charred with the remnants of an explosion, vases shattered, and paintings dragged off the walls. The remaining councilmembers in San-Er have been gathered here. Ten people, Calla counts in her cursory inspection. She sights Mugo and Farua. No Venus Hailira. Perhaps Venus has already been killed.

No one in the room has noticed her entry yet. They’re too busy watching a man pull Councilmember Farua from the circle and situate her in the middle of the room and onto her knees. He draws his sword. A crescent moon engraving decorates the blade.

“Stand down,” Calla says.

At once, those surrounding the man whip their gazes over, locking onto Calla. The man, however, pays her no attention. He raises his sword high with both hands.

“I said”—Calla throws her arm out and flings the man and his sword alike into the wall, pressed tight without any chance of movement—“stand down.”

He strains. He can’t move. Only then does he look properly at Calla, and his brows fly up. The outer halves have been shaved off, the inner halves dyed white. It gives him a stronger appearance of shock when he states, “Calla Tuoleimi.”

A morning breeze floats in from the open balcony. Its curtain drifts up and down, and ever casual, Anton strides over to push it aside so that the fabric isn’t billowing at every moment. The room has utterly stilled. Then, just as the people outside did, the Crescent Society members fall to their knees, one by one by one. There is no opposition here.

And Calla can’t help but wonder why .

“I want everyone to behave,” she says. The instructions come as though someone else is delivering them. As though the original princess whispers in her ear, temporarily taking over with the right decisions. She knows that she is conscious, that she is the one present here, but it is easier to separate herself. Easier in the same way she detached herself when she was raising her sword to her parents.

Slowly, Calla releases the man from the wall. He staggers to regain his balance. The room quiets.

Then Councilmember Mugo lurches forward, breaking from the circle they have ordered him into.

“What is this?” he hisses. “Where is His Majesty?”

“Incapacitated,” Calla answers.

Mugo thins his lips. His gaze flickers to the door. Behind him, the other councilmembers are shifting slowly, waiting to take his example, waiting to see if this is their moment to escape. Calla can’t let him leave. The moment he raises his generals, they’re going to march on San-Er. Eigi is too close to be risking that kind of funny business.

“You’re excused from duty,” Calla decides.

Though Mugo must have been eyeing his escape route, his attention snaps back to her in an instant. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. You are excused. I don’t think you’re fit to continue working alongside me.”

The other councilmembers have turned to stare at their feet. They’re pretending that if they don’t move, maybe Calla won’t notice them and bring down judgment on them too.

“Enough.” Mugo, seeing that none of the Crescent Society members are holding weapons to him anymore, brushes by. He heads for the door. For August, the reign that he believes will keep him around.

“You should stop now,” Calla calls.

“You do not have claim to that crown.” Mugo turns over his shoulder. “Nor authority in this palace—”

Calla only blinks. She doesn’t use her hands for the gesture. She doesn’t need to. A red line appears from Mugo’s forehead down to his navel. A mere scratch, he must think. Mugo touches his neck with concern, feeling the sensation pierce him.

Then blood is pouring from the line at gushing speed. He topples over. When he falls, he splits where the wire thin cut is, his body collapsing onto the throne room floor like fruit half-peeled to access the innards.

The other councilmembers make an effort not to react. Someone stifles a sharp inhale. Their sounds blend, their faces blend. If no one stands out, Calla won’t deal with them all at once.

“Princess Calla, we’ve been waiting for you.”

The voice that booms through the room is familiar. Though it takes a beat, Calla searches fast through her memory and matches it to the woman who was speaking on the phone, the one who tagged along with Yilas’s message. Calla turns and finds the woman lingering by the throne, the only one still standing while the rest kneel. Calla didn’t notice her before in the shadows, where she was almost hiding from the light streaming through the balcony. She’s dressed in black and leathers, as a city dweller who frequents casinos and nightclubs might. Calla can’t get a good look at her eyes. The woman’s hand drops from the back of the throne.

“Have you?” Calla asks. “I’m surprised. I didn’t think the Crescent Societies had such goodwill toward me.”

“Of course we do. We’re logical people. We can help each other.”

Around the throne room, the damage isn’t deep. Charred walls and ruined floors, but nothing that can’t be scrubbed away with some heavy-duty soap and fixed with carpet replacements. The gouges are shallow, made to frighten rather than incinerate.

The woman walks down the few steps from the throne, emerging from the shadows. Her hair has been pulled slick against her head and tied in a long braid. Her eyes are entirely black, lined charcoal dark.

Where Calla has no familiarity with her face, it’s Anton who gasps. Anton who stares with such awe that one would think this was someone risen from the dead. He staggers forward a step.

“ Bibi .”

Calla grabs his elbow at once, keeping him back instinctively.

“How do you know her name?” she demands.

Anton’s mouth opens. Nothing comes out. He appeared fine charging into San-Er on the back of intense bloodshed, but it is here that he enters shock.

Bibi reaches the end of the steps. She comes closer and closer, until she goes to her knees too, the thud of each leg landing heavily on the deep green carpet.

“Because a long time ago, only he called me that,” Bibi says, answering where Anton cannot. She inclines her head. “My full name is Buira Makusa. We have come to join your war, Your Majesty.”