Chapter 39

CHAPTER 39

Night sweeps over Eigi’s security base.

Enough days have passed that Calla and her coup have settled in San-Er. With each new hour, August cools down. He could hardly think past his rage when she entered the city. Now, he finds any sort of indignant response to be a wasted effort. Calla can try, but she can’t take the kingdom. No matter how thoroughly Calla wins the capital, it is impossible to claim Talin without claiming the provinces that provide its resources, so it doesn’t matter, does it?

He hears the reports from those who leave San-Er. The wall has opened one section to allow people to freely exit. No one is getting forcibly expelled, but plenty of Weisannas and guards have left anyway, joining August’s cause. Plenty of aristocrats have voluntarily packed up their things, fearing their time remaining in San-Er. Calla did not issue a warning. The hostility in the Palace of Union was enough of an unspoken one.

Under Calla Tuoleimi, this is not the same San-Er they’ve known with each new coronation. Crescent moons start appearing in shop windows. Weapons are distributed on the open market. These groups have always wanted anarchy. What more perfect way to begin that than the criminal princess finally coming back to end what she started?

August is starting to understand. How the pieces fell where they did. Who was moving which thread, whose hands were nudging where without him knowing.

Despite the Crescent attacks, some members of the council remain in San-Er, resolved to rule their jurisdiction. Ximili Province. Cirea Province. Gaiyu Province. Most of the councilmembers are dead, though, which means most armies in the provinces are also waiting, necks craned to see which way the wind blows, whether they ought to be listening to the queen who wears the crown or the king they coronated. It’s hard to tell how any of it will play out. Never has Talin seen change like this. Not since the war.

And, allegedly, no one alive today remembers the war.

The door creaks open behind him.

“Your Majesty,” a guard says. “You have a visitor.”

August doesn’t turn to thank the guard for bringing the news. Every unfamiliar face reporting in only reminds him of who he’s missing. Though the Weisannas who left San-Er have replenished his numbers at the base, he feels more exposed than ever while Galipei remains in serious condition, refusing to wake.

If Galipei doesn’t recover, August will personally take Calla’s head as a war prize at the end of this.

The door shuts again. He hears the soft pad of footsteps, then Otta Avia approaches his side, staring at the map he’s unfurled on the board. She showed up at the security base yesterday, not looking at all like she’d wandered in from the borderlands. When the guards brought her to him handcuffed, August took one look and asked for her to be released. He had some matters to discuss with her. She didn’t need to be kept prisoner.

“It’s not optimal, is it?” she remarks. She notes his markings on the map.

“Only because we’re not fighting the same,” August replies. “She has cheap tricks up her sleeve.”

Otta makes a noise of disagreement. “I’m not sure if unfettered access to qi can be qualified as a cheap trick.”

“It is,” he says. “Take the crown away, and she is nothing. She follows instructions blindly passed down from other people, drawing sigils to reap its effects but failing to understand how any of it works.”

“As if you understand any better.”

August turns to Otta. He surveys her thoroughly, watches for the most minute change in her expression. When Otta says nothing more, he turns to check the door. She’s closed it.

“Have you been my sister all along,” he asks, “or did you come in later?”

The room darkens. Outside the base, the clouds weigh heavier and heavier, sure to bring another night he’ll spend unsleeping. While August holds his scrutiny, Otta primly smiles. He hadn’t doubted his conclusion, but it unnerves him that she doesn’t bother denying it. How long has she been expecting him to know, and why has it taken until now?

“Would it change anything?” she returns. “You know me.”

“I’m not sure I do. When did it happen?”

The seconds stretch long. He almost thinks she won’t answer him.

Then: “Fifteen years ago. A stupid girl in Rincun took over my body without knowing what she was doing. The old gods favor her. They protected her. After all these years pondering this sequence of events, I gather she may be one of their own sent down to stop me, and she doesn’t even realize it yet.”

August has long suspected something strange under his nose, but with that, he finally comprehends the picture fully.

“I wasn’t strong enough to win control over the body. My new mind was too young, so I yanked myself out before I could be entirely consumed,” she goes on. “Found the next-best substitute.”

“You escaped into Otta.”

“I did.”

The kingdom barely understands these recent developments with qi. Never mind this sort of magic. Never mind child royals and godlings playing jumping games without discretion.

“How long were you planning to pretend?” he asks. “Would you have schemed for the throne earlier if you hadn’t fallen ill?”

“I wouldn’t have schemed for anything,” she returns. “I would have inherited the Palace of Heavens by birthright. Then it was taken from me, and I was forced to go another route. None of this is my fault. I am not the one who intruded.”

August keeps quiet. It’s not lost on him that when she lost the Palace of Heavens, her next route was to claim the Palace of Earth. Her eyes flicker to him, and she must realize that she needs to go about this in a far less threatening manner.

“None of it matters now. August, you don’t want another enemy. Work with me. San-Er has always had two thrones. Nothing says we cannot reinstate that.”

It’s true enough. There are no what-ifs, no alternate pasts where his half sister swept the throne out from underneath him before he could receive it. The kingdom today knows him as its rightful ruler, and he ought to work with the one person who has power trembling right beneath her skin, waiting to be unleashed.

“Very well,” August says. He takes a pen and draws a firm line through Talin. “And you think we can win this war?”

“Yes,” Sinoa Tuoleimi answers without hesitation. “That crown was always mine. If there is anyone who knows how to get it back, it is me.”