Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

At the edge of San-Er, unending piles of construction line the path into the provinces and along the periphery of the wall. This central section will come down tomorrow. They’ll detach the gate and rebuild farther out into Eigi, allow these steel foundations to infect the yellowing grass and new buildings to take root inside.

A large force of guards has been brought out to surround the new perimeter of the capital and clear away the rural civilians who like to camp outside the wall. Many in the provinces have come to watch the perimeter line change, waiting for their moment to slip into San while the wall is down. They haven’t acted yet. As far as the palace guards have witnessed, they’re merely camping patiently.

“We have someone claiming to be a lawful entrant,” one guard on scouting duty says, coming to a stop in front of a Weisanna.

The Weisanna barely looks up from his tablet screen, too annoyed that he’s been placed out here. A smattering of rain falls from the murky sky, wetting the text. They need a few elite units in case there’s real trouble and a Weisanna’s capabilities are required, but did it have to be him? For most of his life, he has been on the royal guard. Now he’s overseeing a wall.

“Identity number?”

“She says that she hasn’t been issued one yet, but her entrance date is today. Gave her name as Bibi.”

“Bibi what?”

“Only Bibi. Didn’t say whether it was first or last.”

This is stupid. The Weisanna smears the rain off his face, then stabs a finger against his clunky tablet to type the two characters in. “I don’t see her on the list. She must have been issued an identity number if she’s been accepted for entry. We need to match her in the civilian registry or else she doesn’t come in.”

“All right. Hold tight.”

Bibi, meanwhile, waits by one of the camp tents with an umbrella. It’s a hideous yellow color, the last one at the stall in Eigi where she bought it. She clutches its handle with one hand, twiddles a lock of curly hair with the other, tugging and tugging. She has spent most of her life out in Laho Province, though she wasn’t born there. Sometimes, out in rural Talin, people find themselves stuck in certain places. One day at a job turns into one month, waiting for the savings to go somewhere, but then it never does, because food prices keep increasing. One month at a job easily blends into a year, which then grows into a decade. Farm owners are good at using bartering systems instead of San-Er’s central currency. A year of work for decent comfort. Ten years of work for a shed to sleep in. Eventually, one forgets whether leaving is even an option when leaving means starting over.

Laho, though, is too landlocked, and Bibi couldn’t shake the urge to run, try as she did. The province produces grain and grows wheat in its plains, the same as those beside it. Nothing about Laho captures particular attention, not like how Gaiyu is known for its red wind-chime flowers, or how Daol has a glimmering eastern seaboard. Laho isn’t a difficult province either, not like the outermost territories of Talin that were more newly swallowed. Rincun and Youlia are associated with unrest. Small, frequent fusses that the palace soldiers have to beat away.

Laho is just nothingness. When Bibi started making her way southeast toward the twin cities, waiting each round of the immigration draws, she felt the difference in her bones, in the creak of her knees while she crossed from plains to forestry. The Jinzi River rushing beneath her feet made up her mind; Pashe’s hot climate breathed a damp thrill in her lungs. After failing to obtain entrance during her first lottery, she decided Eigi wasn’t so bad for what she needed. The villages were busy. The food had strong taste.

Then she heard about the palace burning down Eigi’s capital to transform it into a security base, and she had to make a choice: either enter San-Er proper and hide among its people or return to the provinces and get out of sight. There was far too much risk hovering in proximity to the twin cities, where the guards were most wary.

They could find out who she was. They could kill her a second time.

“Ask the palace,” Bibi whines when the guard returns and prompts her for her identity number again. “I told you already—they said someone would be at the main gate with welcome materials. How was I to know you’re not using the main gate today?”

“Fine, fine.” The guard has a good spirit, unbothered by the rural dwellers who sneer at him from a distance away. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll go to administration.”

Bibi folds her arms across her chest, her sleeves bunching at her wrists. She’s wearing her only nice shirt. Rural Talin doesn’t produce much variety in fashion. Plain cloths and wraparound cotton to keep cool during sweltering wet seasons. Slightly thicker wool for dry seasons when the ice blows in.

“You don’t really have an identity number, do you?”

The voice comes from the tent to her left. A man pokes his head out, looking unkempt with shadows under his eyes. There was a child who ran out from the tent before. Perhaps this is a tired father trying to relocate his family. It is equally likely that this is the head of a trafficking ring treating the wall as a ripe plucking ground, scooping up children to use for labor in Eigi.

“Of course I do,” Bibi answers evenly. “I just don’t know it yet.”

“I heard it comes with your approval letter.”

Though construction hasn’t officially started, they’ve already begun digging in some parts, unscrewing the pillars of the wall and the joints of the concave bends. It makes it easy to glimpse into the city. To eye the buildings made of metal and imagine walking right in.

“Funny. I suppose mine was lost.”

“How do you lose something like that?”

Bibi reaches into her shallow bag of belongings and rummages around for nothing. As some of the guards at the wall start to move, changing shifts, she takes her cue to walk forward.

“How silly of me,” she says in lieu of a reply. “It’s been here all along.”

San-Er feels it the moment she comes back.

The twin cities may have lost most of their stories, but their temples still worship. And where there is worship, there must remain remnants of the past. Practices that only make sense within their context, methods of sacred care passed on from old to young. It is there that fragments of collective memory cling to life, lurking in obscurity. No one alive now was around for the war, but there are some who remember growing up in its shadows, in those years after the kingdom’s masses took refuge behind the wall. They remember their parents refusing to speak about why they fled the provinces; they remember the fear at any mention of the enemy.

Talin’s borders have been undisturbed for over a century. When the throne won the final battle, it breathed a sigh of relief. It cleaned its streets, wrapped its history away with a neat bow so no one could haul it back into the light.

It didn’t realize it had never been granted victory, only momentary armistice.

The enemy has achieved her greatest play. She isn’t going to accept defeat this time around.