Chapter 2
Three days.
Venus Hailira has been held captive for three days.
Time hobbles by. She wouldn’t know how to keep track of its distorted course if not for the small window facing the east. There’s nothing visible from where she’s been chained.
But it’s plain gray during the day, then illuminated bright green in the night, catching the sign of the restaurant across the way.
She was paying attention when the Crescents brought her through.
They passed two restaurants, a dental clinic, and a butchery.
The temple is tucked at the very end of the alley, its attic taller than the rest of the buildings along the block.
As soon as the rain started, the slanted ceiling sprung a leak.
She mentioned it to the Crescent who came up to bring her water, and he backhanded her for it.
Her glass of water went flying into the rain puddle.
Venus kept quiet after that.
She can hear the Crescents downstairs. At odd hours there are groups playing mahjong directly underneath, the clack-clack-clack of the tables echoing through the floor slats.
They talk. About who has been assigned shifts at the wall.
About who wants to trade posts at one bank or the other—who is willing to speak to their cleric and complain about the poor insulation at this temple, because the rain is starting to seep through the floors, disturbing their sleep.
They whine and hiss and fume too. About the bitch of a princess in the palace.
They liked her far better back when she killed her parents and went into hiding.
Now she’s issuing demands. Now she’s wearing a crown and declaring herself a king, no different from the other Shenzhis and Tuoleimis they had before her.
But they have to play it carefully, because the rest of the twin cities is made up of idiots.
People who worship royals and believe in the crown’s mandate.
Common masses who believe that nobles are born of different make to the rest of Talin, that there is a reason why the palaces have kept peace in the kingdom for so long.
Time must pass before the Crescent Societies introduce their way of life—and they laugh and they laugh about how brilliant their cleric will be.
Tsosia, they call her. Other temples swap leadership at a whim, but not Tsosia.
Tsosia has led the Shard Temple for over a decade.
Venus learns this when two of the members have an argument about whether the cleric who preceded her was assassinated by a rival temple in Er.
The rain pelts down. Venus is starving. Her stomach has progressed past cramping and descended into an ever-present nettling pain.
She thought she was saving herself during the coup.
She promised that she would free Rincun.
That was why the Crescent Societies went around killing the councilmembers, no?
They wanted freedom. She would give it to them.
She doesn’t want Rincun anyway. She never asked for this legacy—her father offered her no choice in the matter, and then he went and died without consulting her about that either.
But it seems Venus might have traded a quick death for a slow, tortured one.
None of the Crescents have come to talk to her reasonably, nor have they sent in their cleric Tsosia.
More than once now, she’s heard someone around the mahjong tables ask what they’re going to do about the louse in the attic.
They’re always brushed aside. “Who the fuck cares about what’s going on in Rincun? ”
Beyond the window, the green sign switches off.
Daytime, again, bringing the restaurant owner to begin morning duties across the street.
Movement stirs in the temple. Venus isn’t certain when she started shivering, only that she cannot stop.
The attic continues to leak, and the air dampens with the stickiness of mildew.
She’s barely coherent when the trapdoor opens, and a Crescent enters. He’s holding a glass of water, which is starting to feel preposterous. If they aren’t going to offer any more than that, Venus wishes they would just let her die.
“You alive?” the Crescent asks. A cigarette dangles from the corner of his mouth. She hasn’t seen him before in her usual water rotation. “Hungry?”
Venus must have moved her head enough to look up, because he snorts with contempt. He reaches into his pocket, then throws something at her. A soft jolt hits the space between her eyes; the bun falls into her lap.
Slowly she picks at the food, putting bits in her mouth. They have her chained at her ankle, the cuff attached to an old radiator. If she wanted to, she could stand and walk, but she is afraid of making a racket. She wants to stay as small and quiet as possible.
“You shouldn’t be here, you know.”
Venus has finished eating the bun. She thinks, at first, that she is hearing sympathy. Finally, someone to see reason and allow her free. Then the man crouches. He reaches out roughly, grabbing her chin.
“You should be dead,” he says, “with the rest of them when we took over.”
“Please,” Venus says, and her voice scratches from disuse. “I can cooperate. I’ll steer Rincun however your people want.”
The Crescent tilts his head. He does not blink. His blue eyes are almost Venus’s color. Only a few shades darker to her powder pastel.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” he says. His grip tightens on her chin. “The others keep you chained because you are an insect. Because you and your kind have tormented us for years with your incessant buzzing, and now you’ve been made a taxidermy prize in retribution.”
“Please,” Venus tries.
“The Crescent Societies do not negotiate with insects,” he goes on. “The Crescent Societies do not care what happens beyond the twin cities. San-Er is the beating heart of the kingdom, and we have claimed it. Why would we care about your stupid province?”
Venus tries to shake her head. Her throat is burning, inexplicably. She rasps, “Most of San-Er’s fresh water comes from Rincun.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. The Crescent’s frown cuts an ugly slash across his mouth. He seizes her collar with both hands, and then her blouse tears open in a prolonged mangle. Her nakedness is unanticipated.
Despite everything, despite her impending slow death, she did not expect violence.
“Let’s take your heart,” he says, “and get this over with.”
A knife flashes in his hand. It takes Venus too long to register the sight, and then—with utmost incredulity—she cannot help but think, That’s illegal.
It is a beautiful blade. Its handle etched with flowers and inlaid with iridescent seashells, the sort of weapon that has long been banned in San-Er.
The Crescent plunges the knife toward her.
The blade has barely pierced skin when Venus screams, and the temple responds with one forceful convulsion.
The window on the other side of the attic shatters into fine fragments.
The Crescent goes flying back. His head strikes the wall with a resounding crack.
In the ensuing silence, Venus can only hear the rain.
It hisses and sizzles, like hot oil against a pan.
Slowly, she looks around, finding a yellow light dancing about the room.
Her senses return: the stinging pain of the knife prick, an alarm wailing somewhere in the distance.
She stands, little by little, and the chain around her ankle appears to have disintegrated, the cuff falling in five separate pieces.
Venus doesn’t understand what has happened.
During her time held captive, she’s had no opportunity to use sigils.
She was offered no chance to make sacrifice.
She should not have been capable of the feat that just occurred, and yet a slow puddle of blood grows beneath the collapsed man.
His beautiful knife protrudes from his own stomach.
Only a nub of its iridescent handle is left visible.
Her qi hums beneath her skin. Venus finds the ribbon of her blouse and wrestles it closed. When she pushes the trapdoor, the wooden hatch drops down to a silent temple.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry—”
Venus tumbles against the hatch. She hits the stone tiles without any pain. When she staggers upright, the yellow light has followed her down, drifting along the walls, the dark hall.
Like every child in San-Er, Venus was raised believing her qi was her personhood. A body was designated as hers upon birth, a body that she ought to treasure given its role in offering her life, but that wasn’t what constructed the self. The qi is the self. The intangible matter is the self.
A door slams open from the main worship hall. Venus spins around at once, heading for the back exit. This is where they brought her through.
“Hey!” the Crescents yell. “Hey!”
Venus crashes against the exit door, tumbling into a gray alley. As soon as she’s found herself outside the temple, she bolts. She doesn’t know where to go, but she can’t stop. She will die if she stops.
Her qi has developed a mind of its own.