Chapter 3 #3
Anton frowns. He does not deny it, though really, it would be too much of a simplification to consider fear in the relationship he and Calla have twisted themselves into.
Yes—he treats conversation like combat. His behavior has deviated far from the part of a lover.
At least he knows himself well enough to trace exactly where this errant conduct comes from, to point fingers at the people he grew up alongside in the palace: he never stood up to August during their childhood; he went along with everything Otta wanted the moment she asked, until the moment she could ask no longer.
And then Anton was on his own, cast aside for San-Er to consume, forever frozen in this form.
After a lifetime of failure, convincing Calla to take the crown was a great victory.
He used every word correctly, pushed each detonator at the perfect time.
He recalls Eigi’s base, Calla’s yellow eyes leveled upon him in the low light, and it isn’t Calla who he fears—it is who he would be if he ever lost her.
He will not backtrack on this conquest. They will not flee. There is only a forward march.
“Bibi,” Anton says. “A hundred people. That’s it.”
She turns back to her screen, ignoring him for a long minute. The video feeds are fuzzy, and Bibi’s muttering to herself while trying to fix it.
“The Crescents are not the type of people you’re used to dealing with,” she finally replies. “Leadership changes with the wind. They follow ideas if enough of them can agree, and they throw out people and plans alike when it goes to shit.”
“That’s not a practical way to rule the twin cities.”
“Yes,” Bibi agrees. “What part of criminal anarchy did you not understand?”
“There must be someone you can go to. Someone who is more likely to see reason than the others.”
If Anton barely possesses any memories of the palace prior to the attack, he assumes Bibi doesn’t either. She won’t remember the golden rot that made up the Palace of Earth, banquets and vault collections overflowing with such unabashed greed that any decency from those halls seemed a mirage.
From the taint rose the orphan August—pure August, virtuous August. Though Anton enabled it at the time, he alone saw his best friend as he really was.
August liked carving canker sores in the palace walls because then he would be the all-healing salve.
If the golden prince didn’t already want Anton dead after the stunt he pulled during the games, he will want Anton executed for spurring Calla’s coup.
Just as Anton knows August Shenzhi well, August also knows Anton Makusa.
He will know who was actually responsible for seizing that crown, even if it was from afar.
“There’s a cleric,” Bibi says, “named Tsosia. She spearheaded the attack on the palace.”
Anton seizes onto the name. “Convince her. Once August is irrelevant as an issue, she can truly put her energy into securing the capital for her Crescents. Doesn’t she want that?”
Bibi sighs. “I’ll talk to Tsosia. Are you happy?”
“Only if you can get an answer in the next few hours.”
“I will. You were easier to deal with when you were dead.”
A new window loads on Bibi’s screen. With the matter of the Crescents finally resolved, she navigates the cameras in silence.
Anton sits and squints, crunching on the last piece of hard candy.
Given the recent weather, many of San-Er’s alleys are exceptionally dark on surveillance footage.
They were already plenty obscured by clotheslines and awnings, and now rainfall fogs the cameras.
It’s better at the wall, where the grounds are open.
“What are you looking for?” Anton asks.
“I wanted to show you this,” Bibi replies, still clicking. The view changes beyond the wall, to empty fields of yellowing grass. A few collapsed tents remain, but no more campers. San-Er doesn’t need a lottery anymore.
The screen switches through gray trees and grayer fields. There aren’t many cameras in the provinces, but the few that they can access from the palace are installed at the various yamen.
“Obviously, we don’t have a camera on Eigi,” Bibi says. “But I had a look at the provinces nearby.”
Anton leans into the screen. “How are you accessing this? They’re locked under councilmember access.”
“It didn’t take long to get around those settings,” Bibi replies wryly. “Palace security isn’t very good.”
Yes, that seems to be a common thread among recent events. Anton scans the image. “Where is this?”
“Pashe.” She points to the ground. “Do you see that?”
Anton reaches over her shoulder to tap the keyboard himself, zooming in rapidly. A wide gravel path runs toward the yamen—it’s a nicer section of the Apian Routes. With the rain, there is minor flooding to either side of the path.
Anton stares where Bibi’s finger is. It could be that he already knows exactly what he’s looking at, but his mind resists the conclusion. Markings on the path, not by wagon, not by horseshoe…
“It looks like a sigil,” Bibi remarks, rotating the view they have on the footage, and Anton’s stomach drops.
He bolts to his feet. “Get an answer from your cleric as soon as possible. If the fear is backlash from other Crescents, we can keep it covert.”
Anton’s moving for the door before he’s finished speaking.
Bibi calls after him, taken aback, but Anton doesn’t slow.
It’s a sigil he recognizes, because it is the only one he knows.
A left dot. A long and slanting curve, with the dot above.
A dot to the right. It’s the sigil that Calla showed him, after she got it from Leida.
And after Leida got it from Otta.
This is a message. Otta Avia is at August’s base.