Chapter 5 #3
Calla supposes she understands August better from here, more so than she could from the ground. If she grew up gazing at San-Er like this, she might have thrown caution to the wind and made a grab for the throne earlier.
“On a victim?” Calla asks.
“No. She left a sigil in the soil. It bears no purpose except to communicate to us. She knew we would be watching the cameras from inside the capital.”
Calla’s attention flickers back to Anton. “She could have come to San-Er. Slipped in through the open wall.”
“No,” he says. He straightens. Walks around the edge of the desk. “She went to August. If we have not heard from her, she went to August. Trust me.”
Anton speaks with such authority. The be-all, end-all expert on Otta Avia, so why was he no help when it came to identifying the damage she would do to the kingdom—the Crescent Societies and their qi experiments? The scramble for the crown?
“Calla,” Anton says firmly. “We need to replan if Otta is a threat.”
“Who says?”
A rumble of voices wafts from below. Someone has opened the door into the servants’ passage, which means before long, the Crescents are going to storm up the steps of the turret, rushing to insist that they should sit by for protection.
“I do,” Anton says, and he is growing impatient.
“If there is even the risk of losing, we can’t march on August. We can’t give him an exact map of our numbers—which is already negligible—so that he can perfect his next strike.
We can’t give him the upper hand when the rest of the provinces hear about the defeat and refuse to follow you.
I will not watch you throw away our starting advantage. ”
Yes, their starting advantage. Their occupation of San-Er.
This war that Calla has started, because Anton couldn’t sit out of the games.
From the moment he aligned himself with her, she’s been waiting for him to change his mind.
The facts are hard to deny: Anton Makusa was out of moves in every other direction when he swore allegiance to Calla.
Whether he calls that love or strategy is only a matter of semantics.
“Did you think I was trying my worst in the arena?”
Anton’s gaze sharpens. “Our sparring match out there, or the time you killed me?”
“Either instance is fine. It was a rhetorical question.”
Mere months ago, Calla Tuoleimi’s only purpose was revenge.
Carve a hole out of the palace as they had done to her when they invaded Rincun.
It all feels terribly far away now. As though those were someone else’s thoughts, some memory she’s viewing rather than recalling.
Removed from the moment, she’s removed from her bloodlust too.
She has had her fill, and she can’t quite discern the details of her worst day in Rincun anymore.
From San-Er’s tallest turret, she tries to summon her rage again, if only to test its presence.
Rincun’s annexation. Her helplessness while the villages burned. It was personal—it was, it was.
It’s hard to decide whether she no longer recognizes the nameless girl she used to be, or if this has been her truest self all along, pulled into being by seizing the divine crown.
She puts her hand on her stomach. There—her hunger remains.
Yet it has changed with the circumstances, ripening from one desire to the next.
Climbing closer and closer toward the heavens, fulfilling greater and greater tasks of greed.
She has been waiting her whole life to be within reach of the skies. And here she is.
The Crescents are making their way up the turret stairs, their voices loud in conversation.
Anton steps toward her, a frown already pulling at his lips, and Calla thinks, Stop.
Her qi is a well; it is filled to unimaginable excess.
Anton freezes where he stands; the Crescents halt, their steps screeching to abrupt silence.
Calla holds Anton’s eyes. The yellow light disappears from his dark irises. She waits for his panic, the moment where he registers he can’t raise his other foot, he can’t pull his arms free. She waits for that flicker of understanding, for him to realize what point she wishes to make.
Anton threw in his lot with her. He shouldn’t lose sight of why.
Calla releases him. A clatter echoes on the stairs, then a faint curse.
The Crescents have regained their footing too.
They will tug their sleeves straight, enter the office with their heads held high.
They will be polite, because they are waiting for the moment they can draw their blades and cut her free without consequence.
So she must relinquish her need of them before they no longer need her.
“Are you all right?” Calla asks.
Anton is silent for a beat. She reaches toward him, like that of a lover seeking contact in the night. When Anton takes her hand, he brings her knuckles to his lips. His eyes flit up. As doting as the gesture is, he is looking at her crown, not her face.
“I am yours to command,” he says. “We proceed tonight. With or without forces.”