Chapter 9 #2
Tsosia’s spine has a faint bow to it. Her right leg is favored over her left, though only subtly, as though decades have passed since the injury and it’s worn into her very psyche.
By the sight of her face alone, Calla would not put the cleric’s age at her life’s end, but this may not be her birth body.
This may only be another skin that she has slipped into, even while her qi ages toward its breaking point.
“The new generations of San-Er have long forgotten about it,” Tsosia says, “but I was raised on stories about the war that tore the kingdom apart. The battles and the flaws of its rulers.”
“How old are you?” Calla asks.
Tsosia ignores the question.
“My elders spoke about the divine crown as a curse before it was a gift. Indeed, it opens a connection to the heavens, but channeling such power to the earth requires great sacrifice. The crown takes from the wearer. Where does the wearer take from? What is the cost of negotiating with a force as unfathomable as the heavens?”
Their marching army has grown drenched in the rain. Calla hardly notices new droplets landing in her hair, squirming down the metal of her crown.
“It would be rather ironic for a Crescent Society cleric to lecture me about the sacrifice of qi.”
Tsosia tuts. “I did not agree with the Hollow Temple’s methods when they experimented with their qi. The Shard Temple was warned about the consequences. We steered clear.”
“But you didn’t do anything to stop the other temples?”
“That is not how we operate. Members following other branches have the freedom to make their own mistakes and taint their own souls.”
Calla barely resists a scoff. All this nonsense about the crown as a curse and the morality of power, but Tsosia would sit back on her hands because other Crescents should have the right to kill and take hearts.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Calla says. “I almost died from their experiments.”
The Hollow Temple creeps back into her dreams sometimes. The pile of bodies left like fodder in the basement—Yilas among them, her head lolled at an awkward angle, her limbs awry under the red light. She had feared that she was too late, that her friend had already been sacrificed.
“Then you have seen what accompanies a great surge of heavenly qi,” Tsosia says. “The crown operates off the very same rationale, only it is not optional. What do you exchange for its power?”
“I am failing to see your point.” Calla’s voice has taken an edge. It isn’t enough that they are preparing to meet August in battle. She has to be confronted by a furtive old bat too. “I’m not killing innocent subjects and inhaling their hearts.”
“The crown forces sacrifice. For as long as you keep asking the heavens for more, the heavens collect dues from you, and when you run out, they move to collect from all which orbits you.”
The earth tremors. It is an unexpected sensation, and the Crescents exclaim in surprise, calling to one another over the rain. Calla casts Tsosia an annoyed look, then pivots away, making for Anton.
“What was that?” Calla asks when she draws up beside him.
“I have to assume it came from the direction of August’s camp,” he answers. He shouts, “Lights off!” and the Crescents kill their flashlights. The night drops into complete darkness. Dense cloud cover has locked away the stars, revealing nothing of the aforesaid heavens that Calla ought to pay.
“Anton,” Calla whispers.
“Right here.”
She doesn’t say anything more. For a long minute, it is only the friction of the path beneath Calla’s feet keeping her straight. Only the momentum of Eigi Province flowing on even ground—forward, forward…
The path under their feet suddenly crests downhill. The security base appears. First, the flickers of lamplight inside its thin towers and its connective sky bridges. Then Calla’s eyes adjust, and she sights the Weisannas around the perimeter.
She takes in a breath.
“Move, move!” a Crescent hisses.
Element of surprise. The Weisannas are yet to react.
There’s one line within the premises and another outside.
A loud bang to the left. The Crescents break onto the scene with a projectile weapon, colliding with the perimeter accompanied by a shriek of flames.
The troop splits in two, and the Weisannas begin to shout among themselves, delivering quick orders.
“Stay low,” Anton reminds.
“There’s an opening there,” Calla returns, nodding to the east side of the perimeter. “Let’s go.”
They slip into the havoc. The Weisannas are jumping, their blinding light flashing rapidly, and the maneuver works in Calla’s favor.
In the dark, she and Anton are indiscernible, fluid shapes slinking without notice.
She fills her lungs, and her vision sharpens, focusing on the portion of the perimeter that the guards have abandoned.
The weather barrels down. Calla ignores the sounds and the sparks, the cries of battle, the swords meeting bone.
At the perimeter, she doesn’t need to give the instruction to Anton: he’s getting into position instinctively to boost her up and over the railheads of the thin fence.
The moment Calla has wedged her foot onto the top rail, she throws her hand back and pulls Anton up.
The Crescents are outnumbered, certainly, but not as much as Calla expected, and that strikes a new, incomprehensible wave of panic down her throat when she lands with a thud inside the camp.
“Go,” Anton says. Two flashes of light. He’s jumping, rapid quick, returning to his body in that split second before a combatant scarcely understands the invasion. This is what Anton is good at.
Calla has been noticed. Her restrained lope turns into a run, then a dead sprint.
These buildings were the site of her imprisonment only a few days ago.
When more guards stream from the doors, meaning to surround the premises, she swipes her arm.
A pulse knocks them to the ground. Whole bodies lifting with the wind like flotsam, then slamming as heavily as stone.
Before Calla can move onward, one of the guards is faster than the others to hurtle to her feet again. Seiqi Weisanna raises her sword. The entryway behind her has triggered a screaming red alarm.
“You’ll have to stop there, Highness,” Seiqi calls.
Calla can feel each point of contact the crown makes with her head. The throbbing metal, the rushing blood. The band of gold is tightening, responding to the threat. Her eyes flicker up.
She’s not imagining it: qi tremors from inside the building. It shivers into the soil, darting beneath her feet.
“Surrender and stand down,” Calla says. “I’m giving you the chance to walk away.”