Chapter 56
Calla Tuoleimi dies as all mortals do.
Her blood paints a crimson picture around her body, running, running, half her head blown into morsels upon the ground.
Her qi disperses back into the earth. A faint tremor shakes beneath the coliseum—and whether it is her death that causes it, or merely the footfall of screaming spectators, that is hard to determine.
Galipei puts the Weisannas on the mess. They mop her blood and burn her body.
The spectators are told to go home, urged to remember that this was an act performed by a mutineer, a grisly attempt to sow fear.
Calla Tuoleimi has no ability to curse the divine crown.
No individual can wield their qi in such a precise manner. She is not a god.
In the aftermath, Galipei instructs a palace guard to pick up the crown.
It had fallen off the pedestal during the commotion and rolled away into the corner of the balcony.
The guard drops dead a few seconds after setting the crown back on the pedestal.
A second guard is asked merely to touch the crown, the barest pad of his finger grazing the ridge.
His heart stops too.
Galipei, acting out of precaution, urges the royal guard to exit the throne room, to take their rest. All night, he has fretted, trying to wrangle an explanation.
The pedestal has been pushed against the wall, some malevolent entity waiting to lure victims to their death.
He doesn’t know what to do. When August finally grows tired of watching him pace, he waves him out onto the balcony, away from the crown.
The entirety of San-Er is whispering Calla’s name, and before long it will spread beyond the wall, into the rest of Talin.
Calla Tuoleimi is dead, but her qi turns immortal.
The divine crown is rendered obsolete. And a king is not a king without his crown.
A king of Talin is only king after being confirmed by the heavens.
“It doesn’t matter,” August says.
The horizon is starting to lighten. Beads of orange, nudging at the swaths of ink. They will need to act once the day starts anew.
“Of course it matters,” Galipei returns quietly. “It is the cornerstone of the kingdom.”
“So I will build new cornerstones.” August pulls his hands behind his back. “It has been done before. It can be done again.”
The crown was supposed to support his legitimacy. Adopted son, common blood. But they have entered Talin’s first free fall, and being common is only one problem on top of a kingdom overrun by gods.
“Our only advantage is the wealth of San-Er,” Galipei says. “It is the hub of the kingdom, and it is where the people go when they want more for themselves. For as long as that holds, your reign continues.”
“And when it falters?” August asks.
Galipei observes his charge. No—August is not his charge anymore.
But it is hard to pull himself out of the practice.
Harder to remember that he need not shrink into the guard line, helming the protective detail.
King consort. A circlet sits around his dark hair.
It is his first gift of regalia. This is higher than any Weisanna could have risen.
“In the coming few days,” Galipei says, “there will be trouble from every province. We are not only dealing with opportunistic rebel forces. We are dealing with gods. They will change the landscape of the kingdom.”
August hums beneath his breath. He is assured.
He tilts his head, unadorned by circlets or crowns, and Galipei cannot help but see their youth superimposed over the scene.
Their idle time and idle plans, harboring lofty ambitions at the bottom of their school bags.
At some point between plotting to kill Kasa and ascending the throne, August stopped convincing himself he deserved to be king and settled into believing it truly.
“I was once an orphan in a palace of nobles,” August says. “I can handle being king in a land of gods.”
“You’ll want to put the sigil back up, at least. There is little that the Crescents are good at, but they were onto something with blocking qi. It won’t stop the entire pantheon, but it will affect a good portion.”
It will make the Weisannas an ordinary family, short of their loyalty.
Perhaps that thought does not occur to August when he nods, but Galipei has been stewing over it.
He understood what he was agreeing to when August took his hand.
From the moment he was born into the palace, he has belonged to August. Even before knowing him, before entering his orbit.
Careful, fair August, who grew up lesser than most in San-Er and played every move trying to prove himself.
Galipei’s assignment to August was not the ordinary duty of a Weisanna to a royal, but an alignment of exemplary devotion. The faithful paired with the zealous.
But August has nothing left to prove, and the Weisannas are soon to dissolve.
This is not how Galipei imagined it would feel.
August glances at him, quirking a brow as though to ask what he is thinking, and Galipei reaches inward, searching desperately for that unwavering allegiance.
It seems lacking now. August wants to rule as king in a land of gods, and he must seek piety fit for his new stature.
Who else will soon join Galipei among these ranks of worship?
“August,” Galipei says. “Don’t grow lost.”
August casts his gaze onto San-Er. “How can I grow lost? I have you.”
At the other end of Talin, in West Capital, Rincun changes its name back to what it used to be.
Its rulers declare that they will not conduct business with the kingdom of Talin, but will trade with other independent provinces.
Actia follows suit. Youlia falls behind a god, who earns his worship by raising field after field of perennial crops.
In the following weeks, Ediso will be the first to proclaim themselves entirely hostile to the palace. Three gods in the province promise their aid. The palace shall not claim jurisdiction, because councilmembers assigned to the territory will be killed on sight.
Laho and Lankil fuse into one. There is talk that they are ruled by a god who has her sights set on the capital. They say she is gathering the forces and the steel to challenge the throne one day. It is anyone’s game now, after all.
But here, now, Galipei only suggests that they get some rest before the mayhem begins.
He chooses not to consider his sovereign’s question any further, putting his hand on his back and steering him away from the balcony edge.
August, reluctantly, pulls his eyes away from his twin cities.
San-Er, living, breathing. San-Er, the heart of the kingdom.
There is much to do. August steps inside. Galipei is close behind him.
And the sun rises on a new day.