Chapter 7 #2
Bibi tips her head and turns to go. Silence swaddles the cavernous throne room until the door shuts with a click.
“We can tackle that problem after August is gone,” Anton declares. “No use getting distracted.”
“Yes, but old gods?” Calla exclaims. “If this is a ploy on August’s part, it will be his way of squeezing the capital out from underneath us.
While the provinces do not know which royal to follow, they follow divinity instead.
Resurrect the old gods, then control the flow of resources in each province before it can come down to San-Er.
He’s worked with the Dovetail once before to sow discord. Surely he can manage it a second time.”
Anton paces before the throne. He drags his hands through his hair again. Then again.
“Start sending out notices of censure,” he says slowly.
“All persons claiming to have heavenly qi are nothing but charlatans. Direct the wording to each news station in San-Er. They are not old gods, they are new heretics. Pull in anyone professing to be one. It is a moral transgression to trick Talin in this manner.”
Calla leans back. When she props her elbows to either side of the throne, her sleeves fall loose, pooling on the frigid embellishments.
There was a harsh burn on her right wrist after the coup.
It has healed over now. She wonders when Anton will notice that each and every one of her injuries have disappeared.
“New heretics,” she agrees. “But we cannot imprison transgressors. Just as we can’t kill Levi.”
“You are not being a tyrant merely for hauling in August’s lackeys, Calla.”
“I didn’t say I was. You said it yourself: we handle August, and then we see what remains as a problem. Perhaps opportunists will have nothing to cling to once we declare the provinces independent.”
Anton stops pacing. “You are not planning to declare them independent just like that, correct?”
“The north, first,” Calla says.
“No,” Anton counters. “You’ll want treaties before you offer independence, in any case, but the north goes last. Every southern province will suffer if you take away their trade routes with the north.”
“I didn’t say I was taking the routes away.”
“What do you think will happen if you release Rincun and Youlia first? Rincun was conquered not that long ago.” He hesitates.
His eyes flicker to the balcony, and Calla can pinpoint the very moment he decides not to hold back.
“You remember it, Calla. The people living there do too. The moment you declare the outer provinces no longer answer to taxes and quotas, the first thing they will do is slam their doors and keep to themselves.”
Slamming their doors from the beginning might have warned San-Er not to ride through.
So would raising their torches and makeshift swords, hacking away at any palace soldier who dared make nice.
Maybe if Rincun’s earliest reaction had been different, back when it was a vassal state to Talin, its people would not be struggling in the kingdom’s fringes today but rather ruling their own land.
Maybe Calla wouldn’t have spent all that time confused and aimless without a roof over her head, surrounded by other gaunt faces who were equally lost.
But Rincun isn’t to blame, is it? No matter how hard they fought, the palace was fiercer. The palace is insatiable with its want, and that’s why Calla was doomed to end up on its throne, tending to a void that ordinary provisions cannot fill.
Calla forces a breath toward her bangs. They flutter out of her eyes.
“We’ll revisit this,” she decides. “After August.”
Anton doesn’t seem too happy about the order, but he doesn’t argue further.
It is a precarious situation. Before Calla has the chance to tour the provinces and offer gifts and simpering promises, the palace’s numerous legions across Talin are the only governing forces in the kingdom, and they can act however they please.
They’re hovering in no-man’s-land: Calla has been instated, but August has not been deposed.
Anything breaking in the kingdom could be August’s doing; or it could have nothing to do with him, yet stand to benefit him anyway when it pushes yet another combatant in front of Calla.
There is so much to conquer before Calla reigns over Talin.
Twelve provinces south of the Jinzi River, and sixteen on the other side.
“Do you hear that?”
Anton’s question comes unexpectedly, and Calla tenses. She does hear someone shouting beyond the coliseum. She heard it before Anton brought it up, actually, but she assumed it was only a troublemaker complaining about the closure of the markets.
Calla lurches off the throne. She marches for the balcony, shoving aside the heavy curtains. She’s right in time to hear “Calla!” and see Venus Hailira shove into the arena before two Crescents catch up to her, grabbing her shoulders.
“Stop,” Calla commands, throwing her hand out.
She hadn’t intended to release power, but her crown reacts unprompted, emitting qi in a tremendous burst across the coliseum.
It strikes the Crescents, shoves them aside in different directions.
Venus takes advantage of the moment, slipping free and closing the distance to the balcony.
“Help! Please, please, Calla!”
Venus Hailira has been missing since the coup.
She wasn’t with the other councilmembers gathered for execution in the throne room, so she wasn’t rescued with them either.
Surviving councilmembers were allowed to leave San-Er.
Calla assumed that Venus took her opportunity to run and hide.
Many nobles have cash hidden away at their family properties.
Venus gets closer, and Calla’s throat twists.
“Anton,” Calla says.
The Crescents yell for Venus to stop. When Venus turns around, she screams. Her body lights up, suddenly and violently, a faint yellow tingeing around her arms, her legs, her dark hair.
There is so much qi in the arena that it is sliding down Calla’s throat like salt water, stinging an unbearable path, and yet Calla can’t pull her head out of the water.
Calla scrunches her fist and tugs Venus down, into the wet dirt of the arena. She holds her there. Holds her until her light flares out, her body slackens. The councilmember has fallen unconscious.
Anton strides up to the balcony edge. He alone hears how heavily Calla is breathing when she releases her qi. With a hand at the small of her back, he murmurs, “Are you all right?” and Calla grabs his wrist roughly. Her palm is soaked in sweat.
Anton nods.
“Bring Councilmember Hailira in,” he calls down to the Crescents. “Then open a section in the palace cells for heretics.”