Chapter 13 #2
Though daybreak presses close, it’s still too dark to travel without assistance. The small dot of a flashlight is unmistakable in the distance. Getting closer and closer.
Calla excuses herself from Tsosia’s side, pulling forward to join Anton. Her hand moves to her sword.
“A messenger?” she suggests.
“Bibi could have sent someone,” Anton says, “but be on your guard.”
Calla nods, then shouts for the Crescents to halt and stay back, kill their lights. She gestures for Anton to follow her. They will greet the traveler.
“Don’t mention anything about Otta,” Calla warns as they walk. “Even if it’s Bibi.”
“Of course,” Anton says. They cannot try to explain Otta.
It already seems like an impossible matter.
The pieces that had fallen into place, the role that they each played to get where they are today.
Anton would have a hard enough time explaining to his sister that he hadn’t realized the truth.
How can he go a step further to explain that it really is a coincidence he found himself eventually choosing a side between Calla Tuoleimi… and Calla Tuoleimi?
His breath catches, his gaze swiveling quickly.
If the old gods were around, this throw from the godling of unlikely destiny would be too preposterous to prevail.
Sinoa Tuoleimi was reborn and renamed Calla Tuoleimi.
Calla Tuoleimi was invaded by a child in the provinces.
Calla Tuoleimi resented the takeover attempt but was only strong enough to slip into Otta Avia.
Where did the kingdom’s fissures warp and bend?
Shouldn’t Anton be able to feel a cosmic collision of this level?
He casts his mind back to their first encounter during the games.
A freezing-cold meat locker, the blood of his kill still fresh on his hands.
Playing for the sake of his lover, languishing away on that hospital bed.
The clash of blades. Falling and falling and falling.
“I can feel you staring at me,” Calla says, and her voice shocks Anton out of his reverie. He can’t help but jolt.
“Sorry,” he says. He clears his throat. “Still processing.”
At the end of everything, there is one question which Calla has not brought up herself, which Anton keeps circling around yet dares not ask in the open: How does an orphan child from Rincun push aside a reincarnated queen?
Who is the Calla who took over?
“Hello!” the traveler bellows from a distance. They’ve seen Anton and Calla walking toward them on the path. The storm muffles their voice. “Buira Makusa sent me!”
Calla stops walking. She considers the pronouncement for a beat before shouting, “Approach.”
The voice is familiar. Anton can’t place it until the traveler hurries forward, and then he recognizes him for one of the Crescents—the boy who Calla had been sparring with in the coliseum. Anton straightens, his hand twitching toward his pocket where his weapons wait, but Calla does not react.
“I’m glad to have made it in time,” Levi exclaims, slightly out of breath. “Buira would like you to turn back.”
Anton narrows his eyes. While Levi’s flashlight stays pointed on Calla, her expression is impassive. Her head tilts. A lock of hair unfurls from behind her ear, and there’s blood soaked into it, sealing the end into a spearpoint.
“Why would she say that?” Calla asks.
“There’s been an astonishing increase in San-Er’s… heretic activity over the past night,” Levi reports. He starts, like he’s remembered something. “I have her note. Here.”
His hand plunges inside his jacket. Anton tenses once more, but indeed, Levi is only bringing out a folded note. He passes it to Calla.
“Buira recommends that you hold base in Eigi,” Levi reports. “As a temporary measure until the Crescent Societies have finished rounding up the heretics.”
“You’re rounding them up?” Calla asks, not looking up from the note.
“It is blasphemous that city dwellers would pretend to be gods,” Levi says, clearly parroting what he’s heard. “The pantheon is a sacred designation belonging to the heavens. The Crescent Societies do not acknowledge anyone earthbound as an old god. They are opportunists.”
That was the exact phrasing that Anton used in his missive to San-Er’s networks.
Either his script worked even better than he expected, or the Crescent Societies are going above and beyond supporting the message.
He supposes he isn’t surprised. The Crescent Societies do not truly believe, or else they would need to face the possibility of relinquishing the mutinous power they’ve fought so hard to obtain.
The Crescent Societies claim to worship the gods, but that has always been an excuse in a world devoid of divinity.
“After the initial emergence,” Levi goes on, “there are more heretics than the palace cells can hold. They’re expanding into the servants’ quarters too.”
“That’s impossible,” Anton says, finally interjecting. “It’s been one night, and there are hundreds of cells beneath the palace.”
“There are hundreds of heretics,” Levi replies.
The distance between the provinces and San-Er has never felt so stark.
How much could have changed in the mere hours they were away?
Anton nudges his foot out, pressing against the side of Calla’s to ask, Is this a trick from August’s spy?
and Calla turns toward him, shaking her head an infinitesimal amount. I doubt it.
“Thank you for running this message,” Calla says. “It is kind of you, at this hour.”
“Oh, no,” Levi hurries to correct. He adjusts his flashlight, and Anton can’t see the boy’s face anymore. “I would be patrolling the perimeter anyway. I often take the late shift and Buira approached me right as I was leaving the wall. It is no trouble.”
Ah. He knows too much, and he would have proceeded straight to August’s camp had Bibi not assigned him this task, pretending that she needed his help. The information is not false. But the messenger was intentional.
Silently, Calla turns the note and shows Anton what Bibi wrote. The rain, in its incessant volley, has started to blur the ink.
Qi threatened in San-Er. Would be best for you to station at camp and stay put if you are to continue war effort.
And do as Anton said.
“How nice of her,” Anton remarks. “She assumed we won the battle.”
Calla sighs, crinkling up the note. “Yes, we are not quite in a position to take over the camp and fight from there.” She turns over her shoulder. “We’re clear! Keep forward.”
The waiting Crescents activate their flashlights once more. Though Anton cannot see her, he can feel Tsosia bristling along the path, somehow.
“If you don’t mind,” Levi says, “I will continue scouting the Apian Routes to ensure there are no waiting threats.”
“Levi,” Calla says, “I’m afraid I do mind.”
His flashlight jerks. “Excuse me?”
“You are a skilled soldier,” she says. “I am sorry about this.”
Anton lunges forward to catch him before he falls. In the dark, the only tell that Calla has cut his throat is the gurgling sound that Levi makes while blood gushes down his chest. Seconds later, he is silent, only a faint metallic smell drenching their surroundings.
Do as Anton said.
Kill him.
“I’ll pull him off the path.”
“Don’t bother,” Calla says evenly. “Let August’s scouts find him. Maybe it will frighten him into withdrawing his other spies in the capital.”
It is a futile sentiment, but they must play pretend.
It warrants the loss, the sacrifice. It is no different from Calla trading her kills during the games for the promise of Kasa dead, Kasa gone, and she has already come this far—perhaps it’s time to admit she cannot care for the sanctity of one life so long as it’s in her way.
Anton steps over the body. He takes the flashlight, leading the way ahead, into the black abyss. The sky lightens another imperceptible fraction. The rain strengthens.
They proceed.