Chapter 21
Calla takes the servants’ passages through the Palace of Union, avoiding prying eyes. After their encounter with the cleric, she doesn’t want to risk running into any other Crescents who have been given the same task. It would be a waste of her time handling them.
What a far cry this is from the Crescent Societies shortly after the takeover, greeting her by kneeling across the devastated palace.
She’s glad that there is no more pretense, at least. No guards trailing her around.
No play-pretend in palace silks while she picks her way through these dark corridors.
She’s returned to her city leathers. The weight of her sword at her hip.
Anton took the task of delivering their instructions to Venus Hailira.
Bibi went off to test whether she still has enough sway with the Crescents to borrow a carriage.
That has left Calla unaccompanied while she emerges from the servants’ passages and into the north wing.
She hastens up the grand staircase, then rounds the corner, seeking her former quarters when she was the palace advisor.
Right-hand collaborator to King August, who was not August at all.
“Hello,” she greets when she walks in.
Joselie looks up, a curl of white hair falling loose from her chignon. She holds a mop in her hands, working on a stubborn area around the baseboard.
“Your Majesty,” she says plainly. She doesn’t seem surprised at Calla’s appearance, nor does she make any fuss about switching Calla’s title, though they have not seen each other since the coup that melded this crown to her head.
Joselie returned to the twin cities when the delegation sent back their attendants and nonessential forces.
There hasn’t been any reason for Calla to hunt her down since then, and Joselie has maintained a safe distance. “Don’t step here. It’s wet.”
Calla pauses. Her toes skid against the line of the puddle.
“Did you want me to jump over it?”
Joselie immediately makes a hand sign over her stomach—fingers pinched together, her wrist pushing a circle. Calla recognizes it, in that distant way she remembers how to speak Rincun’s dialect. It’s a gesture from the provinces. A way to ward off evil qi from invading your body.
She’s forgotten that the old woman has a sense of humor.
“I might be too evil to ward off. But I respect the attempt.”
“Don’t talk nonsense.” Joselie starts to push the mop again. “Our King-Killer needs a bit of darkness to get the job done.”
Calla leans up against the wall. “How opportune. I wanted to talk to you about that.”
The mop slides left. Right. “About killing?”
“Yes.” It’s close enough, at least. “The first time I met you, you were explaining another alias the palace used for me. Do you remember?”
Calla waits, seeing if Joselie recalls her words, but the woman stares blankly.
“Let the nobles believe that I was some minor god that the servants prayed to,” Calla echoes, trying to paraphrase Joselie’s words. “Let King Kasa shrug it off as a harmless, rural practice. Glory of Her Father.”
The conversation is coming back to Joselie.
Calla sees the gleam appear in the woman’s eyes.
Prior to the Crescents’ growing influence a decade ago, there hadn’t yet been a crackdown in San-Er over prayer to the gods.
The palace allowed San-Er to build their home shrines, because the twin cities would never relinquish their kings.
“I remember.”
“Did you come up with it?”
“No, of course not.” Joselie snorts, amused by the very thought. “Other servants did.”
“Why?” Calla asks. “I understand the meaning. The glory to Talin. But Kasa would have believed any moniker, supposing it sounded like it originated from the pantheon. Why those words particularly?”
Joselie sets the mop in the bucket again, letting it soak.
“I believe it came from a rural dialect. A transliteration of your name.”
“You believe it was? Or it was?”
“I believe.” She shoots Calla a sharp look. “We rarely discussed the matter explicitly in fear of being found out. I could be mistaken.”
“Joselie…”
“While I was born in San-Er,” Joselie goes on, riled up now, “many servants were not. Those who won entry through the wall often applied for palace work as their first role in the twin cities. It was the safest option. Familiar and reliably paid, even if it wasn’t much.
We picked up a lot from each other. I could understand the dialects around the Jinzi River, even if I myself cannot converse in it, so I do believe—”
“Cal-ah. Father’s glory. Right?”
It likely wasn’t Rincun’s dialect, but Calla approximates the sounds, flattening them to get closer to the tone of the southern provinces. There is enough overlap that the words do not change too much.
“Hmm,” Joselie says, mollified. “That sounds correct.”
Calla had hoped she was wrong. Her stomach drops. She scrubs her forehead. All this time, she was merely riding off a reputation the rest of the kingdom had prescribed her, before she had even raised her sword against the Palace of Heavens. Talin knew. They all knew.
“Joselie,” Calla says. She may as well ask it outright. “Have there always been rumors that I am reborn from a different time?”
Cal-ah. Glory of Her Father.
San-o-ah. Third Spear of Her Father. Those who speak a provincial dialect may brush it off as mere coincidence.
The palace has done everything in its power to wipe away its civil war.
It has invented a foreign enemy by the name of Sica.
It has enforced its language and its rule, suppressed worship and destroyed prayer.
But if the story of Sinoa Tuoleimi was preserved at all, then Calla’s birth and naming might seem like a sign.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Joselie says. “If such a tale ever existed, it would be forbidden from being repeated.”
“Hypothetically,” Calla pushes, “could such a tale spread under the palace’s nose as a mere story of backward rural folk?”
“Hypothetically, the Crescent Societies were allowed to maintain their religiosity as a front precisely because they observe the gods as an abstract concept.” Joselie is very good at matching Calla’s exact tone.
“They do not believe in true divination. They seek proximity to power. How can one talk about rebirth without divination, Your Majesty? The kings would not tolerate any chatter about their impending deposition. Repeating it means death.”
“It didn’t have to guarantee their deposition.”
Joselie gives her a weighty look. She considers her words carefully.
“A queen reborn uses vengeance as sustenance. A queen reborn expects to burn the complete bloodline of those who once killed her. Of course it guarantees their end.”
Calla’s ears have started to ring. The servants did not believe her some minor god.
They were familiar with the pantheon; they knew which gods were assigned to the physical world and which godlings were assigned to intangible ideas.
The servants believed her to be something else entirely instead—they assigned motivation to her violence that did not exist.
They still think she is Sinoa. That she has returned to ruin the royal line, when Calla has only obstructed Sinoa Tuoleimi every step of the way. She is no King-Killer.
She’s just another king.
Before her lightheadedness can crumple her, Calla leans against the wall. She breathes, “Thank you for answering my questions.”
Joselie, being no stranger to bizarre behavior from palace residents, goes back to cleaning.
“Of course,” she replies. “You needn’t worry yourself with rumors emerging from San-Er’s innards. Continue doing what you must.”
Even Joselie believes Calla has been channeling the reborn queen this entire time.
The sentiment has been present all along, but Calla finally hears it for the first time—this devotion, this unflappable conviction.
Joselie assumes that Calla remembers nothing of the past life.
Joselie assumes that every move, from the massacre in the Palace of Heavens to Kasa’s death, is the work of century-old vengeance.
Slowly, Calla raises her hand, touching her crown.
It is warm. Since she stole this body at eight years old, she has been a part of San-Er’s nobility, interacting little with anyone outside that world.
But there are two sides of Talin: one entirely ignorant about the civil war that once ravaged the kingdom, and another that whispered excitedly about a princess named Calla, resurrected inside the stronghold she once failed to conquer.
The gold shifts underneath her fingertips. As though the crown asks whether she is trying to remove it, bracing to suck every last bit of her qi if she dares. She thought this was what gave her power among the masses in San-Er. But is it divine selection they kneel to, or is it Sinoa Tuoleimi?
A long wail rings outside the palace. Calla jolts at the sound, but Joselie is unconcerned when she glances to the windows. It’s the flood alarms.
“Probably another incident,” she says. “They were ringing all of last night every time someone blew up a building.”
“I’ll be on my way.” Calla wipes off her sleeve. No dust on her jacket, because Joselie has kept these quarters spotless. “Lovely to see you.”
Her pulse is hammering when she trails through the north wing.
Despite Joselie’s composure while waving goodbye, Calla has only heard the flood alarms ring at terrible times, and if it isn’t disaster, then it is once again the Crescents up to no good.
Calla turns a corner, then backtracks quickly, avoiding a group of them running by, yelling about the wall.
The wall?
“Calla.”
She whirls around, discerning Anton’s voice above the din. His chest heaves, as though he had been running in his haste to find her.
“What is it?” Calla demands.
“Your friend Yilas,” Anton says without prelude.
“She was on the surveillance room’s phone line, asking for you, then for me.
” He grimaces. “It was hard to parse what she was saying, to be honest, but Chami is in danger. Someone wielding incredible qi just broke through the wall at the westernmost end.”
Calla isn’t quite following. What is Chami doing at the wall? Who is trying to break in when the gates are open?
“She also saw Galipei Weisanna.”
A sharp spasm crosses Calla’s forehead. Fuck. Suddenly the screeching flood alarms make more sense.
“I’ll go,” Calla decides. Her sword is holstered. She’s dressed suitably. “Can you stay here and defend the palace?”
Anton nods. Just as Calla turns, he grabs her wrist. She stiffens. It would be rather ungracious to tug away, so she fights against instinct and keeps her arm still. She meets Anton’s gaze, silently asking what is wrong.
“Be careful,” he says.
Is that all?
“I always am.” Calla extricates her arm gently, and Anton’s lips part as though he might protest. Whatever he wants to say, he must think better of it, opting for a short nod instead.
His eyes have yet to regain their yellow glow.
They are only black when Calla hurries away, beelining for the nearest palace exit.
She would have assumed the alarms sent most Crescents out into the streets, but the north wing is teeming with them, convening at the doors. Discussing where the clerics are meeting, debating whether they are to act ahead of time. When Calla appears, the Crescents turn to stare.
No one is kneeling this time.
“Princess Calla,” one of them says. “There is nothing for you to worry about. We have forces heading to the wall already.”
“Please move aside,” she returns.
“You are to stay put,” another instructs. “Your jurisdiction in San-Er is purely symbolic.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Calla plunges forward. When a Crescent reaches out, grabbing her shoulder, her crown pulses.
It shoves him aside. It shoves every Crescent into the wall.
Her exit from the palace is hardly subtle while the Crescents scream out, limbs and elbows crushing against one another.
As soon as she hits the city’s alleys, San-Er’s inhabitants halt in their steps, staring at the yellow light she’s brought out into this rain.
“Your Majesty!” a little girl bellows excitedly. Her dress is a faded pink, patches of blue felt sewn over the fraying hems. She’s selling flowers by the palace, but the display box slung around her neck belongs to a shop in Er.
Calla considers stopping. Kneeling and taking the girl by the hand. Asking, What have you been taught? Who do you think I am?
The alarms screech louder. Calla grits her teeth and runs in the other direction.