Chapter 29
Calla thumps down the steps to the palace cells herself.
She wanted Anton to keep watch in the hallway, because the flood alarms have stopped, which means the Crescent Society members will be returning to their posts.
It would be rather unpleasant if the Crescents wandered back into the palace while Calla was down below, affected by a qi block, unable to stop them from slamming the door and keeping her imprisoned too.
She sees the sigil drawn exactly where Anton described it, crimson red bleeding from its edges.
A shiver runs along her neck. Goose bumps blossom under her jacket sleeves.
“Everything all right?” Anton calls from the open door.
Calla lifts the lamp, squinting when she descends another step. The weight of her sword is a steady presence at her hip. When her feet stop beside the sigil, she expects to feel absence, that same void when the Crescents experimented earlier.
There is only a tickle. A faint shudder, like a phantom hand running inside her organs, and then nothing.
“Anton,” she calls up, “I don’t think it’s strong enough for me.”
“Really?”
Calla inhales deeply. She holds her breath in her lungs, letting the sensation settle.
A faint yellow light shrouds the space around her.
The sigil is clearly working on everyone else the Crescents have hauled in.
She eyes the first few cells, seeing young men and old women, figures rolling around the stone floors and desperate faces pressed up against the bars.
Assuming they did something drastic to end up here, if they had the opportunity to break out, they would have tried already.
“Which one are you?” Calla asks the old woman in the first cell.
A part of her still doesn’t mean it. Even having fought the man at the wall, having seen Chami restore a building with a flick of her hand.
Even having accused Fen Makusa of hosting a god.
Perhaps Talin has entered a collective state of delusion and performance, needing a return of the pantheon to numb their suffering.
“God of fingernails,” the woman replies, entirely straight-faced. She points to the sigil on the floor. “That thing is for people like me. You can blast us all out.”
Calla shakes her head, proceeding along the row of cells.
She makes an inventory of the prisoners, the city dwellers who look no different from the sort of people usually sitting in the palace cells anyway.
When she comes across Galipei Weisanna, he is busy pacing, his posture straight, his shoulders taking up half the cell.
“It’s funny,” Calla says, stopping in front of the metal bars. “I remember a time when our roles were reversed.”
Galipei turns around. Anton not only locked the door—he jammed a blade into the lower hinge as an extra precaution. A dead body lies to the left, in a pool of their own blood. Anton didn’t bother moving the corpse. The Crescent Societies can be the ones responsible for extracting it.
“You were actually further down,” Galipei says. “Easy mistake when they’re all occupied. The Crescents clearly haven’t discovered the private cells yet.”
Calla lifts the lamp in her hand. Galipei was already looking ragged during her time as a royal advisor, but his appearance has since worsened.
Dark shadows rim his silver eyes. His shirtsleeves are tattered.
The result of a fight, most likely, and he hadn’t had the time to change and neaten up before entering the city.
She would be lying to say she isn’t relishing these circumstances.
Galipei Weisanna had little sympathy when she got herself thrown into the cells after killing Kasa; she shows him that same amount of indifference.
“I hit you pretty hard at the base,” she says. “I’m surprised to see you up and about so quickly.”
Galipei’s lip curls. “Perhaps you did not hit me as hard as you thought.”
The flash of light. The singeing smell, its damage stretching from Galipei’s torso to his collarbone.
“No,” Calla says. “I’m sure I did.”
If Galipei weren’t locked in a cell, he would lunge.
He would put his hands around Calla’s throat and squeeze, and despite the unlikely odds of snapping her neck, he would still try.
She reads this on his face as plainly as if he had said it aloud, because Galipei Weisanna is not good at hiding his wants, and he never has been.
“Galipei,” she says. “Why aren’t you at August’s side?”
“What an excellent question,” he returns. “Why was I released from duty?”
“Was it Otta’s doing?”
Galipei’s eyes flash, his glare blazing.
Sore subject. He stays quiet. Slowly, Calla walks up to his bars, pressing her face against them.
Galipei could grab her from here. She offers him that possibility.
She tilts her head, listening to the rustle in the other cells, gauges how softly she will need to speak so that the other prisoners are unable to hear her.
“Let me tell you a secret,” Calla whispers.
Galipei crosses his arm. “No, thank you.”
“She’s not Otta. Otta Avia went away when she was barely a child. The woman who has been wearing her face is someone who made an impossible exchange with the heavens. Accept defeat during a losing war and resurrect a hundred years later to begin again. Her name is Sinoa Tuoleimi.”
Galipei fights hard not to react, but he cannot help himself.
Understanding sets in before anything else, before surprise, shock, disbelief.
It tells Calla that he has already witnessed enough at August’s camp to prove this tall tale about Otta.
That she has given him the missing piece to make sense of what evidence he already holds.
Otta Avia wants to win this war; Otta Avia wants the kingdom, the throne, and August has come to an understanding with her.
Calla adjusts her stance, pulling the lamp back. Galipei’s eyes snap to her.
“She helped you,” Calla says, “didn’t she?”
She tips her head, and her crown clinks against the bars. Is Galipei afraid? Does he remember that she was wearing him during the delegation, that it had been as easy as any normal jump for her to invade a Weisanna?
“She said it called to the godling of control,” Galipei says.
Calla holds the lamp to her left, where the dead body is. He wasn’t trying to kill me. He was trying to get a sigil onto me.
When the man at the wall attacked her, he was not himself. His eyes were rolled back into his head, his speech slow and subdued.
“How,” Calla says slowly, “did you get your hands on a god?”
“Most of them remain stubborn about playing mortal. It is easier than you would think.” Galipei shrugs. “I needed a distraction, didn’t I?”
What a fool he is. He has been released from duty. If he wanted to sneak back into the twin cities, he could disappear indefinitely. Find a dingy apartment with enough canned goods in the cupboard. He is smart enough to evade capture. Calla would know.
“Did you think controlling Anton would be enough to win the war?”
“No, Your Majesty,” Galipei says. “I thought maybe he could take your head off and hand the crown over.”
Calla narrows her eyes. Galipei grunts immediately, throwing himself toward the cell wall. His left arm lifts, protecting his injured right arm as he swivels to meet his opponent… only there is no one there.
Calla cut him from the other side of the bars. She has swallowed so much power in her bed. When she blinks, she cuts another wound, on his other arm this time. Galipei sucks air between his teeth. Now he sees that Calla is doing it.
“You’re not blocked,” he remarks.
“No,” Calla says.
There’s a pecking order. Common sigils and rare sigils. Different gods to pray to, to summon. Different qi to call on, even when the gods are dead. So where does Calla sit? How can the divine crown defy this order, yet do little against an assailant entering her capital?
Unless it’s not the crown resisting the block.
“The Crescent Societies won’t like that.
They’ll want to get you under control.” Galipei glances down, to his dead victim.
The pool of blood; his handprint on Anton’s ankle, attempting to mark him.
“I wonder what would happen if I gave the Crescents a new sigil in exchange for my freedom. One that enacts control.”
Calla sets her lamp down. “Don’t make false threats, Galipei. If you valued your life enough to work with the Crescent Societies, we would not be here right now. There is no world where you’re abandoning August.”
Galipei’s jaw tightens. His mouth opens, as though he wants to argue, but seconds pass, and he says nothing.
Truth be told, Calla walked into these cells prepared to kill him. He is another extension of August’s authority in the kingdom. He will continue to cause havoc. But…
“You wouldn’t gain anything by offering your collusion to the Crescent Societies,” Calla says. “You would, however, if you defect to fight for me.”
His eyes are the color of San-Er under its rainstorm, lacking any warmth for miles out. He spits at her feet.
“Fuck you.”
“I can already predict his exact plan, Galipei,” Calla says. “August will occupy the north in an effort to starve the capital. He wants to wait me out, but he cannot wait out a place like San-Er. No one invades San-Er.” She pauses. “You must have told him this too.”
Galipei has always been the silent presence looming over August’s shoulder, the shadow haunting San-Er at August’s instruction.
He is the one sent to do dirty work, who chased Calla down when she was sighted after years hiding, uncaring who he mowed down in the process.
August would hate to learn about Galipei being held captive.
August is too proud. He would rather fight and die than let the enemy pull together his scraps.