Chapter 55
She’s been drugged.
It slows the blood in her veins to a crawl, forces time to alternate between leaden ebbs or rushing waves.
Calla lolls against the bars of her cell.
She tries screaming, but there is no response.
She has been here before. She only ever seems to cycle back through, each time in the same state, each time hollow from loss.
The difference is that Anton is not coming back. There is no reversing the death knell; there are no more rolls of the die. Each round has been played, each part of the board explored. Calla has slid all the way back down to zero.
She slumps onto the floor. A foul smell emanates from the corner, a gift left by the last prisoner held captive.
The cells are all empty now. They keep no guards nearby.
As the night passes and drifts into morning, Calla catches conversation floating from the palace, then from San.
The small window at the top of the cell opens into a thin, dark alley.
It is not meant for passage, barely wider than a handspan, but it carries enough air flow that Calla parses full sentences, the twin cities waking and learning what has occurred.
She hears the talk from the Weisannas too.
The plan is to parade her during August’s second coronation.
A ceremony to shame her in tandem with his triumphs.
She is the vanquished, the defeated, and August will not put on that crown until he can look her in the eye and let the kingdom interpret the picture: he has been accepted by the heavens instead, even if Calla attempted her coup and tried to claim otherwise.
He worries little about her threat, because she has nothing more to try.
She will not jump. Once again, Calla is stuck in the same trap that bound her before this war.
All she has left is the weight of her name.
She has the myth of her body, clinging thickly to her every step.
Even if given the option to trade for heavenly power, she wouldn’t, because what sort of life is that?
Another pawn of the kingdom, rolling on and on and on with no say in its affairs.
Another warlord, playing pretend until the day a challenger rolls in and holds her down, taking her head and ending her reign.
August has nothing to be worried about.
“Calla.”
She looks around groggily. One of her ears is blocked, humming with persistent warble, but she recognizes that voice. It isn’t the Weisannas yet. She hadn’t heard the door open.
“Chami?” she whispers. “Is that you?”
“I’m up here.”
Calla clambers to her feet. She squints, pressing against the wall of the cell and trying to peer out the window. She sees nothing but shadow.
“I don’t have much time,” Chami says. “I snuck into the east wing. I’m directly three floors above.”
“Chami, please go before you get in trouble.” Calla’s every word is effortful, dragged from her throat, pulled from the pit of her stomach. “I don’t have the crown. I don’t have anything. He won.”
Chami sighs. “I thought you’d say that.”
For whatever reason, that remark—so flippant and glib—makes Calla laugh.
“Have I become so predictable?”
“You are incredibly resistant to living a small, safe life,” Chami returns. “I figured you would not want us plotting to break you out.”
“No,” Calla says. “No, I wouldn’t.”
If she stays, there will be stories passed down by every inhabitant in San-Er.
In exchange for making an example out of her, August can’t change the record as his forefathers did.
He can’t wipe away her work to explain why there were dead Tuoleimis in the Palace of Heavens, how the Palace of Earth lost its last blood Shenzhi.
The years will pass, and the reels will alter her part, forget Anton, write out the Crescent Societies and the rebels in the provinces, but they can’t erase Calla Tuoleimi.
August cannot continue as though their war were a brief intermission in the kingdom’s usual rhythm.
“Then take this.”
An object thumps down from the third floor, landing right in front of Calla’s barred window.
She squints. When that doesn’t offer any information as to what the thin, long object is, Calla reaches for it, sticking her fingers out between the bars.
She snags onto one end and maneuvers it closer.
Then, with two fingers, she pulls it through the bars. The weapon drops into her palm.
“There is one bullet,” Chami says.
Calla, despite logic, despite the infinitesimal chance that this is worth something, tucks the weapon into her sleeve. It is light. Easy to hide.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “You and Yilas have both cared for me so tremendously. I hope in our next life I will be born as your food to eat.”
A beat passes. “Please don’t get reborn as my cauliflower.”
“Who said anything about cauliflower? I was thinking an ox.”
Chami snorts. Calla squeezes her eyes shut. She presses her forehead hard into the wall, and swallows her sentimentality.
“You need to go, Chami. Before you’re caught.”
“Yes. I will.”
But there is still no sound of her leaving. She sits, three floors above, in companionship with Calla below. Enough of a moment passes that Calla can’t help herself, and she says, “Chami?”
“I’m here.”
“We knew each other, didn’t we? In the heavens.”
Calla cannot see Chami, but she is smiling.
“I think so. My memories have faded significantly already. But you feel familiar. You have always felt familiar. Do you remember everything?”
“Bits and pieces,” Calla answers, her voice dropping to a rasp.
“It is as though the timeline of my past life has been cut and scattered into a slot machine. On each pull, I’ll recall a collection of memories, but there is no beginning and no end, no way to explain the order they occurred unless there was cause and effect with another event.
” She pauses. “But I remember the times we laughed together. We were an unlikely friendship. My favorite day was the pagoda by the eastern pond. Do you remember? You termed me a King-Killer, and I was so proud.”
Gods have no names. Yet long before Sinoa Tuoleimi’s resurrection could enter the lexicon of the mortals on Talin, there was another King-Killer. The godling of greed.
“Yes,” Chami whispers. “I remember.”
The door into the cells slams open. Calla swallows hard.
She says, “Go, Chami,” and she spins around, holding her head high when the Weisannas appear.
Despite the haze in her mind, she has the forethought to keep her sleeves close and tight.
She lets the Weisannas steer her out from the cell. Into the corridor.
Just as Calla is stepping into the palace, she hears, softly enough that she might have imagined it: “Goodbye, Calla.”
Bibi leads the way, waving for Yilas and Chami to hurry before they are spotted.
Despite the Weisannas’ return, there is much in the capital to tend to, and so there are plenty of blind spots at the wall.
Even while the Weisannas declare San-Er to be closed again, large sections of the wall remain missing, piles of rubble leading a trail out into the provinces.
Bibi holds the sling closer to her chest. Mao Mao is gentle and accommodating. She thought it prudent to abduct Calla’s cat before she fled the palace. Consider it one last favor done, before all that is to descend on the capital.
“Come on,” Bibi whispers. “There’s no surveillance here.”
The whispers have started in the twin cities.
August Shenzhi will not tolerate the old gods.
August Shenzhi requires Talin to be loyal to his rule.
Anyone who recalls anything about themselves—who possesses power that makes their presence in San-Er tricky—should consider fleeing outside his immediate control.
So Yilas called Bibi, wondering if there was any life in Laho. If she could take Chami out before anything could harm her, and Bibi said she would go with them.
Bibi flickers her flashlight at the watchtower. No movement. She waves for Yilas and Chami to move ahead of her, checking for any sign of a tail. A small meowr rustles from her sling, and she bounces the cat a few times to soothe his nerves.
Bibi offers San-Er one last look. The sun is rising.
It runs its kindness over the death that has littered the perimeter of the city, tries to smooth over the dents and ditches that have blown into the grass.
The bodies have been cleared, but Bibi can see what remains of their qi.
Overlapping each other, hovering close to the ground until enough time passes for everything to dissipate.
She lingers, staring at a particularly bright yellow wisp reaching toward her, twisting and dancing beside the wreckage.
“I’m sorry, Anton,” she whispers. “I thought we’d have more time too.”
The procession runs from the palace and around San’s main thoroughfare, then into Er. They haul Calla with her wrists bound to chains, pulled behind a cluster of children who have been assigned to throw petals onto the spectators, but the audience is as somber as death.
Nobody cheers. They stand, stony-faced, fulfilling their duty as loyal civilians without showing outright displeasure.
Calla looks them in the eye while they lead her along.
Each and every one of them. The elderly who have dragged themselves out on their walking sticks.
The students who wear pressed-clean uniforms, though the schools have not been in session since the attacks that came through the wall.
Since the gods in San-Er defended the twin cities and were shunned as payment.
The spectators do not speak to her, so she does not speak to them.
Her procession ends inside the coliseum.
For one final time, Calla is brought within these tall walls, her eyes squinting under the lights as they flare on, section by section upon her arrival.
There are more spectators packed behind the ropes than she has ever seen.
The Weisannas must have issued mandatory attendance notices to the apartments nearby, demanding that they be present for their king’s return.
The slow-moving parade has taken up the entire morning, and now the sun beams over the twin cities.
The rain has stopped. From the coliseum, the one place in San-Er where the skies are visible from the ground, there isn’t a cloud to be seen.
A good sign for August, because the crops can regrow and the overflowing paddies can clear—all that once funneled into San-Er can continue once more, supposing the provinces continue sending it.
But Calla has a feeling they may desire otherwise.
August Shenzhi is already waiting up on the balcony. His arms are relaxed, propped on the railing. The throne room glows golden behind him, emitting an aura that surrounds his silhouette.
“Cousin,” August calls down. “A long time ago, I warned you that this was how it would play out if you tried to contest me.”
“You did,” Calla replies. “You also promised me far more. The people fed. The city wall open. The kingdom flourishing. What happened?”
August barks, “Hah!” and from the shadows behind him, out steps Galipei. Calla spots the crown then. It has been placed on a pedestal, at the far side of the balcony. Ready for the moment of his true coronation, when the heavens will declare him worthy.
“How was I to keep my promises?” August asks. “I have been occupied like a plaything since the moment I was crowned.”
“You know what you did,” Calla says. “You know what damage you fostered in your bid for this throne.”
August shakes his head. “I admit to it. Because I am a king, Calla. I have valued the kingdom over the individual, again and again. The crown will show its approval.”
Galipei gestures for another guard to push the pedestal over.
“Long live the king!” a Weisanna in the crowd shouts. He means to start the chant, but the spectators are quiet. They have filled the coliseum to the brim, the space clustered with witnesses—and it is quiet.
“Do you hear that?” Calla asks. “Silence.”
August frowns. “Bring her forward.”
“You may be king, August. But the heavens will not give you their approval.”
“Enough,” August snaps.
“The heavens rebuke you,” she goes on. “You wish to use the heavens as your vindication, but such a defense has gone on too long. If the gods are dead, then the divine crown ought to be. No mortal in the kingdom shall have the right to rule. The divine mandate shall be no more! Anyone who is righteous enough ought to take your throne from you!”
August’s expression has grown black. Even from the ground, Calla sees his knuckles whitening, his grip tightening on the railing. He stands high above the rest of the twin cities, above his sea of subjects, and still, she sees him.
“We are finished,” he declares. He wants control over the situation. He wants to be the benevolent ruler who allowed her to live. He does not want to be made into a mockery. “Take her away.”
The kingdom believes her to be a queen reborn. From the moment she was named Calla Tuoleimi, Talin has afforded her the leeway to cut through everything and anything she pleases. They wait eagerly, ready for her most transformative act.
“I will enforce it if you will not,” Calla shouts. “Hereafter the divine crown shall kill anyone it touches. You have this tool in your arsenal no longer. A king will be decided not by the heavens, but by the people!”
August lunges forward on the railing. He is the first to react when she shakes the firearm from her sleeve. He stabs a finger at the Weisannas to her side and yells, “Disarm her—” but it is too late.
She cursed that crown once before. She can do it again. She only needs the sacrifice.
“Poor fool,” Calla spits.
The gun fires.