Page 2 of Vilest Things
He stares. A lock of hair falls into his eyes—gold and fine, like sunshine twisted into spun silk. He pushes it out of the way, barely resisting the urge to tear the piece right out of his scalp.
“Your Highness?” A guard is knocking on the door. “Would you like any assistance?”
“No,” Anton replies shortly. It’s not as though August would have answered any more kindly, been any more considerate. The evidence of that is before him, within the file he takes into his hand.
“I’d help if I could,” August had said, when this place was still the Palace of Earth, when Anton practically lived in the training halls, vowing revenge on the attackers who killed his parents. “If there was any resource in the palace I could use, I would. But the palace knows so little. These people are entirely outside of our control.”
Anton flips through the pages in the file. He scans past the family tree, past the different reports that note when each of his relatives was born and when they died, past the graphs showing the other noble families who were connected to the Makusas by blood.
On the last sheet of the family logs, he finally finds what he’s been looking for.
Anton Makusa—storage room 345, north wing.
After Otta fell sick and only Anton remained to suffer the consequences of their crime, the palace took his birth body as punishment. True exile, flung into the cities without any ties to his former life. He has always known that they stashed his body somewhere in the Palace of Union; he just never knew where. The location was purposefully kept secret to prevent Anton from trying to get it back, and the councilmember who delivered the fateful verdict of his penance promised that the palace would take care of his body, that they might return it one day if he served his exile without trouble. He’s almost surprised that they’ve held to their word. The palace puts up a front of valuing nobility—by their own law, the bodies of aristocratic bloodlines should never be destroyed—yet he suspected they would discard his after a few years, merely because they could. Every other Makusa was gone. Anton was the last one left until the palace could sweep this entire file under the carpet, blow away the imprint of dust, and pretend none of them ever existed. How tidy, how neat.
“Can’t you ask Kasa to send people in?” Anton asked. “Come on, August, he’s theking. He has complete reign over Kelitu. He can order palace guards to investigate. Someone in that province must know who did this.”
August was always the reasonable one, Anton the one whose voice got too loud with theatrics. Adults in the palace liked to listen to August.
“He’s tried,” August said levelly. In all the years they remained friends, Anton never could distinguish August’s tells between lie and truth. What other choice was there than to believe him each time? “Trust me. They’ve found nothing.”
Anton rises, brings the file to the desk in the middle of the war room, and lays it down so he can spread out the various sections. The Makusas come from a long history, but not any longer than the rest of the nobility, not enough to justify this much information kept under guard. He pushes away the atlas on his left and the paperweight shaped as an anvil on his right. Section after section, thedesk becomes covered with loose paper, scattered with every document Anton reads as he grows more and more confused by the contents.
Copies of his parents’ administrative letters in Kelitu. Snapshots of rural villages and tax reports with boxes circled in red. When Anton peels apart two inventory logs that have become stuck together over time, a small photograph falls out, and he sees himself as an infant in his birth body, staring straight at the camera so that they could put his face into the kingdom registry alongside his identity number.
He can’t fathom why any of this would be collected. Not until he reaches the end and his eyes land on a missive. Digitally typed, then stamped with King Kasa’s personal sign-off.
I will keep this short. While your loyalty should belong with your councilmember, there has come undeniable evidence that Fen Makusa is a revolutionary insurgent. Where ambitions of usurping the throne usually call for arrest and a quick execution, his harm extends much further: he plots for the utter collapse of the kingdom. There is no scenario where this can be allowed to spread. For the sake of your province, and the sake of your people, see to it that the Makusas are eradicated in a manner that will not radicalize their followers. The palace cannot be associated with this punishment.
Though Anton continues reading onward, the rest of the missive stops registering past that line. He returns to the start, then again, and again. Finally, when it seems nothing more will change his understanding, his hands lash out of their own volition, flinging the file off the table and sending documents skittering across the floor.
He inhales shortly. Exhales, but can barely get the breath out of his lungs.He’s certain, in that first moment of panic, that August is trying to kick him out. When he’s still heaving a few minutes later, he holds his breath in a snap decision, and his body responds accordingly. He’s doing this to himself. The only harm to him right now comes from the fact that he can’t keep himself under control. His panic shifts into red-hot rage. It finds its targets in front of him, within him.
His parents are dead because of King Kasa, not because they were the target of some random rural attack. After all these years wondering why his family had suffered something so awful, why his sisters needed to die as collateral, it turns out that the reason was becausethe palace had ordered it.
Another knock comes on the door. “Highness? What is that noise?”
“Come in,” Anton says. “Just one of you.”
A guard pokes her head through. Her silver eyes take in the papers littered on the floor, then flicker up. “Yes, Your Highness?”
“Who was the last person who put anything away in this room?” Anton gestures around him. “It’s a mess.”
The Weisanna shifts on her feet. She hesitates, and Anton knows she’ll only confirm what he suspects. What he knows, given the guards posted outside the war room.
“Only you and His Majesty are allowed in here outside of council meetings. I garner it must have been the wind if a window was left open for air.”
It’s a tactful excuse that she has come up with on the spot. What she must be thinking is:Your Highness, it could only have been you who made the mess.
Anton glances at the name emblazoned on the front of his family file, which is lying askew by one of the potted plants now. He wants to tear the label off. Slap it elsewhere, as if that might change the fact that this heinous massacre happened to his family instead of someone else’s.A revolutionary insurgent.That’s preposterous. He never heard his parents say anything close to revolutionary. They were palace nobles… why would they have wanted to change that?
“No, it wasn’t the wind,” Anton says plainly. “Wasn’t I the last person to go through these cabinets?I’mthe one who keeps this information for King Kasa when he can’t keep up with what happens in his own kingdom.”
The guard flinches slightly, trying to gauge if this is some sort of test. It doesn’t matter. Anton knows: there’s no file in this place that has gone unread under August’s watch. The crown prince takes it upon himself to stay informed using what he has access to. And there was plenty of time between August acquiring access to these rooms and Anton being exiled from the palace.
“Ah, never mind,” Anton says, saving the increasingly anxious Weisanna from a response. He scoops up the file, then the papers, gathering them haphazardly before tucking them beneath his arm. “Make sure no one else comes in here.”
“Yes, Highness—”
