Page 35 of Vilest Things
She collapses. On the couch, Otta opens her eyes again, having returned to her body, and she hops to her feet with a renewed energy. She hurries to shake Seiqi’s shoulders.
“Are you okay?”
Ah.
Seiqi blearily returns to herself. She doesn’t understand what happened. Of course, she wouldn’t even consider that she was invaded, because she’s a Weisanna.
“What on earth?” the guard mutters. “Did I—”
“You fainted,” Otta says plainly. “Must be the air in the east wing. Let me help you.” In brisk fashion, Otta tugs Seiqi to her feet.
“You were speaking about the gala,” Anton reminds her, smoothing his expression over and following Otta’s lead. “Shall we?”
Seiqi clears her throat. Shakes herself back into order. “Yes. Yes, some of the councilmembers would like to clear certain matters with you first.”
Anton gestures for her to lead the way.
“I should change,” Otta decides when Seiqi turns a questioning look on her. “I’d like to make a speech at the gala too.” Before Anton can grant approval, she spins on her heel and prances for the door. She throws a wink over her shoulder. “See you there,August.”
CHAPTER 12
The first attendant that Calla runs into tells her the gala is starting soon, so the palace nobles will be gathering in the banquet hall.
“Ridiculous,” Calla mutters to herself, pushing her sleeves up while she storms forward. As far as the rest of them are aware, Leida Miliu is loose in their corridors, and they have decided to go ahead with this frivolous display. They would probably keep holding galas if the seas swept in and flooded the cities, if a new round of influenza breezed in through the ornate doors and infected everyone within.
A patrolling guard startles at the sight of Calla turning the corner at high speed. When he calls out, asking if she requires assistance, Calla fires back a fast “It’s fine!” without pausing. She has no time to waste. She needs to find Otta Avia, preferably before the gala starts and every aristocrat in this palace bears witness to Calla throttling her.
Main atrium. Calla’s jaw makes a noise when she lifts her head and gauges the fastest route up the stairs to the banquet hall. Her teeth are clenched hard enough to hurt. In an attempt to look less frazzled, she scrapes her hair back while she climbs the stairs, tying everything high upon her scalp and out of her face.
A decade ago, she used to stomach every lofty remark Otta made within earshot of these rooms. They have renamed these long arches and tall atriums the Palace of Union, but the echoes of its origins remain. The velvet-green color schemes, the gold-threaded curtains. Alas, most of its undercoat weighs far too much now, and Calla finds the space even less tolerable than before. The corners sprout electric wires; the walls jam together as a palimpsest, so tightly crowded with costly decoration that each section overgrows into the next. There is no union, only half a capital refusing to give up the whole it has bitten off, stuffing itself far beyond capacity.
Calla rears to a stop, pausing for a brief moment to catch her breath at the threshold into the banquet hall. A guard steps forward. He says, “Your Highness, you’re not dressed correctly.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
She’s sighted her target. Before any guard can move to stop her, Calla surges forward and pierces the edge of the crowd. This banquet had been decorated for its last revelry merely weeks earlier, its space filled with excited palace nobles celebrating the conclusion of San-Er’s games. Each corner was illuminated with an open bulb, leaving it only to chance that King Kasa didn’t recognize his long-lost niece when she walked in with half her face obscured.
The lighting is dim tonight. In the Hollow Temple, there was a red bulb just like the ones dangling above Calla as she picks her way forward. It illuminated the Crescent Society members while they were marking themselves with blood, wearing vials of deep crimson like regalia. The light was the perfect shade to blend together the bodies of their victims, their hearts carved out and left to rot as vessels clumped in the middle of the room.
Calla makes it through half the crowd. They’ve brought in a large rug for the center of the hall. No amount of scrubbing could erase the stains after all that blood and gore soaked into the wooden panels, and no councilmember wanted to be the first to suggest a complete renovation of the floor where their previous monarch lost his head.
The last time Calla stood here, she was ready to die. To answer for every wrong she’d committed in the name of revenge, and the greatest wrong she had committed in that arena.
“You.”
Before Otta Avia can turn around, Calla yanks her by the elbow, forcibly dragging her out of a conversation.
“Ow!” Otta yelps, stumbling over her feet. Though she attempts to pull away, she’s no match for Calla’s physical strength. Calla, who towers over her by a head and then some. “Let go of me! What do you think you’re doing?”
She hauls Otta through a side exit. The banquet hall chatter fades as the smooth door closes with a thud, camouflaging back into the floral wallpaper. This is a servants’ passage, made for quick movement in and out to serve food. Calla releases Otta, if only to push her onto the carpet.
Otta lands with a disgruntled wince. Unlike Calla, who isn’tdressed correctly,Otta very much is. She’s changed out of her extravagant red getup from earlier. Her new dress is noiseless with movement, pale-pink silk wrapping a band around her chest before a darker sheer fabric flows to her knees in a triangle.Aristocraticisn’t the right word anymore. She looks as delicate as a petal, and the thought practically grinds Calla’s molars to dust.
“Can Ihelpyou?”
“I tolerated you all through our childhood, Otta,” Calla says coldly. “But propriety isn’t going to save you this time. Leida Miliu has named you as her source. She says she learned everything she knows about qi fromyou.”
Otta lets out a single laugh. Though she remains sprawled on the carpet, she props an elbow behind her, lounging with no hint of discomfort.
