Page 37 of Vilest Things
“I can’t work out exactly who you are,” Otta hisses, “but it’s only a matter of time. You’ve already burned your palace down. This one is mine.”
Otta releases her grip, pushing away. While Calla is still wincing, grumbling profanities under her breath, she feels a faint, cool sensation on her wrist. There’s a small blot of blood. Quickly, she lifts her sleeve and inspects her arm, searching for a cut, but no source appears. Otta left the mark there—it’s almost the perfect shape of her finger.
Calla chases through the door at once and presses back into the rumble of the banquet hall.
“Galipei,” she mutters out loud. “Where is Galipei?”
“I would like to make a toast!” Otta declares at the front, stepping onto a plush chair.
Calla scans the space, her heart kicking up a cacophony beneath her ribs. Otta is going to do something destructive. She can feel it, just as she can smell a bad monsoon before it comes down. The lights are turning brighter, each bulb showing the wire aglow inside and shining onto the crowd. There’s Rehanou. Mugo. Venus Hailira, shifting uncomfortably. Finally, closer to the other side, she spots Galipei Weisanna, and he’s already watching her.Get her,Calla mouths, pointing aggressively at Otta.Stop her!
Galipei moves in an instant. His silver eyes flash, and then he parts the crowd like string through gelatin, pushing cleverly at every loose pocket.
“Calla.” Anton appears suddenly from behind, grabbing her arm. He’s followed her out. “Leave her be.”
She tears her arm out of his grip. “Don’t touch me.”
“I am delighted that we could join together tonight after so much strife,” Otta bellows. She clasps her hands in front of her. “The annual gala was always my favorite event.”
Above the heads of other attendees, Galipei meets Calla’s gaze again, pausing near a cluster of councilmembers to maneuver around without jostling anyone. She sees him clearly mouth:What the fuck is she talking about?
I don’t know,Calla mouths back.
“Before I fell ill,” Otta goes on, “I found something monumental in King Kasa’s vault. I kept it to myself out of fear, but with him gone, I think it is about time the kingdom and the council know the truth. I don’t know how it has escaped notice for so long. Perhaps each royal advisor has run their eyes past this finding and chosen to keep quiet.”
At this, several people nearby turn their attention to Calla. Curious. Wondering.
“Calla.” Anton’s voice, beside her.
“If she’s about to tell the whole kingdom that they can jump without light and invade people at a moment’s will, I’m going to kill her here and now,” Calla hisses back. “It’s going to tear the massesapart—”
“There is an object out in the borderlands, imbued with enough qi to annihilate a village with a mere wave of the hand,” Otta says. To her left, Galipei has finally made his way to the front, but here he halts, equally perplexed as the rest of the room. Though Calla gestures him forward, asking him to shut Otta up, he isn’t looking in her direction anymore.
“As a matter of protection, it was hidden at the site of the first battle when the war began with Sica. Once Talin won, we never went back for it.” Otta pauses. The hall is silent. Confusion has settled thickly like a blanket over these aristocrats, keeping their movements confined and responses muted.
“The divine crown in San-Er is a fake. Talin’s true crown remains in the borderlands, and each reign since the war has been a lie. We have not tested any ruler by its mandate since then.”
Of everything Otta could have said, Calla did not expect this. A beat passes, utter disbelief reverberating through the crowd of nobles like a shock wave.
Then the banquet hall explodes with noise.
CHAPTER 13
Did you know she was going to do this?”
Her question catches Anton off guard. The very situation catches Anton off guard, because he’s dropped his usual flat imitation of August. His current expression belongs wholly to himself, and Calla knows this because she can catalogue it against the other times she’s seen it. The last instance was the arena, when they pulled that bag off his face and he found himself surrounded by spectators, forced into the final battle.
At the front of the banquet hall, Galipei Weisanna marches forward and plucks Otta away, both hands on the sides of her arms to steer her firmly toward the exit.
“Of course I didn’t,” Anton hisses. “I would have had toknowabout the crown first.”
Give it ten more seconds, and the demands coming at them from all directions are going to get out of control. Calla can pick out the bits and pieces from the nobles nearby, the councilmembers who are pushing toward Anton to get his ear first for their recommendations in light of this news. Even if it isn’t true, even if the Palace of Union tries to deny the proclamation and write Otta Avia offas a madwoman, they will need proof to claim otherwise. And somehow, Calla doesn’t think Otta is lying.
“Come with me,” she says.
Anton’s face changes. He snaps out of his stupor and smooths his features down, trying to decide how August would act here. “I need to respond to this.”
The voices press in.Heaven’s mandate is only determined with the crown… This has been a scheme all along… We knew the crown was supposed to reject someone outside the bloodline… If those outside royal lineage are made fit to rule, then what is stopping the kingdom from swapping rulers over and over again—
