Page 38 of Vilest Things
Calla doesn’t have the patience to argue. She takes Anton’s elbow and escorts him sharply toward the exit. By some miracle, he doesn’t resist. Her focus locks into place, and she navigates through the obstacles before her as she would any strategic encounter in battle. They’re out the door and past the guards. Down the hallway, left then right, into the first sitting room she finds.
Empty. Good. Calla slams the doors after them.
“Explain. From the beginning.”
Anton drags his hands through his hair. There’s no sign of August in this room anymore, the act vanishing the moment they came through.
“She said she was going to do something. I didn’t think it would bethis.”
Calla watches Anton repeat the gesture. His black hair parts down the middle, falling in soft curls. This must be a nervous habit, yet it’s somehow the first time she’s seen him do it. She hasn’t known him long, after all. Whatever love existed between them, it had a limited run before taking a tumble into damnation.
“Is this some ploy for your attention?” she taunts. “You haven’t spent enough time with her, so she’s forced your hand. She will inevitably lead the delegation out to fetch it, and your attendance will be mandatory.”
Anton shoots her a glare, but he doesn’t deny it. She’s guessed correctly:Otta Avia has already figured out that Anton is Anton—if Anton himself wasn’t the one to tell her.
“Not that I have to explain myself to you, but I didn’t imagine Otta possessed such information. Nor was I prepared for her to make a scene. There’s nothing to be done about it. She’s always been this way—we can only minimize impact.”
Calla crosses her arms tightly around her chest. There’s cold air coming in from the windows, and she doesn’t want to resort to shivering. She bites on her thumbnail instead, clamping her teeth tight.
Anton is trying to make this sound simple, as though Otta’s attitude is only a personality flaw, but Calla doesn’t buy it.I can’t work out exactly who you are,Otta said to her,but it’s only a matter of time.Those aren’t the words of another haughty aristocrat playing palace politics. That’s the threat of someone who knows the truth, or at least has an inkling of it.
“Who is Otta Avia, Anton?” Calla asks lowly.
“The fuck kind of question is that?” Anton fires back. “She’s August’s sister. The second child to the Avias. Entirely ordinary, if it weren’t for her aunt marrying into the Shenzhi family.”
The council will be scrambling to verify Otta’s claims. Calla can imagine the current pandemonium in the south wing: they will bring out the divine crown, perhaps test it on some prisoner who was already due for execution, and when the heavens don’t strike them down—because surely the heavens would not allow a convict to possess their approval—they must determine that Otta has told the truth. In a kingdom that made the divine crown their very basis of monarchy, they cannot brush this matter aside, or else their monarch is as common as a factory worker plucked from the streets. Without the divine right to rule, the king has no legitimacy. Without the king’s legitimacy, no councilmember has been rightfully appointed either, nor their hold over any province in Talin guaranteed.
“She’s not ordinary.” There’s a ruckus coming down the corridor outside. “I watched her freeze a knife in midair.”
Anton frowns, uncomprehending. “She caught it?”
“Shefrozeit. With qi.”
“That’s imposs—”
“Don’tsayimpossible,” Calla interrupts. “Impossibleis jumping without light.Impossibleis qi swapping bodies at great distance. Yet somehow it keeps happening in this city, doesn’t it?”
A funny look crosses Anton’s expression. He must realize there’s a jab in here for him too, a question that Calla has been wondering about since he survived the arena. Clearly, he doesn’t consider it the time for those answers, because he refrains from a rebuttal. He turns and paces a few steps. His hand trails along the surface of a wooden table beside him, marking lines in the thin layer of dust. Three lines. Different from the ones the children drew, but the very reminder turns Calla cold nonetheless.
“Why are we in here arguing about this?” Anton asks slowly. “You spent the entire games working with August to put him on the throne. You were going to coronate him. If you could be blamed at any point, it would’ve been pertinent for him to mention to you that the crown was fake, don’t you think?”
“You don’t know if August knew,” Calla returns.
“Calla. Be serious. What did Augustnotknow in this palace?”
New voices advance in the corridor outside. Calla strains to catch the commotion. It’s a guard, giving orders to keep the nobles in the banquet hall. The Weisannas are going to try to stop the news from spreading. While Calla and Anton attempt to make sense of the situation, the kingdom is about to go to shit, because once the greater provinces find out, it’s not only the palace that’s going to want the divine crown in its possession. The crown, after all, promises to confirm a righteous ruler. There will be people wanting to put it on; there will be people wanting to find it and sell it on the black market, auction it off to thehighest bidder. Then the crown might end up right back in San-Er, but in the hands of a councilmember launching a coup.
They’re about to go up against every person who might want a chance at being Talin’s ruler, every person who knows being accepted by the divine crown means a change in the centuries of Shenzhis and Tuoleimis ruling the kingdom.
“Where is this coming from?” Calla’s anger gives way to frustration. There is no reason for them to be at odds. No extenuating circumstances, no rules set upon them. They could simply choose to stop being at each other’s throats. “What is your problem with August?”
“You are more alike to me than you are to August,” Anton replies. “Yet you insist on being his mouthpiece. You stormed the Palace of Heavens, Princess. Where didthatCalla go?”
Calla flinches. “Don’t.”
“Oh, sorry. You’re just some poor orphan from Rincun putting on a performance. Are you going to be giving that body back anytime soon?”
It was inevitable that he would take the argument there, yet Calla is shocked all the same. Her limbs lock; her lungs seize. The fear of being caught, of being dragged before the palace and executed, sweeps down her spine as muscle memory from her earlier years in this body. Anton may as well have swung a knife at her for the response he’s triggered.
