Page 90 of Vilest Things
“Don’t… go?” Calla echoes. This must have something to do with the firstattack in the barracks. This must have something to do with the borderlands and the object waiting in there, the grand prize that the kingdom is fighting for.
“Don’t go intoRincun?” Anton adds, dragging his hands through his hair. “What happened?”
“Rincun has frozen over”—Venus shudders, the effort strained—“along with everyone inside.”
They return to Actia’s yamen.
This time, Calla announces her arrival, asking for an audience with the mayor. The air has taken on a sunburned smell, even while the temperature plummets to freezing. Inside the yamen, the elements are substantially less severe. With the way the floors creak underfoot and the windows are faintly stained gray, Calla could fool herself into believing they sit in Eigi, or Dacia—somewhere close enough for her to grab her sword and quickly return through San-Er’s wall if she wanted. The architectural plans for the provinces’ yamen are all identical. She only needs to block out the scene outside.
But they’re far, far from San-Er here. Yet they cannot move forward either.
“And you’ve received no communication from either yamen in Rincun?” Calla asks. She’s clutching a cup of hot tea in her hands, but it does very little to warm her.
Mayor Policola, who is doing his best to appear genial, flounders with each new question Calla asks. He doesn’t know how many travelers have passed through Actia to get to Rincun, therefore he cannot predict exactly how many civilians are trapped in Rincun at present. He doesn’t know if Otta Avia came through. He doesn’t have a clue why this is happening and why Rincun didn’t issue an emergency call from either mayor in West or East Capital.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” the mayor says while Calla massages herforehead, at a loss for how they’ve found themselves in this situation, “how did Councilmember Hailira get out?”
“We had horses, and we fled,” Venus calls from the other side of the room, overhearing the question. Before this, she’d only managed to nod yes or shake her head no to answer the healer. Her guards appear slightly worse for wear, slowly defrosting on the seats. “What are you trying to say?”
Policola scrambles to assure her he didn’t mean anything by it. Meanwhile, Anton makes a thoughtful noise. He declined any tea. Instead, he’s pacing the space around Calla, and she’s letting him only because the movement is helping create heat in the room, no matter how little.
“It wasn’t instantaneous,” Anton says—a question, despite his tone.
“It… crawled,” Venus answers. “As long as we kept moving, we could outrun it.”
Anton pauses in his step. The room falls quiet. “So is everyone else in Rincundead?”
Venus doesn’t answer. She cannot: she does not know, and it shows plainly on her stricken expression. No one in this room has the faintest clue, half a day away from the border of Rincun.
“They can’t be,” Calla says. “Otta must be inside the province too. I’m willing to bet anything that she set this off.”
“Even if she set this off, maybe she remains unaffected while the rest of Rincun falls dead.” Anton starts pacing again. “It is an unnatural cold. That much is certain. It might not strike everybody the same.”
It is possible that Otta is inside and perfectly unaffected. It is possible that she doesn’t have anything to do with this and she’s frozen like the rest of them. The problem is that they don’t know enough to move forward, and soon, August will catch up with them and hold them captive out of spite.
As if he can read her mind, Anton trails his finger along her arm as he circles her again, maintaining contact while he’s near. From the outside, it might appeara gesture between lovers, but Calla knows better. He is reminding himself she is nearby; she is assuring him that they stand united. There is no path out of this situation except through.
“Councilmember Hailira,” Calla prompts suddenly. “Rincun has two cameras, yes?”
“Yes, at the two yamen.”
Calla tilts her head to the computer in the room. There’s only one camera in Actia, and two in Rincun at East and West Capital. The provinces aren’t wired with the infrastructure for the type of electronics that San-Er runs. To make life easier for the councilmembers, the palace put in the bare basics for administration operations at each respective yamen and left it at that.
“Mayor Policola, would you turn that on, please?”
Though the mayor frowns, he walks over to start the machine. Calla gestures for Venus next, and when the councilmember looks to the healer for permission, he takes the blanket off her to confirm her examination is finished.
“Do you want me to log on?” Venus asks.
“If you don’t mind,” Calla replies.
Talin shares a network across its provinces. If Venus inputs her credentials, she can still access Rincun’s server from here.
Venus leans over the keyboard, entering her details. “What am I pulling up?”
“Turn on the live footage from the West Capital yamen. I want to know what we can see.”
Venus navigates slowly, her eyes flitting left to right in search of the right buttons. She doesn’t appear too familiar with where each function is located, but she knows how to use a computer, and under her identity number, she has access to Rincun’s administration, so she’ll figure it out eventually. Calla’s tea has gone cold. Anton has turned his back on the activity, opting to stare out the yamen window. Maybe he’ll find a solution out there.
