Page 18 of Vilest Things
“We will have to investigate further,” Galipei says anyway. “It’s nothing short of a medical marvel to wake from the yaisu sickness. Northeast Hospital will want to run tests and see what happened.”
“What?” Otta’s eyes well up again. “You’re going to send me back there?”
“We’re not sending you back there,” Anton says. Almost instinctively, he tries to take Otta’s hand, and she tenses, pulling away. He’s taken aback for a moment. Then Galipei says, “August. You’ve got company incoming,” and Anton remembers. He’s August Shenzhi, Talin’s newly crowned king. This isn’t his first love before him. It is his half sister, and he should act like it.
Movement enters his periphery. Silent as a ghost, Calla Tuoleimi walks into the infirmary, a bag dangling from her hands.
For fuck’s sake.
“Well. This is a shock,” she says wryly, swinging her arm.
The bag lands beside him on Otta’s bed. He didn’t hear her approaching, though Galipei clearly did. He’s let his guard down once again. No wonder he lost in the arena.
“Clothes for you,” Calla says. “Figured you’d like them better than that awful hospital gown.”
Slowly Otta reaches for the bag. She tips it upside down, and out tumble two large pieces of green silk. A bodice with bell-shaped sleeves, then another swath of fabric composing the skirts.
“That’s very kind of you.” Otta’s tone doesn’t give her away, but her frown does. Her tears remain dew-frosted on her lower lashes, glimmering as she holds the silk closer. Anton recognizes that dress. It’s hers, indeed, having sat in her rooms for years.
“Truly, Highness, you shouldn’t have,” Anton says. It’s as much a message for himself as it is for Otta. Calla was delayed merely minutes after him into the infirmary. If, in that time, she had a servant track down Otta’s former quarters and retrieve the dress, then Calla Tuoleimi is priority number one in these gilded halls, the princess who the palace drops everything for. He wonders whether she’s heard the chatter about her. Whether she planted her spies here while she was in Rincun to report the palace’s whispered curiosities, people wanting to know where their King-Killer had gone. Kasa can’t punish them for that anymore. The Palace of Union can say aloud that they love his destroyer, even if the council wants her out.
Otta zeros in on Calla.
“I know you.”
“I should hope so,” Calla returns. “We’ve met several times.” She comes to crouch beside Otta, hovering on Anton’s left. Something about the scene before him feels like a violation of nature. It churns his gut, not unlike the way his jump back in the arena felt like it was turning his body inside out. Someone like Calla was never meant to meet a girl like Otta. They will eat each other alive.
“I’m only a royal advisor now, so don’t worry about bowing.”
“Calla, thank you for bringing her clothes,” Anton cuts in, before Otta decides to combat the subtle threat. “But if you must busy yourself with palaceaffairs, I suggest getting some sleep. The council will want a debrief on Rincun in the morning.”
“I keep telling you I need to speak with you, given that what happened in Rincun may be related to what lies in front of us,” Calla fires back. “You should consider the possibility that Otta Avia’s body has been invaded by a hostile force.”
“She hasn’t.” It doesn’t surprise him that Calla would immediately hold this suspicion as well; an invader presently getting away with their identity theft will, naturally, be inclined to think everyone else could be equally guilty. Only after his quick defense do the rest of Calla’s words dawn on him, and he backtracks. “What do you mean,what happened in Rincun?”
Calla stands, her leathers rustling. “We found an entire legion dead. Palace-delegated soldiers in their barracks. No weapons, no wounds. It’s as though their qi was merely plucked from their body.”
The news arrives at an awry angle, like a bird thrown at their feet with legs growing out of its head. Calla’s delegation visit was supposed to be a formality. The idea of an attack in Rincun while she was there is so absurd that Anton only blinks—as does Galipei, his restless movements stilling.
“Has Rincun been invaded?” Anton asks, knowing full well that cannot be the case if it has taken Calla until now to announce this. Nevertheless, if Sica is going to cross the borderlands into Talin, the first province they will reach is Rincun.
“Unclear. Rincun is still investigating the incident.”
Anton isn’t sure what this means. Neither is Calla, it seems, given that she’s reported the news so vaguely.
“Trouble follows you wherever you go, doesn’t it, Princess Calla?”
Her glare whips to him. It grates him to admit it, but a surge of satisfaction rushes down his throat to see her agitated like this. To provoke her like this. Yes, perhaps he ought to get rid of her entirely, find some excuse to call the palaceguard down on her, yet… this is a better punishment. A thousand lashings in answer for her fatal cut. She should feel the pain too.
“You know, I owe you an apology, Otta,” Calla says suddenly.
Anton’s stomach drops. Well, there’s the problem with punishing her long-term: Calla likes to retaliate.
“Whatever for?” Otta picks at a thread on her dress. She doesn’t see the glint in Calla’s yellow eyes while they stay locked on Anton, homing in before she looses her weapon.
“Aren’t you wondering how your brother’s on the throne? Last time you were awake, it was King Kasa ruling this palace. Surely you don’t think the natural passage of time put that crown on August’s head.”
Stop,Anton signals to her with his eyes.Right now.
