Page 45 of Vilest Things
“Goodness,” she whispers beneath her breath.
In the Hollow Temple, the Crescent Society members marked themselves with blood. On Leida’s arm, there’s a sigil drawn not in blood, but glowing faintly in the appearance of liquid light, right underneath her skin. A left dot, a long and slanting curve with a dot above, then another dot to the right. It looks like it should be a word in Talinese. Calla doesn’t recognize it. She does stare at it, committing it to memory until the body stops flowing with blood, until—before her very eyes—the sigil starts to turn faint, then disappears entirely.
“What the fuck?” she mutters. She gets to her feet, gathering her sword and sheathing it. In the bathroom, she washes the blood off her hands, scrubbing under the running tap until the crevices on her palms are clean. A heavy sensation clings to her when she leaves her rooms and enters the hallway, but she has a feeling that’s not entirely her imagination. She keeps one of her fists clenched tightly.
None of the guards are particularly concerned by her presence in the hallways. Calla walks between the wings, to the palace cells, and then to the farthest door—the cells with maximum security. Though the Weisannas block her passage at first, she asks for them to find Galipei to confirm her permissions, and before Galipei has scarcely responded to the page they send, she slips between them and descends the stairs.
One yellow light glows from the walls. No windows. The ceiling hovers low enough that Calla’s head brushes the top, forcing her to stay hunched. At the base, she finds a row of empty cells running down the left side.
They didn’t bother locking Leida’s body away securely. It is only a vessel, so it has been sat outside the cell they were keeping her in, preparing for the moment they found her and could force a return. Calla kneels at the vessel’s side and pushes up its sleeve too. A chill skates up her arm.
The same sigil, marked with blood.
Calla unclenches her fist. Her palm is damp with water, and she presses it to the sigil, scrubbing it away.
“Calla!”
Galipei’s voice bursts down the stairs a second before he does. Calla rises to greet him.
“What are you doing?” he demands. His eyes flicker between her and Leida’s body.
“You’re welcome,” Calla says. She brushes past him. “The palace can come out of lockdown.”
CHAPTER 15
Across Talin, throughout its twenty-eight provinces, there have been reports of spontaneous combustion at temples and shrines, all of which are burning without discernible cause.
Outside the wall, the kingdom still believes in the old gods. San-Er has lost its reverence for the mystical, but rural dwellers pass down the stories of their homes, their land, their ancestral encounters with minor gods who used to walk among mortals. Their shelves hold small labels—plate retrieved with help from god of lost objects;guidebook drawn with aid from god of yellow flowers;bow gifted from god of pretty boys.
If the old gods are to come down from the heavens, they will come to the provinces first. They will find their believers and exercise their influence. A shop shrine for the god of winter harvest burns red in Daol. A family shrine for the god of pottery bursts into flames and almost burns down half a village in Youlia before it is put out. The half-husk ruins of a temple erupt on a slow afternoon, and though they stand on Pashe’s outer periphery, the smoke is visible from the yamen in the province center. No cleric has tended to that temple in decades. The councilmember for Pashe receives the reports and assures the province that it must have been an old lantern, its oil warmed by the sun and bursting.
The villagers nearby wonder about the god of the summer sun instead. Each time they are told there must be some explanation for these occurrences, the next occurrence grows more bizarre. Approved travelers from the capital have started bringing news about other feats of nature inside the wall, and the rumors spread fast. A noblewoman awakens from the yaisu sickness after seven years comatose. The captain of the royal guard is arrested only for trying to spread divinity. The princess has negotiated with the gods personally, because how else could she have stayed hidden in the cities for this long, save for protection from above?
I’ll tell you what,some villagers say when the royal soldiers aren’t in earshot,maybe the gods had Calla Tuoleimi kill the king and queen of Er back then.
Maybe they have been whispering into her ear from the very beginning.
Do you remember their names?
For the Tuoleimis? I haven’t heard them spoken in so long.
It feels like the work of the gods. As if they are deciding who ought to remain and who ought to perish.
Then Otta Avia’s declaration comes rippling into each village like a blazing gold arrow, and suddenly, it’s an explanation, a reason why the gods have been striking again and again. The heavens never chose their king. Maybe it is time for the heavens to pick someone else. It all comes down to the crown, and whether it can be found. For the first time, the provinces have a hand in the kingdom’s affairs, and maybe this is when it will change.
So the people begin to pray.
Inside the wall, the remaining Crescent Society members are starting to merge temples.
They need the consolidation if their numbers are to operate functionally. There are structures to build and procedures to put in place. Their membershave been striking across the board, afraid that they will be among the next killed or arrested.
Are we sure Otta Avia isn’t one of ours?one Crescent asks.The timing is almost too perfect.
Murmurs down the table agree but confirm that this was certainly not a Crescent Society effort. This should be expected: at some point in the death of a kingdom, the nobility will begin fighting themselves.
We should coalesce an effort to intercept the crown,another says.The common people will follow someone the heavens confirm. It is the easiest route to liberation.
This meets dissent.
