Page 65 of Vilest Things
“How can I thank you?” she asks wryly.
“You’ll find a way.” Otta reaches into the small fabric bag she has hanging from her shoulder. It wasn’t there earlier, at the scene of the attack. She pulls out a bottle of antiseptic.
A few moments of silence pass. Otta pours the liquid. Calla stoically bears the sting.
“So,” Otta chirps, “I don’t suppose you know why we were attacked?”
“I’m still not convinced you didn’t have something to do with it, Otta.”
Calla doesn’t bother mincing her accusations, but she has to admit that said accusations are losing steam. It takes more energy trying to be nasty and pushing blame Otta’s way than it does applying a neutral logic to the situation: Calla doesn’t quite understand what Otta would have to gain when she’s the one directing the delegation through the borderlands, and she’s the one who claims she overheard enough information from King Kasa to find the crown.
“I don’t know why,” Calla says, answering properly when Otta doesn’t return the dig. “All the bodies were collected, but there’s nothing of note. Our best guess is an anti-monarchy guerrilla group. Nothing confirms it was the Dovetail.”
“Of course.” Otta unravels a length of the bandage. “Pockets of rebels have always existed. The king making a visit out into the provinces is sure to attract them.”
“Did they seem like rebels to you?”
“They were definitive threats to our monarch. So it stuns me that you would let one come close on purpose.”
Calla shifts. Her sword clatters, brushing against both her leather trousers and the fabric of the coat she’s tied around her waist. Her head hums with noise.
“That wasn’t what happened,” she counters.
“Really?” Otta, with her clean robes and clean hands, keeps her tone as sweet as honey while she places one end of the bandage over the wound. “It certainly seemed so. Forgive me if I misjudged you.”
Otta couldn’t have caught much of the scene before the man was rushing at Anton, or else Calla would have spotted her presence through the trees. How much did she see? How much did she hear?
“You seemed perfectly capable of incapacitating the attacker, anyway.”
“I shouldn’t have had to.”
“No,” Calla agrees. She holds back a wince as Otta wraps the bandage over itself, tightening its hold upon her arm. “Because there was never danger to begin with. You’ve never seen your monarch fight. You’ve been gone so long that you have no idea how things have changed. He would have handled it fine.”
“And what if he had been injured?” Otta returns. She looks up. Her eyes are pools of black, identical to the shadows darkening with the hour. “It’s an age-old advisor tactic, I understand. He becomes bedridden, in need of rest. You prevent anyone else from coming near him so he has only your ear for guidance.”
“You’re paranoid.”
Otta smiles. While her hands still, a small breeze blows her hair out of her face, letting the wisps fall into a perfect frame. “Aren’t you?”
There’s a commotion where the delegation is making camp, and they both turn to see the guards shooing off a councilmember who is trying to open the final carriage. By the king’s orders, it is to be left alone. Even discounting the busyness occupying the rest of the delegation, Calla and Otta are far from anyone’s hearing range. Still, Calla drops her volume when she says:
“You should stop trying to wage war against me, Otta. We don’t have to be enemies. We are hardly even competitors.”
“Oh, I know.” Otta ties a bow on the bandage. “Competitorswould be a terribly inaccurate word. You aren’t even close to holding equal footing with me.”
Is she fucking serious?
Calla yanks her arm back. Enough. She is wasting time arguing with Otta, as though they are schoolchildren sniping over the best toy on the playground. Otta lets her stride away, feigning innocence over why Calla would have reacted so suddenly.
“I am only doing you a favor by warning you,” Otta calls after her. “You cannot keep what isn’t yours.”
Calla grits her teeth. A new headache is starting. Before Otta can piss her off further, she skirts around the carriages, making for the bags to help with unloading.
“Hello, Highness,” Joselie greets, already building a tent. “You’re looking a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” Calla says. She gestures for the rest of the pole. “Let me help.”
There’s brutal annoyance stirring in her chest, but beneath it, there’s also clarity: the first indicator that maybe Calla has misunderstood what prowls before her. Here is where Otta has misstepped; here is the injured limb that she has put weight on during battle, exposing her weaker parts without knowing. If this were about Anton, she wouldn’t speak about him so demeaningly. He is not a puppet on strings that Otta and Calla can take turns tugging. He is a player forceful enough to hold a throne—and Otta in her fancy sleeves and beautiful gowns must know that is not merely something tokeep.
