Page 75 of Vilest Things
Civilians of San-Er,the television in the barbershop runs on a loop,this is a hostile takeover.
Councilmember Aliha rolls his eyes. He’s almost home, walking from the palace to his second home in Er for a midmorning meal, and in that time he’s passed three other screens with similar crowds gathered before them.
Look around. Is this the life that the old gods wanted for us when they forged Talin? We were born to jump, and yet the throne commands you stay on the ground.
The Crescent Societies have hacked into the palace broadcast system and connected to every channel across San-Er. It’s ridiculous. If people really believed their religious nonsense, their groups wouldn’t have been pushed to the shadows of the cities, left to practice only in the last remaining temples. Yet San-Er loves novelty, and whenever something comes along to disrupt their daily monotony, the people will give it their every bit of attention, regardless of what it is.
Aliha mutters and grumbles, pushing past the barbershop crowd. No one inside is working anymore, too fascinated with the broadcast. He’s spent this whole morning looking at export numbers from Dacia to make sure their factories can get the produce they need to sell rice, to sort seeds, to distribute accordingly on the year’s quotas, and what is San-Er doing in gratitude? Being useless and waiting on handouts from the council, of course. He’s tired of the grumbling from Dacia that they can’t meet the numbers, and he’s tired of the grumbling from inside the cities that it’s not enough. It’s not his fault the farmers are lazy. His father’s grandfather was the one who was handed Dacia Province the year the nobility were in tatters after the war with Sica. In a better world, the Alihas would have been given a more impactful province—he made a grab for Kelitu when the Makusas fucked up, but of course Kasa went with the Rehanous.
With a heft of his briefcase, Aliha ducks under a clothesline. Dirty water drips from a sock and onto his shoulder. He yanks the sock off the line and throws it onto the muddy ground, annoyed. This part of San is horrible. Full of miscreants and delinquents who will leave the windows wide open while they blast their televisions and lie on their beds the whole day. The ground-floorapartments he passes are all occupied at this hour, screen after screen after screen.
No council, no governance. The gods direct to the throne, direct to the people.
A bucket of water splashes into the alley behind him. Aliha whirls around, his curses prepared, but there’s no one on the balcony to shake his fist at, as he expected. It fell on its own and is slowly rolling to a stop by a trash bag.
“Strange,” he mutters. He’d better hurry out of here, before his daughter thinks he isn’t going to join her for a bowl of noodles. She’s been delicate since she was attacked unprovoked during the king’s games, and she doesn’t go outside anymore in fear of the danger.
The moment Aliha turns to proceed down the alley, though, he spots a man who’s slunk in from the other end, tossing an orange in his hands.
“Councilmember,” the man greets. “Do you remember me?”
Aliha frowns. If this is an attempted robbery, it won’t be long before the surveillance cameras register the impending crime and send palace guards. Besides, he isn’t carrying much cash, so it will be a lost cause.
“I’m afraid not,” Aliha replies. “If you’ll excuse me—”
The man’s arm shoots out, blocking his way before he can move past. Underneath his sleeve, there’s a crescent moon tattooed on his wrist.
A flutter of alarm shivers down Aliha’s back. He doesn’t want to risk it: he turns on his heel and moves in the other direction, but there’s a blur of movement, and suddenly someone is leaping down from the balcony he thought empty before, blocking his path yet again. A woman this time, the two edges of a crescent moon peeking over the cut of her shirt collar.
“Get out of my way,” he demands. “Who do you think you are—”
Something pierces his side. He doesn’t register the feeling at first, only that it is cold, and foreign. Then the pain begins.
“Fuck you for putting me in jail,” the woman whispers viciously. She pulls the knife out. Then shoves it in again, two inches to the left. “It was yourdaughter’s fault for getting in my way. I’m not surprised she couldn’t run fast when she was weighed down by five thousand fucking shopping bags on each arm.Scum.”
The knife tears out. Aliha touches the wound, holds the pouring red. If he could just get somewhere, if he could wait until the guards come…
He cries out, dropping to his knees. He’s turned his back on the man at the other end of the alley, and something has been pushed right through his back, exiting through his chest. His vision swims. Gray shadows. Gray puddles. Only his red blood offers some sort of color on the wet floor when he spasms and falls to his side, his head smashing hard into the half-ripped remnants of a trash bag.
“They should have sent me after you earlier,” the woman mutters. She wipes down her knife handle. “You belong with the trash. Have fun rotting in it.”
Councilmember Aliha hears her throw the knife beside him, the clatter of metal as loud as a screeching factory reset. Then a gurgle of blood oozes from his mouth, filling his lungs, and he hears nothing more.
CHAPTER 27
Anton comes to with his head pounding.
His left eye is shielded with a veil of red. A scratch through his brow, he assumes, if blood is streaming directly into his vision. It doesn’t seem like he’s been out for long. He knocked his head hard when the carriage took a tumble. They’ve landed in a ditch.
He shifts, trying to find his footing with the carriage on its side. The two guards are entirely out, heads lolled back. Alive, but they’re useless to him if they’re this slow to recover.
Anton wipes his forehead, trying to stanch the blood. He stands, then shoves his elbow hard against the window above him. It takes three strikes before the glass shatters, crumbling inside the carriage in large shards.
What happened out there? How did their driver not see a giantditch?
When Anton hauls himself through the window, his arm hits a net. He freezes. This is worse than he initially assumed. On the other side of the net, albeit muffled, he hears the clang of swords. He tries to yank at the covering, move it aside so that he can extricate himself, but it’s too wide. Its very purpose is to keep him in.
Shit. How many carriages hit the ditch? Did they all crash, or did the rest have time to slow by the time they saw the first driving off course?
