Flesh and False Gods 
by Chloe Gong

Click reveal to see what happens! We see how Anton survived Calla’s betrayal by jumping into the body of August and fighting for control. Jumping without any light. He requests to be taken to the war room before going to the banquet to celebrate Calla’s victory. He’s looking for something specific and it takes him a moment to find it in a journal kept about Anton’s family, the Makusas - the location of his birth body. While he’s looking, Anton finds a letter from Kasa, ordering the assassination of Anton’s father for suspected treason. Anton can’t believe his parents were revolutionaries but then, he was a child when they died. Regardless, if his family was killed for being revolutionaries, he might as cause a revolution, and afterward, he can confront Calla too. Calla is on her way to Rincun on the very edge of Talin where she meets General Poinin and Rincun’s newest councilmember Venus Hailira. The general points out how many people in Rincun worship the old gods, something he thinks the palace should put a stop to. This does not endear him to Calla, who is originally from Rincun. Although Rincun only has one councilmember in charge, Rincun is split and governed as two areas, East and West. Calla and Venus are waiting for Poinin to return with the report from East Rincun before leaving for San-Er, but he doesn’t make it back. He’s found dead outside the barracks. As they get the news, Calla notices the temperature dropping rapidly. She goes to see the general’s body and his heart has been removed, just like the bodies in the Crescent Society temple. But that doesn’t make sense - Leida Miliu is in jail now. When Calla leaves the general’s body, she sees the bodies of the palace guards strewn around the ground, dead but completely untouched. Then, she notices two children hiding in the weeds. When questioned, they tell Calla that they didn’t see anyone. It just got really cold, and their family tells them that when it gets cold like that, someone is stealing qi. Calla notices that next to the children, three lines have been scuffed. One of the kids calls it a sigil before being taken away by their mom. Calla decides to return to San-Er immediately. Galipei is having a hard time, August is acting so strangely. He’s making quick decisions without discussing them with Galipei or even considering them well himself, which is very unlike him. It’s almost as if he’s trying to upset the palace. But August needs to be careful with the council, if he loses them, he loses the generals they command and the soldiers that report to those generals. The city guards have already been restructured because of Leida’s treason, trying to make sure that can’t happen again. The sections answer directly to the king, where they used to answer to Leida. Now, Galipei’s cousin Seiqi oversees one of the new sections and won’t stop pestering Galipei. She meets him as he returns to the palace, asking if they’ll still have the annual gala (he thinks they will, she thinks they shouldn’t). She mentions someone upstairs vomiting blood and screaming that she’s nobility. Galipei panics, remembering that when he got all the cinnabar to poison Otta with, his aunt had asked if he was trying to create an immortality elixir. When cinnabar was first discovered, the miners who found it claimed they felt like they could almost reach heaven, but that was soon discredited as cinnabar poisoning. Bibi waits at the gates to San-Er, claiming that she is allowed entrance today, but she does not have an identity number. She’s spent most of her life in Laho, although she was not born there. She’s been trying to get into San-Er for some time. She has entered the lotteries for entrance to San-Er but never won. Then, she almost went to Eigi before she heard that the capital there had been burnt down by the palace. Bibi tells the guard questioning her that she was told there would be someone at the main gate with welcome materials for her, she hopes they do not find out who she was, or they may kill her… again. As the guards start to change shifts, she steps forward as if she’s meant to be there and is allowed through. Calla arrives back at San-Er with Venus, but they can’t get into the city. The king has decided that they’re going to expand the city and move the wall out by a mile, so the guards have disconnected the electric gate in preparation for the renovation (starting tomorrow). They’re manually opening the gate to allow people to go through, and now it’s stuck. Calla decides to leave Venus and their carriage behind and walk into the city instead. She calls Yilas at the diner and asks if her brother, Matiyu, is working in the palace surveillance room right now, a job Calla has gotten him after he quit working for the Crescent Societies. She wants Matiyu to quietly get her into the palace. She needs to get something done before Anton realizes she’s back. She climbs to the top of a building and jumps to another rooftop; she slips a little and hurts her knee. Matiyu meets Calla at a palace emergency exit and takes her to the surveillance room. She asks him to pull up the prison camera, she wants to make sure Leida Miliu is still incarcerated, which she is. Then who caused this mayhem in Rincun? When Anton shows up to confront Calla for not appearing before him first, she asks for a private meeting (he refuses). She has the surveillance room cleared of everyone else. She tells Anton that he should leave August’s body (he is still very mad that she tried to kill him, understandably) but he’s not leaving, he still has business that needs finishing. Just then, Galipei interrupts to tell Anton that Otta is alive and she’s upstairs. Anton goes to see Otta right away. She starts crying when she sees him - she can cry on demand - and he tells her it must have been traumatic waking up in the morgue. She says all she could see was darkness, she could feel the fire. That doesn’t make sense, the morgue is cold, but Anton pushes it aside for now. Calla also arrives; she stopped to get fresh clothes for Otta on the way, and finally tells Anton about what happened in Rincun. She also breaks the news to Otta that Anton is (according to the official record) dead – remember, Anton is in August’s body right now. Calla leaves and Anton prepares to leave as well but he thinks he sees Otta’s eyes flash yellow, the royal yellow, before turning black again. It’s the second time he thought he saw it. Calla wakes up the next morning and decides to escape from the palace. There’s nothing left for her there: she never wanted to be an advisor, Anton has Otta back, and he won’t forgive her for what she did anyway. As she prepares to leave, she is called to a meeting to discuss what happened at Rincun and to interview Leida. This makes her reconsider leaving. She goes to the meeting and is stopped by Galipei. He needs her to stand in the back with him to ensure that Leida does not escape. He really doesn’t want Leida out of her prison cell at all, but nobody cares what Galipei wants. He tells Calla they now have reports of what happened at Rincun happening elsewhere too. Calla reminds Galipei that Leida can jump without light. They’ve given her a space of ten feet in all directions so that no one is near enough to jump into, and they plan to do identity checks on everyone before they leave the room. When Anton enters, he asks Leida if she planted more people in the provinces. She says no. Did any of her co-conspirators in the Crescent Societies have ties to the provinces, but Leida balks at the thought that she had co-conspirators. When it’s pointed out that there have been three generals found with their hearts removed, like bodies found in the Hollow Temple, Leida points out that she never gave those instructions to the Crescent Societies. She just shared her knowledge on jumping with them. One of the councilmembers asks what Leida knows of Dovetail, something Calla has not heard of. The Dovetail is the largest revolutionary group in the provinces, which bases its operations in Laho. During King Kasa’s reign, the council was not allowed to acknowledge that the Dovetail even existed. Dovetail believes in the old gods, and that the kingdom has detracted from those gods. Leida maintains that she has no ties to them or to the six provinces that have experienced attacks. But the council knows that someone inside the palace paid the Dovetail, something that had not been revealed to Anton until now. Anton asks Leida if she knows of any Makusa involvement in the Dovetail, but she questions what the Makusas would have to do with this. She explains that what the Dovetail and the Crescent Societies have in common is their hatred of the palace, then all the lights in the room explode. The guard next to Calla turns to leave the room but Calla follows, grabbing her. She knows that Leida jumped into this guard’s body without any light, and she takes Leida with her but not back into the interrogation room as the palace goes into lockdown. Anton uses the confusion of the lockdown - and the general disorganization of the guards since they’re restructuring - to slip to his old rooms, from when he was just a Makusa and not King August. He is eventually found by Seiqi, and then by Otta. He does not trust Otta right now - does not know what she wants now that she’s awake, but he knows scheming is an art for her. She asks why he brought up the Makusas during Leida’s interrogation, but he doesn’t answer. He asks if she misses Anton, but Leida responds that August always thought Anton was weak. That he warned her not to be with Anton because Anton would eventually leave since all he knows how to do is run. He realizes that Otta knows he’s not really August, but they can’t talk here. Matiyu is working in the surveillance room when he gets a phone call from someone named Woya, asking for a favor. She’s in charge of the Hollow Temple again, the charge was briefly taken from her by Pampi, and she needs him to check something for her. She asks if anyone gained entry to the city yesterday, though no one is supposed to be allowed through while the wall is under construction. He looks but all he sees is guards going through. But he does find something interesting: a dead guard with a yellow umbrella in his chest. Calla takes Leida to her rooms and ties her to the radiator pipe. She knows Leida didn’t have anything to do with the killings in the provinces, but she also knows that the council will execute her for it anyway. She wants to know where Leida learned such techniques. She wonders if Leida learned them from her mother. This pisses Leida off, she says her mother died for Talin and nobody recognizes her sacrifice. Calla wants to help Leida do good, and she reveals to Leida that she is not alone in her body. They should work together. Bibi is out in the market when she is approached by two guards, one of which is a Weisanna, asking for her identification number. She doesn’t have one since she’s in the city illegally, and she tries to charm her was out of trouble, but the guards say they’ll have to take her in. She wraps her bag handle around the Weisanna’s neck and kills them. The other guard makes a run for it, but she throws her qi into their body and takes it over. Step 1 of her plan: cause paranoia. Step 2: infestation. August has been acting so strangely. He doesn’t go to his study, he is barely interested in his work or reforms, and he’s dyed his hair black again. So, when Galipei sees on surveillance that he is with Otta during the lockdown, he decides to visit the Crescent Societies instead of guard August. He wants to speak to the eldest member there. He asks about the possibility of cinnabar healing someone instead of killing them. The elder says that is just a legend. But August asked Galipei to use the cinnabar to kill Otta. Did August suspect that it would heal her? The elder finally tells Galipei that many extraordinary things have happened that have been covered up the country: soldiers who can change their features, aristocrats that have torn off their own limbs in sacrifice, a queen that sacrificed her own people in the hopes to be reincarnated. But the only time that cinnabar has ever healed someone was when a god was involved. Anton and Otta leave his old room together and are immediately stopped by Seiqi, whose body Otta jumps into. So much for Weisannas being immune to that. Not to mention, trying to jump into a Weisanna is what gave her yaisu sickness in the first place! August wonders how did she do it so easily this time? Otta asks Anton what he was thinking, bring up his family in Leida’s interrogation but he retorts by asking if Otta knew that Kasa had ordered the death of his family. I will point out that she doesn’t actually answer him, just say that she’s sorry. Girl is a snake! She kisses him but he pushes her away and they get in a little tiff, she wants him to stay as August and she thinks that deep down, he wants the same thing. After a few moments, she leaves Seiqi’s body, and they both pretend that Seiqi fainted. Otta leaves Anton and Seiqi to go speak to the councilmembers alone as she gets ready for the gala that night. Calla storms into the ballroom and grabs Otta, pulling her into a servant’s hallway. When Calla questioned Leida, she was told that everything Leida learned about how to use qi… she learned it from Otta. Otta doesn’t dispute it but said it would’ve been on accident. She didn’t teach Leida. Otta keeps pushing Calla until Calla pulls a knife and tries to scratch her with it, but something – some force - stops her. The knife hovers in front of Otta unmoving until Calla drops it. Anton comes on and asks what is happening, and Calla realizes that Otta knows that Anton is using August’s body. Otta says something to Calla that makes Calla suspicious. “I can’t work out exactly who you are, but it’s only a matter of time.” Does she know that Calla isn’t the original Calla? Otta smacks Calla’s hand out of the way and just the touch of Otta’s fingertip causes blood to well slightly on Calla’s arm. What is going on?! Otta seems too strong for someone so petite, and especially for someone who has been in a coma for the last several years. Otta makes her way back into the ballroom and up to the stage to make an announcement. She tells the crowd that during the war with Sica, the Talin crown was buried to protect it. The current crown they use is a fake, the real one was never retrieved. This is important since the crown is supposed to kill anyone it deems as unworthy of ruling. But they’ve been wearing a forgery since the war. Word gets out about the crown and now there are riots in the streets, organized by the Crescent Societies. People are jumping into the bodies of guards left and right, and Galipei orders the immediate execution of any jumpers - in “August’s name” (Anton is not aware of this). In the palace, there has been a meeting. The councilmembers have decided that they will send a delegation to the borderlands to verify Otta’s claims about the crown. There will be a second meeting to decide on the delegation members. Venus visits Calla to ask if she will be attending the second meeting. It seems that Otta has requested Calla on the delegation. But Venus is not a fan of this plan, there will be too many people flooding into Rincun on their way to the borderlands. Calla recommends that Venus take her own delegation back to Rincun immediately and suggest that her citizens stay inside if they can, offer them money as an incentive. Calla decides to join the delegation. Calla goes to see Leida and tells her all the news; Leida clearly already knew about the crown since she’s not shocked. But what Calla really wants to know is what Otta is capable of. If Leida tells her, she will let Leida go free. Leida explains that Talin’s families used to have patron gods that they would pray to. They would make sacrifices to their patron gods for health and safety, but also for stronger qi. The gods were fickle and would not always deliver, but sometimes they did. Each family had a sigil that would demand the attention of their patron god. Such as the two lines that the Crescent Societies marked on their chests. Like the three lines Calla saw in Rincun. Some sigils were shared among many families, like the Crescent Societies’ sigil, and some were rare. Calla suspects that Otta’s family had a rare sigil and Leida co-opted it. Leida refutes this and refuses to give the sigil to Calla, demanding she be freed as they had agreed. Calla starts to saw the ropes binding Leida to the radiator, but before she’s done, Calla stabs Leida in the heart killing her instead. She searches Leida’s skin for a sigil and finds one on her arm. It glows faintly from under her skin, not painted on top. Calla memorizes its design, which is good, because it fades from Leida’s body after she dies. She goes downstairs to the jail cells and finds Leida’s birth body that was returned to her cell. The same sigil is drawn on her arm in blood. Shrines dedicated to the old gods start to spontaneously catch on fire in the provinces. The night before the delegation leaves, Calla uses Leida’s spilled blood to draw Leida’s sigil on her own chest. The delegation sets out: a total of five carriages. Anton, Otta, Calla, several councilmembers that insisted on coming, and guards for them all. Otta keeps making snide remarks about Calla, Anton finds it strange that Otta insisted Calla accompany them since Otta doesn’t like Calla. He hasn’t had a chance to talk to Otta about what exactly she was thinking when she made her announcement at the gala, they haven’t been alone. Although they are currently in the carriage with two Weisannas, Anton asks her now. Otta tells him that had she given Anton the information earlier and left it up to him, he would have taken too long to make a decision. She just expedited the process. He gives her a quick rebuke reminding her who is the king, and the retinue stops for the night in the middle of Eigi. Where Anton confronted the peasant rebels in Immortal Longings. Calla pulls Anton aside and tells him their retinue stopped because there are floods ahead, but she smells a trap. She thinks someone is trying to get them to change their route. While they’re talking, Calla falls against Anton like she’s lost all the strength in her body and Anton sees that her eyes are very bright, almost as if they’re glowing. He escorts her into a building quickly and asks her what she’s done. Calla is gathering too much qi inside her, it’s overpowering her, and Anton tells her to let it go. She puts her arm out to push him away from her, but when her open hand contacts his chest, the qi is released, and Anton goes flying across the room. Leida was Calla’s sacrifice, have the gods now given her a gift? They call a council meeting to discuss Calla’s concerns. She passes packs of papers to the councilmembers, asking them if they recognize any of the sigils in the packet. Councilmember Savin recognizes one. Calla explains that Ayden Junmen won entry into San-Er through the lottery and quickly joined the Crescent Societies. He was later charged with excessive, illegal jumping, forced back into his birth body, and executed in private (private executions do not require sign off from the council, while public executions do). When his body was processed, they found the sigil that Savin recognized drawn in blood and when Savin investigated further, at least two connections to the Dovetail. Calla argues that the Dovetail has been in hiding for years, decades even. What happened to make them come out and start attacking… Otta woke up. Councilmembers ask Calla when Otta would have orchestrated this, she’s only been awake for a few days. Why would she do it, is she making a play for the crown? Calla says that Otta has known for a long time about the false crown and has been biding her time. She ask that Otta be removed from the delegation. Calla is summarily dismissed by the council and the meeting is adjourned. Once Calla is alone again, she hears someone whisper “Sinoa” but there’s no one there. That night, Anton and Calla discover a game room and have a discussion over a game of chutes and ladders. Anton doesn’t believe that Otta is behind the Dovetail attacks, but he does believe she’s up to something, and he recommends that Calla lay off a bit or Otta will be more secretive and even harder to catch. He points out a moment during the games when the two of them secretly met with August. August had asked Anton about Otta, asked what she had said to Anton last, as if he was worried she may have revealed something to him. Was it about the crown or was August worried about something else? The game ends after ten rounds and neither of them has won, then Calla completely overturns the board and announces that they’re both winners. Anton asks her again to lay off Otta so she doesn’t get spooked, surely Calla can do that much for him. She responds by saying she would have burned the capital to the ground for him. He thinks about how he loves her, but he doesn’t trust her anymore. In San-Ee, Matiyu shows up at Chami and Yilas’ diner, Mao Mao (Calla’s cat) in his coat. Bodies are turning up all over the palace and Matiyu needs them to let Calla know. This morning when he checked his surveillance cameras, he found the dead body of his boss - and his boss reports directly to the king so there’s no one left inside the city to tell. But the bodies turning up are all guards. Matiyu is not sure how it’s happening, but someone is picking the guards off one by one and soon there will be no one to stop them when they walk into the palace. This is a coup. After two calm days, Calla asks why there’s so many people piled into one carriage. A guard tells her that King August ordered the last carriage to remain empty. That’s odd, Calla wonders what he’s hiding in there. But she doesn’t have time to wonder for long. She gets a tingle and realizes there’s something camouflaging the road ahead. She calls a halt to the progression and gets a crossbow from Galipei. She aims for the trees and hits a camouflaged man - where the others in the retinue could see nothing. He drops whatever was masking the road and they see twenty armed fighters waiting for them. The palace guards and Calla engage the fighters. Calla finds herself fighting in a secluded area and tries to question the attacker, but she gets no answers. Anton comes and helps her, but that is a bit of a problem since August isn’t supposed to know how to fight. When Calla and Anton are left alone, Anton demands to know if Calla has done something to him! Bewitched him somehow! She killed him, stabbed him when he trusted her, with what seems like no guilt whatsoever, and yet he cannot hurt her at all. She retorts that she had made plans to kill herself for killing him, but she had realized that he was still alive before she followed through with them. Another attacker comes from behind Anton and neither he nor Calla were watching. Calla sees the attacker at the last second, but she won’t be able to save Anton in time. Just then, the attacker stops moving forward completely and Otta kills him with a throwing dagger while he’s still. Calla blames this whole situation on Otta, saying that Otta is behind whatever is happening. Afterward, the guards come to bring them back to the carriages and something Anton says makes Galipei pause, as if he just realized that whoever is in August’s body is not actually August. Later, Calla realizes that she is bleeding. She didn’t even feel it when she was cut. Bibi remembers a tale they tell in the provinces, of a queen who asked the gods to resurrect her. She convinced one hundred of her subjects to sacrifice themselves on her behalf, but whether it worked or not depends on who is telling the story. Bibi has now slipped into the body of a palace worker and delivers meals to the surveillance room. After she sneaks a memory stick into one of the ports, she overhears Matiyu speaking to Yilas. He thinks there is a fake guard who is in the palace, but Yilas is not convinced. They finish the conversation when Matiyu says he will try to find more evidence but asks Yilas to keep trying to reach Calla, and Yilas leaves. Bibi retrieves her stick and follows Yilas, slipping a note of paper into Yilas’ hand before going to find a new body. The delegation stops for the night. They must camp out in the open since they can’t make it to a settlement before it gets too dark. And they also have six guards to bury. Otta and Anton get into an argument when Otta recommends that Anton sacrifice some guards for some more power. When he refuses, she tells him that when he gets the crown, it will give him inhuman strength and she could teach him even more. He doesn’t like this thought, and Otta gets frustrated that he won’t listen to her. He used to hang on her every word. He tells her he can’t be that person anymore, she responds that she already had a contingency plan put in place, in case she couldn’t convince him to do what she wanted. After walking away from Anton, Otta approaches Calla and offers to dress her arm wound. They won’t see a town until the next night, so Calla takes her up on her offer. Otta tells her that the two of them are not competitors. In fact, they’re not even in the same league… Otta is so far ahead of Calla. Calla doesn’t think she’s referring to Anton. Galipei comes to Anton (who is still in August’s body) and asks if there’s anything “August” wants to tell him. There’s not, but Galipei is clearly suspicious of him. Galipei puts his hand on Anton’s shoulder and Anton can feel August inside, fighting for control. Galipei tells him that he saw the letters that were left in August’s study, he wants to know what changed August. Anton tells Galipei that he’s out of line. Galipei storms out and Anton thinks that he just blew his cover. Calla is standing guard in her tent and hearing more voices in her head, but she still doesn’t know who Sinoa is. She decides to rewrap her arm since she can feel it bleeding through the bandage, and she sees below the wound another sign drawn. She runs to find Otta, but Otta is now gone. Power is about to overwhelm Calla, so she runs toward the abandoned city they are camping next to, afraid someone will see her. In the city, she calls out for Otta but there is no answer. She finds an old temple and inlaid in the floor it says “Sinoa Tuoleimi, Queen of the Palace of Heavens” with a portrait of someone who looks just like Calla. The queen who asked to be resurrected. Galipei comes in and yells at Calla to put her hands up. Calla is overwhelmed but the voices and can’t think, she panics as Galipei counts to three and on three, Calla jumps for the first time since she entered this body. Venus gets to Rincun and gives the order for the citizens to shelter inside. But outside, she can see the light of people jumping inside the borderlands. Calla has jumped into Galipei’s body. She looks at the body that she’s been in for the last fifteen years. It still has yellow eyes; an empty vessel’s eyes are usually white. Is the real princess still inside that body somewhere? Calla looks at her reflection in Galipei’s sword and sees that his eyes are still silver. Normally when someone jumps, their eye color remains with the qi. So, although Anton has jumped into August’s body, his eye color remains Anton’s color (no one has noticed because their eyes are almost the same color). But when Calla jumped into the princess’ body, the body’s eyes remained yellow and now Galipei’s eyes remain silver, and Calla is not sure what that means. She sees a note pinned to a wall, Calla believes Otta left it for her. It contains a map and the words “come alone”, is the map showing the location of the crown? Still in Galipei’s body, she picks up the princess’ body, which is still alive but lying unconscious, and takes it back to the camp. She tells them (as Galipei) that she believes Otta has done something to Calla and then left to try to get the crown on her own. Anton is incredibly worried about Calla, he and Calla’s attendant put the princess’ body in the empty carriage and Calla sees a couple chests in there. They break camp and head to the borderlands as quickly as possible. Yilas throws Bibi’s note away as soon as she gets home but Chami finds it in the trash. It says, “we need you” with a number, which Chami realizes as the number to the Hollow Temple. She calls the number and Bibi answers, delighted to be speaking to another of Calla’s former attendants. She’d like them to put her in contact with Calla. The Crescent Societies are about to take over San-Er and they’d like to work with Calla to facilitate the transfer of power. The regular people will take the news better if a royal is still at the head. Bibi tells Chami they have complete blueprints of the palace, courtesy of Julia Makusa, Anton’s mom. Still in Galipei’s body, Calla is riding in a cramped carriage with councilmember Mugo when Mugo gets a call. Councilmember Naurilus has been found murdered back in San-Er. Mugo wants to tell the king immediately and opens the door, even after “Galipei” tells him not to (since they’re in the Dovetail’s home province). As soon as the door is opened, they are attacked. Calla pulls Mugo back in but is shot in the shoulder with a silver arrow, which must have cost a fortune. Meanwhile, there is a message being broadcast in every corner of the city announcing a hostile takeover. Councilmember Aliha is also killed by the Crescent Societies. Anton’s carriage has been tipped onto its side into a ditch and the two guards with him still aren’t awake, if they’re even alive. Calla in Galipei’s body sneaks over and helps Anton out of the carriage but it isn’t long before they’re surrounded by their attackers. Anton and Calla are tied up and taken, along with some others that are still alive, but Anton wonders why they don’t just kill them all. Calla is sitting next to Anton, and Anton knows exactly who is in Galipei’s body. He figured it out when she just rescued him. One of their attackers comes over and hits Galipei. He wants to know why Galipei killed all twenty of their soldiers in the first attack (the one where Calla recognized the camouflaged road). Galipei has been talking to the Dovetail. In fact, before Anton took over his body, August had been talking to the Dovetail, too. This is not good. Calla looks at Anton and tells him she’s leaving and asks him to come with her. They both jump, blind and very far, into the carriage that was kept empty. Calla jumps into the princess’ body and Anton into his birth body, which he has been carrying in this carriage. They steal a horse and escape together. At the same time, the real August and Galipei start to wake up. August jumps, effortlessly, into several people nearby, killing them all before jumping again. Then he returns to his body, turns to Galipei, and demands to know what is happening. The Weisannas still in San-Er institute a curfew that most people are ignoring. Councilmember Bethilia is attacked by three people and killed, the councilmember in charge of Meannin was beaten into a coma, and the one in charge of Ediso has his hand cut off at dinner. When Chami and Yilas tell Bibi they couldn’t pass her message to Calla even if they wanted to, since her cellular doesn’t have service, Bibi says she can help with that. They meet her at an Internet cafe and she has them make the call using VoIP, or calling via the Internet. They try the call several times before connecting, and they notice that Calla is off route when they get through to her in Actia Province. When she answers, Yilas tells Calla that the Crescent Societies are killing councilmembers and staging a coup. Calla responds that Otta has gone for the crown, and they have to handle that first, the city will have to wait. Bibi chimes in that when Calla gets back to San-Er, they should work together. Calla is stunned and brushes Bibi off. She asks if either of her previous attendants had ever heard of Sinoa Tuoleomi, but they haven’t. She wonders if perhaps Sinoa was born a Shenzhi. Several times over the course of history when one of the rulers did not have children, the other family would send someone over and change their last name. For example, Kasa’s father had two sons while the King of Er at the time had no children. Kasa took over San while his brother (Calla’s father) changed his last name to Tuoleimi and became King of Er. After the call is finished, Bibi pops a disk from the computer and leaves, warning Chami and Yilas to stay inside for the next few days. August remembers the one time he heard the voices of the gods. He had been visiting his parents’ grave markers in the tomb and asked if there was more for him. As the lights flickered, he heard the heavens tell him “King. King.” So, August poisoned his Aunt Carneli, the king’s wife, to ensure that she could not have children herself. She got sick and died so children definitely were not in her cards. And now his fate is fulfilled, August is king. We find out that he has been making deals with the Dovetail. While the Crescent Societies want to get rid of the monarchy altogether and allow the gods to rule, the Dovetail wants to keep a monarch who the gods can use to rule. Galipei had found one of August’s letters with the Dovetail in August’s study just before they left San-Er for the borderlands and Galipei reached back out to them on August’s behalf. After smoothing things over with the Dovetail, August gives the councilmembers the option of continuing on or heading back to San-Er, but he and Galipei are going after Anton and Calla. August knew that after Kasa, the council would be his biggest problem. He was adopted by Kasa and therefore only had a tentative claim to the divine right of ruling. He also knew that the crown was fake, and if any of the councilmembers made their own claim, they would not be struck down by the forgery either. He needed the council to fall in line. Finding the crown had once been his and Leida’s plan. Leida had read in a book that she found in Otta’s room that the real crown was still buried, and they planned to claim it together and use the crown to destroy Kasa. But they needed Anton and his jumping skills to get to it. Unfortunately, Otta found out and put a stop to the whole thing, insisting that she would report them if they included Anton in their plan. Calla and Anton ride for two days without food or rest until they simply cannot ride anymore. They get to the capital in Actia and steal a little bit to eat. Anton tells Calla that he thought the name Sinoa Tuoleimi sounded familiar, but he just realized he read it once in a book that belonged to Otta. Later, Otta burned that book in her fireplace. It was the same book that Leida had used to learn about the crown. They feel it get really cold outside, unnaturally cold, like it did in Rincun, and they decide to get inside stat. They spend all their money on a room. They talk to each other, finally forgive each other, and basically tell each other “I love you”. They ride back out at dawn and it is still freezing. They get to northern Actia, the cold gets worse the further they travel, and they see a group riding towards them in the opposite direction. It’s Venus, who rode to Rincun to protect her people, why is she leaving now? When they get closer, Anton and Calla dismount and approach the other group. Venus falls over as soon as Calla reaches her. She and her guards are pale, their lips blue, their skin freezing to the touch. Venus tells Calla to go no further. Rincun and everyone in it has frozen over. They all ride back to Actia’s yamen, its capital. They announce themselves to the mayor there and ask Venus questions about what happened. She and her guards were able to outride the cold because of their horses. It continued creeping forward and anyone who got caught in the cold froze over. Calla asks Venus to use the yamen’s computer to pull up one of Rincun’s cameras. When she looks at the live footage, Calla can see someone still moving but very, very slowly. But at least that means they’re not all dead in Rincun. Did Otta cause this or is she a victim of the cold as well? While Calla looks at the camera, a man comes in to speak to the mayor. They’re speaking in the language of Actia to keep their conversation private, but their native dialect is very similar to Rincun’s, so Calla understands most of it. They mention a junndi (a word Calla doesn’t understand) and decide to keep everything quiet since these people are visitors and none of them are from Actia. When the man speaking to the mayor leaves, Calla follows him and jumps into his body. She searches his desk and finds a paper that says, “keep them there”. She jumps back to her body and goes to get Anton. They must leave now. August and Galipei arrive just after Calla and Anton get away. Venus meets them outside and tells them about Rincun. August realizes that the cold means the borderlands are collecting qi, Otta must have found the crown. They decide to send remaining the councilmembers back to San-Er and continue on alone. Venus seems confused, they can’t go into Rincun! August tells her the cold isn’t what she should be worried about, it’s when the cold stops. Tell that to all the frozen people, August! Calla and Anton are on foot now, and they are running out of time. Anton sees in the distant mountains an arc of light; it must be the crown collecting qi. The location is the same as what Otta drew on Calla’s map. They see August and his guards close behind them. Anton stops and asks Calla for help. He cuts his hand on her sword and asks her to show him how to draw her sigil. They draw it in his chest, and he jumps blindly. Calla follows. All August finds is their empty vessels. They jump repeatedly, over and over, through the distance of Rincun until they meet again in the borderlands. They look around. They’ve both jumped into bodies lined up among other bodies. Bodies next to bodies next to bodies. Vessels. Calla sees that she is in a palace that wraps around the mountaintop, and she suddenly realizes that junndi means palace. At the entrance, she sees a plaque that says “Tuoleimi”. They go inside. Anton points out a mural. It has text at the bottom, most of which is indecipherable, but they can see the word Tuoleimi several times. It shows a coronation, the crowned babies, a battle with the Jinzi River separating the opposing forces. Calla’s sigil. People being addressed from a balcony in what looks like the Palace of Union. The Palace of Earth was renamed the Palace of Union when Calla murdered her family and Kasa began to rule both San and Er. Then Anton finds a topographical map. It appears to be showing Talin’s war with Sica, like the battlefield in the mural, but the colors are on the wrong sides, showing victories where Talin lost. Sinoa Tuoleimi, erased from Talin’s history, led the invasion against Talin. Sica never even existed. Instead, there was a civil war in Talin and when she lost, Sinoa Tuoleimi took the crown and fled to the mountains. They climb up a staircase into a turret. They see a long dead body sitting on a throne, as they watch, the dead body absorbs a shot of light that beams into the room. The body is Sinoa Tuoleimi, still wearing her crown. Calla can feel the power of the crown from here. Otta is frozen at the feet of the corpse. Calla grabs the crown, and the corpse turns to dust. The qi gathering becomes feral but quickly calms down, satisfied by the sacrifices that were made on the road here. Otta wakes up and points out that Calla was supposed to come here alone. Anton was thrown into the wall by the qi when Calla grabbed the crown, and he has yet to move again. Otta says Calla doesn’t even realize what she took and now, the rest of them have to suffer… and Otta is not talking about the crown. Sinoa was reborn as Calla (the real Calla) and then this girl from Rincun invaded her body and never left. Otta fights Calla, and she fights as if she were trained in the Palace of Heavens, like Calla was. Like Otta was not. They were trained for offense. August, trained in the Palace of Earth, is a terrible fighter. Otta would’ve been trained in the same way. Calla tries to jump into Otta’s body, but she can’t. Otta has someone else in there already. As they fight, Calla finally sees Anton moving. She throws the crown to him and then hits Otta with an arc of light. Otta starts to choke Calla without touching her. Anton distracts Otta for a moment and she asks if he’s coming to her rescue. He says no, the heavens will do that, and he puts the crown on his own head. The room is filled with light. Calla wakes up moments later and Anton is lying next to her, the crown on the floor. She checks on him and feels a pulse, thready but at least he’s alive. Otta is near the throne, and she also starts to move around. Calla’s sigil has now been removed, probably from when the crown lit up. Anton wakes up and tries to say something, but Calla can’t hear him. She needs to kill Otta before Otta gets her bearings again. Otta gets up and doesn’t seem to care what Calla is planning. Otta turns her back toward Calla and that’s when Calla realizes what Anton was trying to tell her. But it’s too late, Weisannas flood the room. They traveled the same way that Anton and Calla did, but Calla recognizes Galipei from the way he walks. She yells at Galipei to wait, but he picks up the crown while the others surround Anton and Calla. She watches as Otta climbs into the window and drops out of it to the snow below. Calla yells at the guards not to let Otta go, but all they do is blindfold Calla. Venus and the other councilmembers arrive back at San-Er. She realizes that the wall got moved far further than she expected, and the space between the wall in the city is now quite lengthy. Once they are through the wall, their carriages are attacked by the Crescent Societies. She sees councilmember Rehanou with a hole in his chest. Venus is found by society members and they’re about to kill her, but she’s able to keep them talking. She hopes that perhaps someone will come rescue her if she can keep them distracted long enough. She tells the society members that August is on his way with the real crown, but they already know. That’s not what they want, they want freedom! Venus says that she will help them by declaring Rincun an independent province, this convinces them to spare her. They do not kill her. Calla and Anton are tied up and blindfolded in carriages, the bodies they prefer kept separate from them. Their group has ridden for five days nonstop, but when they get closer to San-Er, they stay the night at Eigi’s security base. While they’re stopped, August speaks to them alone, and Anton asks August if he had anything to do with his parents’ murders. August says that he did not, but he did find out about it shortly after the act had been done. He didn’t tell Anton because there was nothing Anton could’ve done about it; it was better that way. Besides, Anton’s parents committed high treason by conspiring to steal the throne for themselves. Anton does not take this well, he’s furious. August tells Calla and Anton that they will be staying at the security base. The capital is too dangerous right now, when they testify, they will do so here, and it will be broadcast to the capital. Calla knows then that they will never have a real trial. He will broadcast their testimony to make it clear that they’ve been caught and not killed (no martyrs here), then he will leave them at the security base for the rest of their lives. He’s already gotten rid of the council; August will take out any resistance groups next. She points out that they will need their birth bodies back to testify, especially her. No one will believe she’s the princess if her eye color doesn’t match. A few moments later, Galipei brings their birth bodies to them, already blindfolded and bound. Calla is kept chained in a room alone, but soon there’s a knock on the door. It’s Anton, he’s already escaped his chains. They had put a bunch of guards near him, Anton managed to cut himself and draw the sigil on his chest, then he jumped through each of the guards until he found the keys to his chains. He even left some of the guards alive. Now he’s here to free Calla and make a plan. He wants Calla to challenge August, she’s the only other person that the people will accept to rule Talin. After some convincing, Calla agrees, but only if Anton agrees to fight with her. She leaves the room while Anton sleeps and makes her way to the office where the crown is being kept, incapacitating any guards she comes across. August comes in just as she grabs the crown and lowers it onto her own head. It melts and fuses with her head. She’s king now. Bibi goes to Yilas and Chami’s diner early in the morning. Not long after, she crawls under the table as something in the city explodes, blowing the diner’s windows in. Calla blows through the wall of the office. She asks August if he ordered the attack in Rincun, but she already knows that he did. She throws light at August, but Galipei jumps in front of it. He’s alive but barely, August orders three other Weisannas to take Galipei to San-Er to be treated immediately, taking their last carriage. He commands everyone else to get to San-Er and protect the wall… and keep Calla out of The City! Calla wakes Anton up and they fight their way out. August has taken most of the guards with him to protect the wall, they manage to get some weapons and a horse, and they ride hard for the wall. When they get there, August is already in place and the wall is secured by guards. But Calla and Anton claim she has been chosen by the divine, and after Calla slits the throats of several Weisannas with her qi, August steps down. When they enter the city, they see smoke coming from the palace. They ride straight there to find Crescent Society members guarding the doors, so they decide to enter the palace through a secret entrance. The emergency exit that Matiyu showed Calla earlier. They go to the throne room where the Crescent Societies have ten councilmembers lined up for execution. The Society members call Farua forward, but Calla forces the man with the sword to stop. The Crescent Society members bow to her, but now the councilmembers hesitate. She can tell that Mugo wants to oust her and call his generals from Eigi, so she dismisses him from his duties altogether. When he refuses the demotion and stomps off to find August, she kills him. She’s in charge now, thanks so much. From the back of the throne room, Bibi approaches and tells Calla that they’ve been waiting for her. Calla does not recognize her, but Anton is astounded. It’s his sister Buira, who he used to call Bibi. People are fleeing the city and joining August, including many Weisannas. Soon Otta comes walking into August’s makeshift city and they have a talk. He asks her how long she’s been in this body, or was she ever really Otta? Otta tells him that fifteen years ago a young girl in Rincun jumped into her birth body and she needed another vessel, she chose Otta’s. They’ve both been there ever since and she thinks she and August should separate the cities again and rule jointly, as so many have done before them. She is Sinoa Tuoleimi reborn, and she’s here to take what is hers.