The next element of complication is who now sits upon the throne of Cheliax.  Imaginably, one could try to hold the throne open against Abrogail Thrune's return; but then far too many people would try to seize it.  Cheliax must have a single clear ruler, at all times, but especially if war is about to begin.

When Abrogail guessed that Calantra Thrune would most likely be next to rule the Chelish Imperium, she made that guess based on mistaken premises having to do with time-travel.

Calantra Thrune is sensible, cautious; older than Abrogail was when Abrogail assumed the throne.  Given the apparent circumstances, Calantra has opted to back the throne-bid of a cousin instead.  Abrogail is not abandoned by the Church to Hell, she is ransomed away from Cheliax's rescue.  For all anyone knows, Keltham could decide to send Abrogail Thrune back the next day.  If Abrogail II is really gone for good, Calantra suspects her cousin's reign may not last all that long anyways; most Chelish reigns don't.

There are things you ought not to do if you are determined to keep your head attached to your shoulders for very long, and one of those things is seating yourself upon the Throne of Cheliax, in the throne room that was Abrogail's, while Abrogail Thrune still exists in any form that might take offense.

Then the new Infernal Majestrix, now styling herself Terthule II though that wasn't her birth-name, is no coward whatever else you might say of her.

Her new position is, of course, fragile; all the more so because Terthule II must avoid letting her reign appear fragile at almost any cost, including that she must avoid the appearance of being concerned about the appearance of fragility.

Terthule II has conducted no systematic sweep of Abrogail II's loyalists, because a number of former Abrogail loyalists are too valuable to be easily disposed-of; Abrogail II's visible fondness for somebody tends to have been unfortunately correlated with their competence.  For that matter, an evenhanded tally of the pro-Abrogail faction would have to include, for example, Aspexia Rugatonn, who while on constantly fractious terms with Abrogail II did dislike her less than previous monarchs.  If you sweep the Abrogail loyalists, but leave visible holes in the sweep corresponding to people you don't dare kill, that makes you look weak.

Terthule II, then, has not conducted a sweep of only the weaker Abrogail loyalists, given that she cannot sweep them all.  The appearance of indifference to them can also serve.

But there are many unimportant personnel responsible for maintaining the Majestrix's personal quarters (mostly repaired after the attack by some greater ilani weapon); and it was easy enough for Terthule to make their palace-service more difficult and demanding.  After which it is only natural that Terthule sent off to torture, or took a few moments to personally punish, those personal servants of the Queen who failed in their work.  Among those already excruciated to death are several souls whom Abrogail II was said to favor, among her personal household.  It serves to perform that Abrogail II is never coming back.

This does have the effect of making a lot of other competent people, whom Abrogail II might have arguably visibly favored in some way, a little nervous about Terthule II.  Really the fact that Terthule II isn't purging tons of competent people is something to be said in her favor as a Chelish monarch, even if she's refraining from it during an incredibly tense situation on the verge of war.  But it's the sort of internal peace that could change on less than a round's notice.

Another, stranger source of complications in Cheliax, is that somebody has been casting permanent symbols of healing within Asmodean temples - starting with those at the Worldwound, and then in the primary temples serving major Chelish cities.  This mysterious benefactor of Cheliax has left no calling card, set off no alarms that anyone remembers, and demanded no payment.

This is a rather significant act, one that in some ways shifts balances of power -

Really?  In that case, one wishes to know why it wasn't done earlier.

All right, then, some background:

The inability of Evil clerics to channel positive energy for wide-radius healing is one of the key disadvantages of Evil; especially when it comes to large military operations, or the economic productivity of whole countries; especially Evil countries that don't conduct themselves in a way where they could just hire clerics of Abadar or Pharasma to channel healing.

If you look in an academic magical textbook for beginning practitioners, it will tell you that symbol of healing is a 3rd-circle divine spell, and that like most symbols it is among the rare spells with a doubly-stabilizable topology that can be made Permanent.  If you look up a standard list of known spells that Permanency can perpetuate, you'll see the entry for symbol of healing lists the caster-strength of Permanency required as late-5th-circle, and a weight of diamond dust that in current markets costs around 10,000gp.  (The actual weight is greater than the weight of a Wish-diamond; but a Wish-diamond requires a single large diamond, and that's much harder to find than an equivalent weight of diamond-matter-of-any-size for a Permanency.)

So - given that this trick works at all - why don't large Evil cities already have their own Permanencied symbols of healing, then?

That is a good question!  First, of course, one checks the basic economiclogic to make sure the businessplan would consistencycheck.  How much could a symbol of healing earn, in an Evil city - how long would it take to earn back the 10,000gp price?

The sticker price on a 1st-circle priest casting Cure Light Wounds is 10gp, or so you'll usually be told.  Naively, you might think that a symbol of healing bestows an effect at least that powerful; so by using it on 3 subjects per day, you could earn back the Permanency price within a year: 3 people/day * 10gp * 365 days = 10,950gp.

The first issue with this business plan is that 10gp is only the price if you are a foreign merchant, or an adventurer, or you look visibly rich.  If you're an ordinary townsman of the faith, Cure Light Wounds runs more like 1gp.

The second issue is that channeled healing, in towns that aren't too purely Evil to offer it, doesn't sell at the same price as Cure.  It's not that channeled healing is significantly weaker, but that it's used by more than one person at a time, which means that it runs on a schedule, which makes it less convenient and particularly less medically convenient.  The price of Cure Light Wounds is driven by the value of having a cure cast on you right now.  The product-market fit of channeled healing is for injuries that aren't urgently life-threatening:  Burns, deep cuts, broken bones.  It's the want of that cheap lesser healing that has the citizens of Ostenso going about with visible scars or poorly healed bone-breaks, but mostly still alive.

In most cities with channeled healing, it ends up costing somewhere around one silver piece.

Then for any Evil population center large enough that there's 300 people per day who need minor healing, a symbol would pay for itself in one year.

Does Ostenso qualify?

Yes.

So why doesn't Ostenso already have a healing symbol?

...Hm.  If one's priors are already updated on light contact with Golarion, one would consider such non-economically-driven answers as:  "Because Evil religions don't much prize innovation or economic sensibility" or "Because Evil rulers don't consider it on-theme for Evil cities to offer cheap healing, and they're not the ones living with the consequences".  Or the general loan-interest rate in Evil countries could be over 100%.  ?

Dath ilan is learning!  For many temples to Evil gods, that would be a sufficient answer.  But Asmodeanism does laud cleverness, and souls pledged to Asmodeus must fear Hell's own vengeance if they violate a compact made in Hell's name; His temples can borrow at some of the lowest interest rates in Golarion.  And if the Church didn't think of it, the Crown would.

All right, why are there so many people in Ostenso with visible scars from not-healed injuries?

The root of the answer is that symbol of healing is a divine spell, and permanency is an arcane spell, and it must be the same hand that casts the spell and the permanency.  Divine magic in general does not always mix easily with arcane magic, and divine healing especially is troublesome.

That Razmir's 'priests' can successfully heal their parishoners, without visibly using Infernal Healing, is unusual; if any wizard with early-Sevar-level Spellcraft could create a Ring of Cure Light Wounds as readily as Sevar made her Tiny Swords of Glibness (also for a spell no arcanist could stabilize), what Razmiran's priesthood could do would not be exceptional enough to fool anyone.

In fact, a lot of sensible educated people in Razmiran shrug and accept that, in real life, Razmir's priests probably just worship a god and get spells from Him.  Because why go to all that trouble and do something nearly impossible - namely using arcane magic to imitate divine healing - just to put on a supposed lie that doesn't obviously benefit Razmir that much, compared to Him just saying that He's a ninth-circle wizard rather than a god?

It's a lie that works because Razmir is mixing arcane magic and divine healing on a level that most 9th-circle wizards can't.

Which all sums to this:  If you want to make a permanent symbol of healing, you would realistically want to be a mystic theurge who could channel a wastefully large amount of divine power to imitate a 5th-circle arcane Permanency, not just a random 5th-circle wizard who got promoted by fiat of Asmodeus to clerichood and cast the symbol from scroll.  You'd also need to spend years studying divine healing spells and their interactions with the arcane; or alternatively have something like INT 26, and maybe also a tutor who understood the physics of magic on a level more commonly associated with gods.

The complete list of known spellcasters like that is "Nefreti Clepati", and Nefreti Clepati does not care to make permanent symbols of healing and sell them to Evil churches.

...or rather, that was the complete list before.  Pilar Pineda has mostly stayed out of contact with Cheliax after leaving Project Lawful, and she vanished from scries entirely after Abrogail Thrune's assassination.  But it is known that Lady Pineda has become a mystic theurge; she displayed that much capability while rescuing a Chelish Worldwound fortress from certain death under a choking demonic smoke.

Which brings us to the complicated part!  Even if Abrogail II had still occupied the throne, granting symbols of healing to only Asmodean temples would have been a politically fraught act.  A loyal Chelish subject ought to also provide some symbols of healing laid upon banners to be carried about by Cheliax's military, and maybe put them up in some Crown offices as well.

One aspect of the current balance of Chelish power between Church and Crown is that all the serious healing is done at Asmodean temples; but most lesser healing is done by 1st-circle wizards casting an Infernal Healing, far more numerous in Cheliax than elsewhere.

This balance has now been wholly upset, and not in a way where any Crown offices got any permanent healing symbols of their own, even though they could just as easily have been granted to wizards or nonmagical state offices.

In the further context of Terthule II's new reign, this behavior could be interpreted as Lady Pineda - favored of Aspexia Rugatonn, and believed to be on friendly terms with Abrogail II - deliberately snubbing the new regime in favor of the Church of Asmodeus; which is the sort of appearance that every single other power in Cheliax, even Aspexia Rugatonn, has been trying to avoid.  Any appearance like that might set off internal conflict, with a war with Osirion on the horizon, that either the new Queen or the Most High or both ought to be cross with you about having started.

...Or you could take the impending Osiran war as a fine time to push forward the Church, since nobody wants to set off an internal conflict about your pushing.  If you were sufficiently unworried about how the new Queen would take it.  Very few people would be that unworried.

“The minister for national affairs should mind that it could also be Clepati,” offers Xulia Cantibari, newly promoted advisor to the Queen, “relying on the fact that our doubts about Pineda’s loyalties might inspire us to permit it, where such an intervention, were it openly Clepati’s, would generate considerable suspicion.”

    “Pineda hasn’t denied it.”

  “My understanding is that  - owing to mismanagement under the previous monarch - Pineda offers no routine accounting of her actions either to Church or Crown, which is why we cannot ask of her if, and why -”

 "Is anyone being assigned to the duty of analyzing the possibility that this benefits Cayden Cailean, and if so how?  Or are we abandoning that as a bad deal?"

   "My understanding is that Pineda's final reports indicate her as having acquired the capability to act entirely for her own benefit, meaning we can't assume that any particular action of hers is meant to benefit Asmodeus or Cheliax at all."

         "It clearly does increase Chelish military potential, if only because we can recall more clerics from the Worldwound and our cities while incurring lesser consequences.  I don't think any gods will be confused by a cover of Pineda not rendering direct military aid, which further weighs against her choices having a divine source or reason -"

Terthule II lifts a hand, and all quiets at once.

“Never mind Pineda,” says Terthule II, who of course minds Pineda immensely but can’t look interested in calling her to account; she might not answer, and that’d be disastrous. She’s asked people separately to figure out what remains in Cheliax that Pineda might care about, and how it might be credibly threatened; early reports say that Pineda's immediate family is dead and unreachable, but one of Pineda's few disciplinary infractions was about granting too much fame to Paxti of Borras, a former classmate, during a sensitive intelligence operation. “Whether it’s Pineda's her hand or another, we ought not to rely on it for wartime logistics, in case it’s then withdrawn; beyond that, any scheme that strengthens Asmodeus strengthens Us.” Obviously false, but no one’s going to call her on it. “Pineda’s loyalties will become apparent when we go to war; most loyalties do.” And that’s quite enough on this dangerous topic, time to steer for - “Summarize, Timoteu, the state of those preparations.”

Cheliax's stocks of high-level consumables, scrolls and wands and potions, had been depleted by conquering Nidal; those would have taken time to replenish from only internal sources, and Cheliax is not as rich in high-level casters as in low-level casters.  The obvious alternative is to buy those items from foreign suppliers, using the newfound spellsilver riches, but many of Cheliax's usual military suppliers are currently balking at supplying Cheliax directly.

This is inconvenient but not fatal; any sanction on foreign trade that isn't obeyed worldwide is more for show than for impact.  Cheliax has offered higher prices to those suppliers that will still sell to them.  The former clients of those suppliers, outbid, will turn around and buy from the suppliers that are making a show of snubbing Cheliax.

"I estimate that we're at 70% of attainable military potential.  80% in one more week, 90% two weeks after.  That reflects our supply of consumables; our warriors and casters are as ready as they'll ever be.  With respect to recalling Worldwound forces," now that the new healing capacity has increased their efficiency, and realistically also gambling on Lady Pineda's demonstrated willingness to reinforce a Chelish Worldwound unit in distress, "we have acquired sufficient Greater Teleport scrolls to retrieve up to thirty high-level casters and fighters from the Worldwound without that impacting our assault potential immediately after."

A military advisor standing behind him clears his throat. “Your Majesty, I would recommend we move immediately. Those weapons that we’ve witnessed deployed by Osirion or those allied with it are a problem and they’ll be more of one in more time. This is the best moment to strike at them. We should adjust our objectives in line with our combat power, rather than delay.”

  “So which objectives does our lord minister recommend we abandon? Clepati? The project sites? The city? A weak attack weakens us.”

“Our aim is destruction, not conquest; a weak attack weakens them, and their counterattack weakens us precisely as much as they’re capable of, which will be more next week.”

This is the conversation Terthule II was angling for, without being too obvious about her desires. There’s nothing like a good war for securing one’s throne. She intends to preside over it with sober, mature deliberation, statesmanlike as Abrogail could never be bothered to be. “Are there those who’d advocate for further delay?”

There's a surprisingly loud click and nearly simultaneous snick.

This is the sound made by an adamantine spring, unwinding under incredible tension; and the sound made by an adamantine blade that sweeps forth and returns almost instantly back.

Anyone who sees at mortal speeds will see only that blood sprays forth from Terthule's throat, and she stops talking and looks puzzled for just a moment, before her head falls off her shoulders in another gush of blood.

Abrogail gracefully catches Terthule's head before it hits the ground, removes the Crown of Infernal Majesty, and heaves the rest of Terthule's body off the Throne of Cheliax before seating herself down there, uncaring of the latest set of bloodstains.

There are things you ought not to do if you are determined to keep your head attached to your shoulders for very long, and one of those things is seating yourself upon the Throne of Cheliax, in the throne room that was Abrogail's.