Page 102 of Eyes of Kings

Sinoa’s summoned old gods. It isn’t hard to identify them by the light flaring from their hands. Raw qi, rippling through the desert.

But there’s… less of them than Anton would have thought. Sinoa wasn’t present when he jumped and spied on August’s front line; she was already collecting them. How long was August marching across the provinces with his front line? Several days, at least.

And Sinoa could only recruitthree?

There are gods on the rebels’ side too. It takes Anton a beat to parse the difference. While he fights his way closer, he counts two—one with the appearanceof an elderly man, and another a young woman—but they’re too far for Anton to see anything save the frenzy of motion while Weisannas combat them.

Anton swings his sword, pushing out with the sigil’s power in concert. He does not linger long on any one opponent. The sand surges, lifting into his eyes. The smell of blood and seared flesh emanates across the battlefield. Wounds open with a blink. His sword does more far damage than he expects when he has qi tearing through his lungs.

This must be how it feels to be a god.

Light screams from the clashing line. Anton’s attention whips over. He’s finally close enough to identify the young woman.

“Venus?” he bellows. He shoves forward. “Venus!”

Venus Hailira does not turn around. She does not respond. A band of Weisannas are struck together when she shoves her arms, releasing a clap of qi, but she’s quickly circled by two of Sinoa’s marked gods as a result. Sinoa herself stands at the outer periphery of the battlefield, her eyes fluttering. A new flash of light enters the other side of the battlefield. The rebels have acquired a third proponent on their side.

But something is unfolding.

Anton blocks the guards who attack him. He is distracted. Whoever is wearing Venus Hailira, she is strong: straining, then momentarily breaking free from the two other gods. For a scarce beat, she seems victorious, picking up a blade and shoving it against one of her marked brethren.

Then her blade freezes in place.

Anton tries to make his way forward. He needs to stop this. He doesn’t quite understand where the drive comes from, but hemust. Venus cannot die.

“You’ve always thought yourself so mighty.” Sinoa’s voice booms from the edge of the battlefield. She begins to walk, dragging her sword behind her, cutting a trail through the sand. “I’ve never much liked you.Godling of qi, only gifting the mortals who supplicate at your feet and shunning the ones who don’t. You are not our savior.”

Venus shakes her head. Her mouth moves, but Anton can’t hear her. Anton grunts, cutting through the palace guards, blood clogging the air and the sigil on his arm stinging, and still he can’t hear her.

“I don’t care,” Sinoa says in answer. He calls out, “Stop!” but Anton’s plea is lost to the din of battle.

When Sinoa draws before the godling of qi, the sand begins to tremble. Across the battlefield, across Actia, those meager specks quake against her power, the earthen realm threatening to break as the heavens did.

“The divine crown’s power will not fade, and that is all I need.”

She swings her sword. Venus’s head drops to her feet, blood spurting from the nub of her spine, qi leaking with haste. A faint drone starts in Anton’s ears. He is distracted enough that he doesn’t see the guard lurching toward him, sword pointed for his heart, and Anton barely rolls onto the sand in time. He waves his arm, meaning to emit qi, meaning to release power… but nothing happens.

Anton, panicking, picks up a fallen dagger in the sand and throws it directly between the guard’s eyes. In the moment he has afforded himself, he whirls to stare at the pool of blood, at Venus Hailira’s fallen form. Sinoa has already cast her attention elsewhere. Striding toward the new god who joined the battle. Venus is dead, as is the godling of qi.

As are the sigils. Her sigils.

“Fuck,” Anton whispers aloud. His sword slips in his grasp.

Without the king’s sigil, he is not a god. He’s barely a general.

Anton is left defenseless.

CHAPTER 47

Light, flaring as blips across the swath of the desert. Calla doesn’t stop running. She doesn’t think she could even if she tried, given how she has picked up pace since Rincun, given how she’s torn into each pocket of whatever heavenly qi exists in this body. If she has always been a god, why was she left to starve in Rincun? If she has always been a god, why was she punished and made to feel so hungry, to want, towant so much—

The truth is that she understands. The godling of greed. This hunger is who she is.

Calla lands in the middle of battle as bright as a comet. Her screaming light follows after her in a trail, her body shorter than she’s used to, her shoulders sharper than she expects. She’s had no opportunity to change and put on battle gear. Her bare feet skid in the sand.

But she contains a capacity she would have thought unimaginable. Her qi keeps flowing and flowing, and it is nothing like wearing the crown. The most powerful object to be gifted upon the mortal realm could be crushed beneath her fingers.

Calla focuses on the handful of Weisannas before her, pulling them into the sand. Despite her immense qi in this form, she still can’t convince herself that this is what she wants. When the battle ends, when the rush recedes, she is incapable of walking off into the provinces and fleeing into hiding, living the rest of time immortal in this form. Too many years have passed as Calla Tuoleimi—toomuch of herselfis only real because she is Calla, because she has built her every ambition off this understanding. She needs to get back to her body.