Page 107 of Eyes of Kings

“Don’t beabsurd.”

Sinoa’s grip turns searing hot, attempting to burn through Calla, and Calla sends her qi toward the fallen sword. It hurtles through the air with a sharp whistle—Sinoa is forced to release her hold, halting the blade instead. Calla gasps for breath. Her vision blurs. She is straining for power, desperate to find the ceiling on the qi she can wield.

When Sinoa straightens, she raises her arms. As if to indicate peace, to indicate an armistice in this back-and-forth, evenly matched. How can she be so much better at wielding the divine crown? The godling of qi had the audacityto boot Calla from that body, claiming she would be stronger here, yet Sinoa Tuoleimi maneuvers her qi like it is nothing.

“What is it that you want?” Sinoa asks. “Some role in the kingdom? That can be agreed upon. We need not do this.”

“That’s enough,” Calla says, and her voice is hoarse. “This is not your world anymore. This is not the kingdom you ruled. You have no claim to it.”

“No claim?” Sinoa wails.

Right as Calla seizes the water tank and pulls, Sinoa’s arm snaps toward it too. She locks it in place. It becomes a battle of will, equal force against equal force.

“On the contrary,” Sinoa says, “I was born with a claim. I was born in this body.”

“And that,” Calla returns, “was a mistake.”

The tank shatters. In the deluge of its contents, Calla is truly blinded, her eyes blinking and blinking and finding nothing. Water sludges along her skin, collecting in her lungs. She flings it away with a pulse, and then Sinoa is closer than she expected, then Sinoa has a grip on her throat, not using qi from a distance but her own calloused hand, her fingers digging in. Calla is familiar with her strength—whatherbody is capable of. In this form, she emits a burst of qi, and Sinoa tamps it, absorbs it. Calla tries to tear, to pull, to do anything that might interrupt such a death grip.

Anton is moving. She sees him. By the wall one moment. Closer, the next. Sinoa does not notice. Her hair is drenched. Water drips down her face in mimicry of the crown’s metal beads.

“You will not stop me,” Sinoa hisses. “You wouldn’t answer me in my time of need. You took pleasure in my suffering, and then you fell in line with your pantheon. Now you will see what these years spent waiting have taught me. You will regret ever stealing from me.”

Yes. Calla does regret it. Who knows what she could have achieved if shehad stayed put in this form: she could have wandered Rincun until there was some clarity in her mind, until she gleaned some part of herself back. She was turned mortal in punishment, because only then would she be willing to go through this torment, desiring to be Calla more than anything else, unable to part with the identity. She regrets it, but this was how it was always supposed to play out. The heavens decided it. Just as the heavens decide everything.

Calla stops struggling. Where Sinoa had been putting all her energy into holding Calla in place, there is a sudden overshoot now, a scramble to pull back her power before it flies wide. The age-old queen flinches. Calla no longer needs breath in her lungs. She hovers off the ground of her own volition. There is movement, right over Sinoa’s shoulder, but she does not notice while Calla’s eyes ooze blinding white light.

“Sinoa Tuoleimi,” she says, and her voice rumbles like thunder from the skies. “You make your sacrifices. You grow powerful on heaven-gifted qi. But you are mortal. No matter what you do, no matter what blood you spill and how many years you spend planning, you are only scraping a fraction of what I am capable of. I am agod. How do you expect to overpower a god?”

Anton claps a hand to the back of Sinoa’s neck. The wind howls. When he wraps his other hand around the ridges of her crown, the metal tries to resist. Sinoa gasps, wanting to wheel around, but Calla clamps down on both the queen’s arms, holding her immobilized. Calla’s grip is no longer a negotiation. She is a god.She is a god.

Lightning cascades from the clouds. Screaming and screaming and screaming—the crown does not want to lift off, but Anton is achieving progress. The metal slowly detaches from skin. Ribbons of dermis rise alongside the band, blood capillaries popping and ripping from exposed raw tissue. A wearer is not supposed to survive the removal of the divine crown, but Sinoa Tuoleimi remains upright when Anton, with the last remnant of heaven’s will on earth, hurls the crown off.

Calla does not need another cue.

She jumps in.

It is no different from drowning at the bottom of the puddle again. Sensation rushing up her nose, down her throat. This is a battle she has fought before. Her qi spreads, oozing from the back of her tongue into her stomach, and she returns to that memory, clear as ice. Callawants. She wants to claim this body; she wants to push these arms and run with these legs.

From the edge of her perception, she senses a foreign source of qi. Anton presses close. His hand stays at the back of her neck. It is permission: it is his endless well offered up to her. She feels Sinoa—weakened into tatters after the divine crown was ripped off. Sinoa senses Anton’s presence too, making a valiant effort to grab at him, but Calla is better at taking. Calla quashes her and gulps and gulps and gulps. The godling of greed is not forgiving. The godling of greed has held her place at the top of the pantheon since humanity was born on earth.

I prayed to you every day.

Calla hears the voice everywhere. In this moment, she is only qi, as is Sinoa.

I prayed to you, Sinoa whispers,and you came to me. You understood. Even while I was sleeping, you understood what I asked for. You killed all the Tuoleimis. The bloodline is dead.

Laughter. Whether it comes from Sinoa herself or some clamor from the past, Calla can’t be certain. She consumes another torrent, pulling from Anton, and suddenly a kaleidoscope of memories flashes into awareness, flooding her perception. The rage, the resentment—her hatred for the king of the heavens. The mortal queen in Talin, who was wronged, who didn’t deserve to be punished simply for embracing her patron god. The last-ditch effort to save her friend, and her hope that it would work once she was forbidden from answering any more pleas.

The Palace of Heavens has fallen. The Palace of Earth is held by a newcomer.

—No!Take it back. She remembers everything. They wiped her memory so that she would turn against her devotee.

Everyone who betrayed me has had their legacy devastated. There is nothing of them left behind. I win. Hah! Iwin.

“Sinoa,” Calla rasps out loud, but everything has gone silent. She opens her eyes. Before her, the vessel she departed has collapsed. She looks at her hands, touches her arms, her hips, her face. She took her body back. She is Calla Tuoleimi.

And Sinoa is gone. Depleted into nothing.