Page 10 of Eyes of Kings

“When the Crescent Societies expand beyond the wall,” the boy calls, “I’ll be there myself making my contracts. I’ll take all your business.”

Yilas blinks. Chami raises her eyebrows.

“Don’t mind him,” their shopkeeper says. “That’s my brother.”

One of them must have traded away their birth bodies, because they look nothing alike. Yilas gathers up three sweet potatoes and pays without continuing the conversation, because she doesn’t particularly care. The debate turns to whether San-Er’s shops will lose or gain business if more province dwellers enter the twin cities unobstructed.

“I think it’s time to head home,” Chami mutters when Yilas offers to carry the grocery bag.

“I would agree.”

With the rain, very few vendors care to set up shop in the coliseum’s everything market. San-Er’s inhabitants have moved to their neighborhood spots. Different alleys for different markets—for groceries, for electronics, forsweet treats. Yilas and Chami take the long way home, in case they have forgotten something that the route will remind them about. As they turn into a wider alley, they find themselves splashing into an ankle-deep flood. The barbershops operate here. All the debris and hair swept into the drains over the years have enacted their vengeance. Yilas groans, but Chami tugs her forward, because they can either proceed or backtrack for another route that passes directly in front of a Crescent Society temple.

Despite the flood, there’s plenty of activity in this alley. Yilas slows as they pass a small crowd. Most of the barbershops offer televisions in their front windows. There must be something good on the news.

“Do you see this?” she murmurs to Chami.

OLDGODSEMERGING IN THEPROVINCES, the grainy ticker at the bottom reads. Yilas halts to watch, splashing dirty water up her legs, and though Chami tugs her arm to keep walking, she’s enraptured—just as everybody else in this crowd is.

Already, it’s peculiar enough for San-Er’s news to cover anything about the provinces. It used to be that only nobles in the palace were granted permission to enter and exit through the wall, so most of the twin cities had no contact with Talin at large. But since the wall opened, allowing nobles to defect and province dwellers to enter, there are regular civilians leaving too. Reporters, taking the chance to travel.

And they’re catching bizarre footage.

“… claiming to be the old gods. These people vary in age and appearance, so we see no connection with any natural phenomena.”

“Yilas, we’ve got to get back to the diner,” Chami whispers.

“Wait, wait,” Yilas says. “I want to watch this.”

A young man stands at the edge of the cliffs, his arms raised. The palm fronds indicate that it’s likely Kelitu, or at least another seaside province. The footage shakes. Then seawater shoots up behind him, forming a tall, terrifying wave. Inseconds it splashes down, a liquid avalanche cascading onto the cliffs, streaming down to the rocks, and when the reporter gathers their bearings to scan the camera back and forth in the aftermath, the man is gone.

“The officials at Kelitu’s yamen are struggling to maintain control over these subjects,” the newscaster goes on. “Rural dwellers have voiced concern after several incidents similar to the one you just saw behind us. Given the present upset in the capital and the lack of remuneration since King August was coronated, we are seeing a mass exodus of palace guards posted to the provinces, leaving villages entirely vulnerable. There is growing resignation among the people that, inevitably, they will have to submit to whichever powerful individual emerges next. Back to you in the studio.”

Chami takes Yilas’s hand and steers her forward firmly. Yilas has trouble pulling her eyes away from the screen. The words ring in her ears even after they’ve left the crowd, shaking their shoes to avoid tracking hairballs from the flooding.

“Did youseethe way the water climbed?”

“It’s not real,” Chami says flippantly. “There’s a power vacuum in the kingdom. The Dovetail are probably marking themselves with sigils and inventing a revival of the pantheon. They’re trying to control the provinces while the palace soldiers are defecting. Tale as old as time.”

Yilas blinks. This is not like Chami. Her tone is devoid of her usual sweetness. Her grip is tight.

“Yes,” Yilas says, “of course.”

Yes, itislaughable to entertain the possibility of the old gods reviving. It must be a ruse that insurgents are starting in the provinces. Already in San-Er, they have seen people wielding their qi in terrifying ways, and they were far from gods—only mortals who didn’t care about the sacrifice it took to achieve such feats. Yilas was almost killed for it.

Chami is right.

The rain beats hard on their shoulders as they cross the main thoroughfare.Overhead, the gray clouds show no sign of relenting. As soon as Yilas and Chami step back into a narrow walkway and the buildings block the deluge again, Yilas wipes her face dry with the underside of her sleeve. Chami, meanwhile, ignores her sodden state. She has droplets of rain stuck on her lashes. They hover like diamond clippings.

“I love you,” Yilas says, squeezing Chami’s hand.

Chami glances over. She is somewhere afar for a beat. Her stare perches at a boundless distance from her personhood, afflicted with the sort of stiffness that might have Yilas believing there was an intruder wearing her—if it weren’t for the steady pink color of her irises. It’s Chami, still. Of course it is.

When Chami blinks, letting the droplets run off her lashes, she returns in her entirety. It was quick. It was a commendable correction, something that Yilas wouldn’t have noticed if it were an ordinary day, if the heavens weren’t pouring with rain. Yilas could almost fool herself into thinking she imagined it.

Almost.

“I love you too,” Chami says. “You’re on potato-peeling duty.”