Page 113 of Eyes of Kings

August shakes his head. “I admit to it. Because I am a king, Calla. I have valued the kingdom over the individual, again and again. The crown will show its approval.”

Galipei gestures for another guard to push the pedestal over.

“Long live the king!” a Weisanna in the crowd shouts. He means to start the chant, but the spectators are quiet. They have filled the coliseum to the brim, the space clustered with witnesses—and it is quiet.

“Do you hear that?” Calla asks. “Silence.”

August frowns. “Bring her forward.”

“You may be king, August. But the heavens will not give you their approval.”

“Enough,” August snaps.

“The heavens rebuke you,” she goes on. “You wish to use the heavens as your vindication, but such a defense has gone on too long. If the gods are dead, then the divine crown ought to be. No mortal in the kingdom shall have the right to rule. The divine mandate shall be no more! Anyone who is righteous enough ought to take your throne from you!”

August’s expression has grown black. Even from the ground, Calla sees his knuckles whitening, his grip tightening on the railing. He stands high above the rest of the twin cities, above his sea of subjects, and still, sheseeshim.

“We are finished,” he declares. He wants control over the situation. He wants to be the benevolent ruler who allowed her to live. He does not want to be made into a mockery. “Take her away.”

The kingdom believes her to be a queen reborn. From the moment she was named Calla Tuoleimi, Talin has afforded her the leeway to cut through everything and anything she pleases. They wait eagerly, ready for her most transformative act.

“Iwill enforce it if you will not,” Calla shouts. “Hereafter the divine crown shall kill anyone it touches. You have this tool in your arsenal no longer. A king will be decided not by the heavens, but by the people!”

August lunges forward on the railing. He is the first to react when she shakes the firearm from her sleeve. He stabs a finger at the Weisannas to her side and yells, “Disarm her—” but it is too late.

She cursed that crown once before. She can do it again. She only needs the sacrifice.

“Poor fool,” Calla spits.

The gun fires.

CHAPTER 56

Calla Tuoleimi dies as all mortals do.

Her blood paints a crimson picture around her body, running, running, half her head blown into morsels upon the ground. Her qi disperses back into the earth. A faint tremor shakes beneath the coliseum—and whether it is her death that causes it, or merely the footfall of screaming spectators, that is hard to determine.

Galipei puts the Weisannas on the mess. They mop her blood and burn her body. The spectators are told to go home, urged to remember that this was an act performed by a mutineer, a grisly attempt to sow fear. Calla Tuoleimi has no ability to curse the divine crown. No individual can wield their qi in such a precise manner. She is not agod.

In the aftermath, Galipei instructs a palace guard to pick up the crown. It had fallen off the pedestal during the commotion and rolled away into the corner of the balcony. The guard drops dead a few seconds after setting the crown back on the pedestal. A second guard is asked merely to touch the crown, the barest pad of his finger grazing the ridge.

His heart stops too.

Galipei, acting out of precaution, urges the royal guard to exit the throne room, to take their rest. All night, he has fretted, trying to wrangle an explanation. The pedestal has been pushed against the wall, some malevolent entitywaiting to lure victims to their death. He doesn’t know what to do. When August finally grows tired of watching him pace, he waves him out onto the balcony, away from the crown.

The entirety of San-Er is whispering Calla’s name, and before long it will spread beyond the wall, into the rest of Talin. Calla Tuoleimi is dead, but her qi turns immortal. The divine crown is rendered obsolete. And a king is not a king without his crown. A king of Talin is only king after being confirmed by the heavens.

“It doesn’t matter,” August says.

The horizon is starting to lighten. Beads of orange, nudging at the swaths of ink. They will need to act once the day starts anew.

“Of course it matters,” Galipei returns quietly. “It is the cornerstone of the kingdom.”

“So I will build new cornerstones.” August pulls his hands behind his back. “It has been done before. It can be done again.”

The crown was supposed to support his legitimacy. Adopted son, common blood. But they have entered Talin’s first free fall, and being common is only one problem on top of a kingdom overrun by gods.

“Our only advantage is the wealth of San-Er,” Galipei says. “It is the hub of the kingdom, and it is where the people go when they want more for themselves. For as long as that holds, your reign continues.”