Page 19 of Eyes of Kings

“It wasn’t on purpose, I gather,” he says.

“Of course not,” Reanne mutters. “Could have given us a warning first.”

Another cheer erupts. The young man is speaking about freeing their province from palace control. He will lead the charge. He will pull apart their barracks, and he only asks for the people’s support. The pantheon has always craved worship. In their bygone days, there was separation.

“This is absurd,” Reanne mutters. “We cannot go back.”

Her age does not show in her face. The years have passed with no change. It is only when she angers that her disposition shifts, and then the whites of her eyes take on an anachronistic stillness.

“No.” Tenzen pulls her elbow, hurrying them away from the crowd. They do not want to be spotted. They do not want anything to do with this. “I suppose this was the inevitable outcome. She decided to play the fool when she broke the heavens. Now she’s brought the heavens down to earth—and she doesn’t even remember who she is.”

CHAPTER 9

Panic, that squirming sensation in her gut, that lightheadedness clouding into tunnel vision, used to be a rare feeling. It made an appearance here and there, of course—Calla is not so arrogant as to refute its existence at all. But she certainly preferred enduring her panic as a confined experience, braced by a start point and an end point. When she realized August was interfering with Kasa’s games, intent on forcing Calla and Anton to go head-to-head in the final battle. When she put her blade in Anton’s back, knowing she had won and would be brought into the palace within the next few minutes. Start and end.

Since she put the divine crown on her head and its qi made itself a tenant in her throat, she has not stopped feeling this constant hiss of panic. She’s having trouble looking ahead, envisioning how triumph will appear following this war. Defeating August is one thing. Snuff out the only other person in this kingdom who could issue a formal claim to the power that Calla seized with both hands.

But after…?

Lightning flashes over the twin cities. Its ensuing roar of thunder interrupts all conversation around the westernmost section of the wall. Calla cups a hand over her forehead to slow the rain entering her eyes. A faint green light colors the encroaching night, shining from the bulbs installed halfway up the wall. WhenAnton expanded the boundary of San-Er, he refused to gather new materials, opting only to push the original wall out. It was an effort to diminish August’s reputation, but Calla doesn’t know if a well-meaning expansion would have performed a cut above either. She grazes the red bricks. Her palm comes back gritty. This has been San-Er’s method of operation for decades. Uproot everything that was already built in the provinces and then repot upon this peninsula in the southeast—pull and pluck and, if there is damage during reconstruction, put those faults where there is less likely to be scrutiny, between butchers and fishmongers, between brothels and substance dens.

The rain suddenly stops. Calla looks up. It isn’t her doing. It’s the umbrella Anton is holding above her.

“This is a very small group,” he says in lieu of a greeting.

“Even a hundred would have been small,” Calla replies. “We take what we can get.”

The king’s games had been eighty-eight, the number of fortune and prosperity. Calla and Anton had killed almost half of that cohort on their own.

“A statement about the heretics has been sent out,” Anton reports. “Venus is locked inside a vacant set of rooms in the east wing. I have Bibi watching her personally—no Crescents allowed.”

Panic. A new rush, and then its receding fizzle on Calla’s tongue, as though she’s ingested something carbonated. After Tsosia arrived at the palace, accompanied by her temple’s members, the group of Crescents who had been playing Calla’s sentries scattered reluctantly. Calla and Tsosia made the pretense of having a meeting while Anton stepped out to handle their miscellaneous affairs, which meant he was rummaging through the palace vaults.

“And the weapons?”

“Yes, I brought the weapons. Are you sure these few will know how to use them?”

Calla turns, peering over Anton’s shoulder, past the cover of his umbrella.The cleric Tsosia is dressed all in black, save for her gray hair gathered in a topknot. When she smiles to acknowledge a point, the crow’s feet beside her red eyes deepen like razor-sharp cosmetics. She ushered her temple aside to discuss formation and approach, and Calla has been hovering out of earshot, mystified. The Crescent Societies have always operated more like criminals than soldiers. Suddenly, after one takeover, they want to put up this facade? Who are they fooling?

They’re currently plundering through the wagon that Anton dragged from the palace. Stacked with firearms that have not been used for a hundred years, buried away in the vaults when the palaces made them illegal.

“I haven’t a clue,” Calla answers. “Did you want one?”

Anton gives her a look. “I daresay I’m better at hand-to-hand.”

“I’m surprised you don’t want to leave your body behind in the capital.”

“I don’t trust Bibi not to draw a mustache on it.”

Calla has to resist rolling her eyes, which makes Anton grin. She’s skirted her true question, which is to ask whether Anton wearing his birth body is a show of trust or a sign of coming catastrophe. Either he thinks they will be in and out quickly enough that his body is not in danger, or this is a suicide mission, and he may as well go with his body so that it can’t be used by someone else afterward.

“I will stay close to you,” Anton decides. “I presume we send in the Crescents for the first wave.”

“Yes. The grounds are flat and open. If August tries to slip away in that initial attack, we’ll catch up with him before long.”

Anton nods. Across the mud-soaked field, the Crescents have cleared out the wagon, arming themselves with every sort of weaponry. The rain may affect gunpowder. Better to have swords on backup too.

“Are you going to kill him?”