Page 4 of Eyes of Kings

“Your Highness,” one of the Crescents calls. “Are you awake? Can we be of any help?”

“I’m trying to say,” Anton whispers, “let me think on it. I can figure out a way to position it so that they’re not bristling to get rid of you.”

“It doesn’t matter how much they’re bristling to get rid of me,” Calla counters. Back and forth they take the cadence of lovers, disguising this talk of war as sweet nothings. “They couldn’t have taken San-Er if I hadn’t challenged August in tandem. They can’t turn against me until he’s gone.”

“So why are you trying to speed it along? August’s influence stretches far. You’ll need allies to get rid of the Weisannas and every palace-led chain of command across Talin too. There is an endless amount of work beyond capturing August.”

“Highness?” The next knock is louder, because the Crescents have heard Calla and Anton murmuring. The Crescents are worried that Calla will turn on them before they’re ready. If the clerics didn’t need to maintain some semblance of respect, they might have tried stationing their peopleinsidethe room when Calla and Anton disappeared for rest.

“The Crescent Societies are only good for combating August. They will be too difficult afterward,” she says. “I have thecrown, Anton. Once August is out of our way, we’ll focus on the kingdom without Crescent Society nonsense.”

Anton shakes his head. “You promised to free the provinces from the throne,” he reminds her. As though there is any chance she has forgotten. As though she might want to break her oath. “You’ll need to raise your flags beyond San-Er’s wall, across the Jinzi River, then into the north. You’ll have to come to an agreement with every province yamen and secure the flow of their resources into San-Er. That’s when this coup ends, and not a moment sooner.”

“Yes.”

“Calla,” Anton says, “you are not taking this seriously.”

Calla kicks the sheets off herself. If she can help it, she tries not to replay the events of the coup. She’s been kept busy enough. But there will be a lull during their cleanup, during their scramble to restore the capital, and Calla remembers the spectators screaming when she slit the Weisannas’ throats. How close she had been to killing August then and there, but it had felt cheap, it had felt unnecessary. She does not want to regret that decision.

The longer that August hovers outside the capital, the more she does.

“How am I not taking this seriously?” she asks.

“The Crescents are all we have. You have to play their game.”

“I’m getting up.”

Calla throws one leg off the side of the bed, meaning to stand, but Anton grabs her other knee. His palm sears into her skin, each crease and divot palpable, each pinprick of contact a new channel of qi that Calla could pull from him.

“For instance, while they’re knocking on the door,” he whispers, “you should not be getting up.”

New voices have joined the conversation outside. More guards, all to report to their different clerics every maneuver that Calla Tuoleimi and Anton Makusa are planning.

“We’re not going to get away with pretending we weren’t muttering and plotting in here,” Calla returns. “It’s fine.”

Anton, in response, slides his hand up to her thigh and tugs her toward him. It is such a sudden, startling act that Calla doesn’t resist, her head hitting the pillow again. She raises her brow.

“Despite all that you’ve achieved”—his fingers tighten, slowly moving her leg, pushing one apart from the other—“you are actually a very poor performer.”

Calla can’t help her laugh. One sharp sound. “Really?”

“You are too used to being better than everyone else. Wantingmorethan everyone else and surpassing them that way. You don’t know how to deflect instead.”

Anton doesn’t give her a chance to protest. He pushes up the silk of her nightshirt. His mouth lands between her legs. The pressure is immediate—deep, volatile. Calla’s head tips back into the pillow, and entirely as he intended, she doesn’t hold in her profane moan. His fingers dig into either side of her legs held astride, and her hand comes up too, sinking into his hair for some attempt at managing his hunger.

The hallway has turned dead silent. A golden mist dances into the room. Its sheen casts the ridges of her knuckles into definition, serrated and bright while her fingers are spread wide, clawing for control.

It looks, almost, like its own sort of crown, set upon Anton’s head.

CHAPTER 2

Three days.

Venus Hailira has been held captive for three days. Time hobbles by. She wouldn’t know how to keep track of its distorted course if not for the small window facing the east. There’s nothing visible from where she’s been chained. But it’s plain gray during the day, then illuminated bright green in the night, catching the sign of the restaurant across the way. She was paying attention when the Crescents brought her through. They passed two restaurants, a dental clinic, and a butchery. The temple is tucked at the very end of the alley, its attic taller than the rest of the buildings along the block. As soon as the rain started, the slanted ceiling sprung a leak. She mentioned it to the Crescent who came up to bring her water, and he backhanded her for it. Her glass of water went flying into the rain puddle.

Venus kept quiet after that.

She can hear the Crescents downstairs. At odd hours there are groups playing mahjong directly underneath, theclack-clack-clackof the tables echoing through the floor slats. They talk. About who has been assigned shifts at the wall. About who wants to trade posts at one bank or the other—who is willing to speak to their cleric and complain about the poor insulation at this temple, because the rain is starting to seep through the floors, disturbing their sleep.