Page 41 of Eyes of Kings

She steps away from the edge of the wall. Beyond the horizon, the provinces are a riled gray mist. She’s bided her time in the temples, made her prayers to the heavens, and heard nothing back. After all, the gods are nothing but another class of palace dwellers in the clouds.

“Of course,” she says.

The cleric steps onto the ladder. She descends from the wall with utmost caution. If she were to kill her own son in combat unknowingly, she can justify it. If it means the next child born outside the palace with silver eyes will be free, then she will do it.

The palace, and all inside it, will fall.

CHAPTER 19

He’ll want to cut us off at the river.”

Anton stares at the map on the board, his head lolled into his fist. The war room has been cleaned since he last rummaged through it. Neat filing cabinets. Orderly seats circling the sturdy table.

He has taken the largest chair at the end, the one that would have been reserved for Kasa when he convened with his council. It’s not as though Calla minds. She’s sitting directly atop the table instead, one leg propped up and her elbow resting upon it while she stares at the board too. They had an employee—one of the elderly attendants who remained after the takeover, not a Crescent—pull some pins, some markers, and a map that shows Talin and its twenty-eight provinces. Some of the color ink stopped working on the printer when it got to the northern end of the kingdom, leaving patches of the green land blue instead, but that’s no matter.

“He only needs to take Leysa and Janton, and then San-Er will be separated from the north,” Anton says. “Even with their councilmembers dead, suppliers in the northern provinces can continue fulfilling orders from the capital for the right price. But the moment August occupies the provinces under the Jinzi River, those supplies stop by force. San-Er starves.”

“We still have the waters,” Calla muses.

“Er has the waters,” Anton counters. “San can afford a rice bowl per day, and when those grains run short, the city is going to riot.”

Calla kicks her feet off the table, letting them dangle. Her boots have started to tatter from wear and tear. They’re the very same pair that she had on during the games, probably purchased from some ramshackle shop. She has not traded them for anything in the palace wardrobes.

“So in conclusion,” she says, “a siege is going to kill the twin cities. By the time San-Er is relying on the southern provinces alone, there will be enough shortages to warrant mass evacuation.”

The very thought of civiliansevacuatingSan-Er seems foreign. For so long, any movement in Talin has been persistently downward. The rural dwellers, running out of opportunity among farmlands and coming to the metropolis secreted in the southeast. So long asenoughpeople stayed out there, San-Er could be fed. San-Er could generate the money to spit back to the provinces—to purchase rice, purchase greens, purchase whatever the cold metal and hard soil of the capital repelled. San-Er could be a paradise of freedom, no matter how crowded, no matter how miserable.

“Not to mention,” Calla adds after a beat, “the uproar if the Crescents succeed in blocking qi and people are trapped in their vessels by force. Evacuations will start even before cupboards have run dry. Bad climate. Bad morale.”

Great for the Crescents, all the same. The ordinary civilians will leave. The megalomaniacs will thrive, picking up their swords and patrolling the streets, lunging into any shop for a free meal, bursting into the brothels screaming for service. Anton met many of them during his time in exile. Most find their kindred spirits within the Crescent Societies, even if it isn’t all Crescent Society members who behave this way.

“Okay.” Anton laces his hands atop the table. “Then August can’t be allowed to take Leysa and Janton. Or any combination of the northern provinces to that same effect.”

They fall silent.

The problem is that they do not have the faintest clue what August isintending. Which provinces he intends to target, whether he can take them in one swoop with Otta’s power, or if he will ratify his reign slowly and surely, by way of yamen officials and handshakes and paperwork.

“Knowing August,” Calla says slowly, “he will value formality over efficiency. He won’t care to risk the possibility that we slip in while he’s working on Leysa and Janton.”

She slides off the table. Picks up one of the markers and draws two question marks on Leysa, in the center of the south, and Janton, which hems the end of the Jinzi River. Her hand wanders back down to Eigi, directly outside the twin cities, where she draws a large circle.

“He’s going to target the north.”

Anton’s declaration comes suddenly. He isn’t sure what spurred it, but the moment he says it, he is certain he’s correct. August hates shortcuts. In school, August triple-checked his answers before turning in his worksheets.

Anton gets out of his chair, its legs scraping against the hardwood floor. Calla tosses the marker with the lid already removed, and Anton catches it smoothly. He draws a line from Eigi into Pashe, then through the center of the north, cutting into Lankil, Laho, Actia.

It’s also the very same route they took when the palace delegation set out to seek the crown.

“I didn’t see Councilmember Naov among the dead,” Calla says. “You think he’s joined August’s camp?”

It seems likely. But Anton doesn’t want to make false assurances, so he replies, “Maybe. Having Naov to secure Pashe would form the best route.”

Calla props her hands on her hips. There’s still some rainwater gathered on her clothing. When her scabbard adjusts, it releases a short series of droplets on the floor.

“Our focus needs to be meeting August in combat… and relatedly, facing Otta,” Calla says. She keeps her voice even, but Anton hears the resentment.“We’re getting distracted trying to predict their battle march. August wants the throne. Otta wants the throne. They’re in alliance waging a war across the provinces to win back the capital, but we just need to find them andkill them.”

Anton doesn’t expect the jolt. The whole-body shock to hear Calla declare this end goal. Before they marched on August’s camp in Eigi, they hoped that it would be a quick battle, one final loose end looped away and tied after a violent coup. They hoped there would be a way to keep August imprisoned, in exile, removed from power, and then that would slow the response from the Crescent Societies too.