Page 48 of Eyes of Kings

The building lurches. It stills. Calla gasps and crumples onto her knees, because she was not responsible for stopping it.

Chami is, bursting from the fallen awning she was hiding beneath.

Calla can’t comprehend what she is seeing. Her former attendant, her friend. Chami’s face is inscrutable when she restores the building into position, her right hand moving only at her wrist, the rest of her arm staying level. It only takes a second—a thunderous click of metal returning to its foundation—before she turns to the god standing over his massacre.

He frowns. He is slow to react. His white eyes keep him far-flung from the scene even while he stands amid it, and he is utterly monotonous when he asks, “Which one are you?”

“How dare you.”

Chami, sweet Chami, steps forward. For as long as Calla has known her, she has considered Chami the most softhearted person in the kingdom. Easy to agree to any favor, no matter her personal cost. When Calla needed to hide in San, she used Chami’s identity number. When Calla lacked anything in the years she was a known fugitive, Chami supplied it without hesitation.

Before the god can brace for the attack, the air around them clogs so thickly of qi that Calla cannot finish her inhale. Her breath gets stuck in her throat. Several paces away, Chami only scrunches her fingers into her palm.

As rain pours from the heavens, trickling into Calla’s eyes, she could almost think she imagined the gesture.

But the attack has landed. The god who came in from the provinces—his head… disappears in a shower of red mist. His body collapses where he stands.

And San-Er goes quiet.

CHAPTER 23

Anton makes a sharp right, his stride picking up through the north wing.

He has no doubt Calla can handle whatever is happening at the wall, but he gnashes his teeth all the same. In his mind, he envisions her slipping through the gate and walking out into the provinces. He sees her dark hair underneath her crown, writhing down her back like a cloak. Her figure growing smaller and smaller in the distance, never to return.

Anton shakes himself out of it. There is no world in which Calla is abandoning their fight in San-Er right now—what’s wrong with him? He forces himself to focus, barging into the hall containing the palace vaults. The Crescents are no longer guarding the space. They have taken what they need. Left to his own devices, he hurries to unlock the one markedRehanou, pulling the heavy door aside.

Anton takes a beat, perusing what is within view. Short on time, he doesn’t linger gratuitously before taking a dagger hanging from the wall. This will do. He should have come digging the moment they launched their coup on the capital—reclaim what used to belong to the Makusa vault—but he supposes there were larger pieces worth moving first.

Anton steps out from the vault, tucking the dagger into his sleeve. He’s already heading toward the north atrium, meaning to take up a station overseeing the coliseum, when he stops, listening.

There—he’s not imagining it. Anton turns over his shoulder, concentrating on the sound.

Who is screaming?

Reluctantly, Anton backtracks for a short corridor. He wanted to guard the coliseum because he assumed a wide-scale attack would begin there, but the muffled screaming is coming from deeper within the palace. It isn’t long before he makes another turn and isolates its source. It’s coming from below. The cells—where the Crescents dragged in every heretic who displayed some unnatural feat of power.

Anton flings open the door. The steps descending underground are dark. He smells it before he feels its effects: the stench of blood, crawling up his nose and tightening his throat. When he takes his first step down, his qi splutters, and Anton spots the sigil marked on the floor. The Crescents have already activated their block in the cells. He can’t see anything past this initial stretch. Someone has smashed the lights.

“Help!He’s killing us!”

Anton doesn’t recognize who is yelling, but he’s quick to hurtle up the stairs and lunge into the nearest sitting room. He grabs one of the cordless lamps on the drinking table. Hefts its heavy base into his arm before returning to the cells and descending the steps once more.

This is a trap—that much, he’s aware of. He shouldn’t be able to hearscreamingfrom the north exit: the door was left ajar to draw him over. So he is somewhat prepared when he raises the lacquered lamp and finds a body slumped in the aisle between the cells, a pool of blood spreading beneath it.

Anton swings the lamp fast, making contact with Galipei’s shoulder just before Galipei Weisanna can grab him. The heavy base snaps into two. The lamp drops to the floor, its sharp beam of light cutting diagonally up to the ceiling.

Galipei staggers back, hissing.

“Didn’t expect that, did you?” Anton asks. “I played in the king’s games,Galipei.” He snatches a loose shard of the lamp base. “You’ll have to do better thanthat.”

Galipei swerves the lamp shard Anton throws, avoiding the projectile. He narrows his eyes for a beat. Then Galipei leans low, drawing a knife from his boot.

“If I recall correctly, you lost those games.”

Fucker.

Anton pulls his own blade from his sleeve. When he armed himself mere minutes ago, he had been prepared to guard the palace, not have their intruderlurehim into the cells. Did Galipei know that qi was blocked down here? Why would he care, if Anton isn’t able to invade him anyway?