Page 61 of Eyes of Kings

Calla’s stare stays on him. She must understand. Once he thought it a mighty ask if she wanted him to leave the king’s games so she could claim victory. He could not pull his wristband, and they fought to see it through to the end. Now Calla’s crown glints, and the walls warp toward her, each tendril of air bending to make sense of the pull she possesses. Her irises glare yellow, Tuoleimi yellow, capable of devastating the kingdom.

“You have my heart tied to your rudder,” Anton says. “Where you steer, I go. Where you crash, I burn first.”

Calla exhales. Her arms twine before her. He would have been content to let her take her leave then, but she steps toward him instead, closer, closer, until she tips her forehead into his collar. Surprised, Anton lifts his hands. Caresses the sides of her head, barely grazing against her crown.

“I do, though,” she whispers.

Anton stays very still. “What?”

“I love you. Even if the heavens decided it.”

Perhaps every event across the mortal plane was decided that way. What would be the difference? Whether he was always predestined to end up at Calla’s side, or whether it took a series of careful decisions. He is here all the same.

Calla’s arms unwind, wrapping around him. He can hear thethud, thud, thudbeneath her ribs, thunderous at such proximity. He focuses on the rhythm pressing against his skin. The constancy, the infallibility behind such a sound. He doesn’t let himself wonder if she is lying.

“Do not take from my qi again,” he whispers. “Don’t make me beg.”

Calla nods. He cannot see her face, but he feels her movement.

“Okay.”

He counts a minute. A minute to hold her. A minute to pretend that the war is already won, that he has risen beyond the man who was subject to exile.

“We have a problem to handle,” Anton says. “Galipei is still in the cells.”

CHAPTER 28

The roads of the eastern provinces are miry, drowned by rain one minute, then savoring clear skies the next. It’s hard to travel without transport. Boots get stuck in the mud; luggage cases take forever to drag through the wet sludge. Still, the westward migration starts in earnest. News travels fast. Gaiyu doesn’t have unpredictable weather. Gaiyu doesn’t have palace guards clashing with old gods. To survive the shake-up in Talin, rural dwellers should go to Gaiyu. It’s an easy decision for anyone who has saved some coin from their last season of crabbing sales. Pack their bags, rent a new hovel in the trees, learn to capture birds to sell instead.

But many refuse to leave. Many believe in the old gods, in their return and their reckoning.

Reanne waits by the wagon, examining her nails. For sixty years, she has made a living as an acupuncturist in Kelitu, the only one that villagers travel across the province to see. She was by no means powerful when the heavens were full, or relevant unless it was the spring season and select trees along the south required an extra push during their harvest. Very few families made it their goal to adopt the god of peaches for their patron, because the god of agriculture would fare better, and anyway, if Reanne fizzled away, the peaches would still be fine. The pompous god of agriculture could look over their qi. Reanne only stuck around every season because she spent most of her time with mortals, absorbing enough qi to be of service.

When the heavens started to rot, Reanne was the first god to descend. She hadn’t hesitated as the others had. She hadn’t cried, mourned, sacrificed parts of herself in an effort to heal a small fraction of their realm. The message disseminated quickly: before long, the immortals would succumb to the damage. Flee to the mortal realm before it was too late. There would be no access to heavenly qi, but they would remain immortal, at least. Choose wisely upon that first invasion onto earth—they did not have mortal bodies, so they needed to be strong enough to take over the life they chose. Minor gods became minor mortals: rural dwellers, city workers. Prominent gods took over aristocrats, who had all gathered tightly in San-Er by then. If Reanne believes the whispers that have since traveled along her network, the king of the heavens did not come down until three decades ago. He held on, fighting for a fix, until he was finally out of options.

“Hey!”

Reanne looks up. Her shoulders loosen when she sees it is only Tenzen, approaching with an animal on a leash. They have hidden the wagon off the path, behind the greeting sign of an empty market. Otherwise, there would be plenty of opportunists stopping to talk, looking to hoist themselves onto traveling groups.

“They’re lending horses for absurd prices,” Tenzen calls. “I went for a donkey instead.”

Reanne frowns. “We can’t ride a donkey.”

“It can pull the wagon with our bags. We’ll walk. Easy.”

The rain could restart soon. It has been rather unpredictable. When Reanne stepped along the coast earlier, two of their people were grappling on the sand, light flaring bright with each strike. One of them did not get back up, so the rain poured again. Minutes later, as the victor gathered their bearings, the rain stuttered into a light mist, the well of the god’s power still low. Reanne has lived in Kelitu long enough that she has some sense who the two might have been.Godling of love from matchmaking and god of children’s teeth. Before heavenly power came down to earth, she thought they’d been friends.

Tenzen ties the wagon to the donkey. Pats the animal, urging it to move, but the donkey is slow, hungry.

“Tenzen,” she says. “I am grateful that you will have me join you in Gaiyu. I am. But we are not traveling to the kingdom’s farthermost west by walking.”

He checks his pocket watch. “Not if you keep dragging your feet like that. Come on. We could likely make it to Pashe before we collapse from sleep deprivation. Maybe even Leysa now that we have our qi.”

“That’s not funny,” Reanne says.

“I wasn’t trying to be funny. But we must depart. Daol has already entered utter subjugation, and I fear what will happen when these provinces erect blockades to mark conquered territory.”

A distantboomshakes through Kelitu, as though the land itself is responding to Tenzen’s claim. His power doesn’t quite extend that far, so Reanne knows that he didn’t do it on purpose to make a point. She glances southward, where Daol Province is, and she worries her lip.