Page 68 of Eyes of Kings

Anton’s eyes lift. She almost flinches. On a cursory glance, she would think that his black irises had turned Tuoleimi yellow entirely, the glow spilling at full capacity.

She keeps her breath trapped in her lungs. It is a temptation that she does not realize was impossible to abstain from until it is presented before her, qi clearly growing past a limit that Antonneeds. He sighs and grabs his bag, and Calla can’t resist.

A small wisp. He won’t notice. Her lungs shiver and expand.

“Okay,” Anton says. “Let’s go.”

The block begins to form when they’re only a few minutes short of the city’s wall. That warping vacuum sensation, opening like a chest cavity. Calla’s step falters, her hand snapping out to brace against cold stone.

“You felt that too?” Anton asks.

“I suppose they have stronger sigils after all,” Calla replies.

There’s an ongoing evacuation effort for residents too close to the wall. Mothers bundling their children, families pouring from the back doors of their buildings. Most evacuees are going east, away from the devastation at the westernmost border, but the damage has rippled across the wall mercilessly. Aftershocks from the full-scale collapses have induced loose cement beams and wobbly balcony decks. It would be better to go to Er, actually, because anyone attacking the capital will have to stamp through San first.

Calla grimaces, moving aside for a man carrying cardboard boxes stuffed with dirty hay. They’re outside San’s stables, which used to be run by palace guards, hidden in the second and third floors of a commercial building. She’s surprised to find that it’s still functional, its employees clocking in to keep that industrial elevator greased and oiled for transporting horses. The man catches her eye, then performs a double take.

“Your Majesty!” he bellows.

“Hush,” Calla says. “No need to draw attention to me.”

“My apologies!” he says, continuing to boom at the top of his lungs. “I am at your service!”

Calla gestures for his badge, taking him up on the request. Truthfully, she was planning to walk into the stables and make a quick getaway, but this might be easier. The man scrambles to unclip his electronic badge and passes it to her with gravity. She waves for him to continue with his business. Though he risks breaking his neck for how he cranes to look, he does walk on.

Anton’s watching the interaction with fascination.

“What?” Calla asks.

They slip in through the entrance. The ground floor groans with the weight of its waterlogged tarps, strung over the windows where the glass has broken. Calla sights the elevator hidden at the back of the stairwell.

“It is strange,” Anton remarks, “to witness a San-Er who loves their king again.”

The elevator doors slide open. Anton follows closely on her heels, stabbing his finger at the button for the second floor.

“The people believe the crown selected someone deserving,” Calla intones. “After decades of fraudulent rule, finally we have been righted.”

She wishes she could believe her own words. That there wasn’t a persistent voice in the back of her head now, wondering whether the crown is truly as all-encompassing as the palace was led to believe, or if it is only one piece of the kingdom’s anticipation for Sinoa Tuoleimi. She will have to play her hand carefully upon her return from the war. Invoke all the right messaging to take San-Er away from the Crescents. Even if it means playing a new imposter. Playing as Sinoa Tuoleimi.

On the second floor, Calla and Anton make quick work selecting a horse for travel, maneuvering it from the stables, back down to the ground level and around the building. Only once they’re in open air, the rain misting on the grass, does she finally ask, “Do you think your father would have been loved?”

Anton is distracted fixing the saddle. He doesn’t answer immediately, but his shoulders tense, signaling that he heard the question. Up ahead, a group of Crescents have gathered at the main gate. Another warping sensation twists through the twin cities.

“You say that you think my father was a god,” Anton says.

“Yes.”

He smooths out the saddle. “It almost seems silly to deny what seems obvious in light of Galipei’s information. Supposing that he tells the truth, of course.”

Calla wasn’t going to push it. But, indeed, their destination may be bringing the kingdom’s past to light at last. What would it take for someone to believe himself an opponent of the Tuoleimis and Shenzhis, prepared to lead a coup? To believe himself worthy, to possess no fear of being struck by the divine crown. Who else but the crown’s maker himself—someone powerfulenough to pass on heavenly qi, to give Anton that aberrant light swirling behind his eyes.

A god among gods.

Anton hooks his foot onto the stirrup and swings himself onto the horse. He does not say it outright. Neither does Calla. They were told to search the Makusa manor for the sigil that calls to the king of the heavens… and well, that speaks for itself.

“Last chance to back out,” Anton says. “Because if Galipei is lying and puts us on a detour while August marches on San-Er, we’re fucked.”

Calla’s gaze lifts. A handful of Crescents stands visible from where she and Anton linger. She inspects their cloaked figures, their hoods keeping off the rain. The crescent-moon tattoos on the backs of their hands, along the sides of their faces.