Page 73 of Eyes of Kings

Calla finishes the knot on the hitching post, gritting her teeth hard.

“I didn’t believe it at first, but color me surprised.”

Calla whirls around. A young man stands at the tree line, his hands behind his back, his short hair tied back with a kerchief. Though he’s dressed like any rural dweller, plain gray cotton and brown boots, his features are incongruent with the image. Beginning with the wine-colored eyes that lock onto her and do not waver. No surprise. No fear.

“You don’t look well,” the man says. “Might I suggest some rest?”

“Forgive me,” Calla replies. “I don’t take advice from strangers.”

“Heavens, you don’t even know how funny that remark was.”

When he swings his arm, the force wipes Calla off her feet. She barely braces before her back slaps the ground and robs the air from her lungs—one second, then two, and she rolls fast, launching onto her feet once more. Her hood falls back. The man does not appear surprised to see her crown.

Calla returns the favor. She throws her arm out; the crown pulses. Though physical light erupts into the space to slam into her opponent, he only slides back a few paces.

“That was pathetic,” he remarks.

“Who are you?” Calla demands.

“It is a shame you have forgotten.” He shakes out his hands. Begins to stride forward. “I have fought so hard over the decades to hold on to our time working together.”

There’s a sharp noise emitting from him. A hum that only strikes Calla’s ear wrong at first, but the closer he walks, the more it grows utterly head-splitting. He grabs her elbow, and Calla strikes, pulling her sword free and plunging it into whatever flesh she finds.

And before her very eyes, her sword disappears. It absorbs into him, becomes another part of his torso—warping, then flattening. Calla, fighting for breath, stumbles back two steps. Holds her hands before her.

“What thefuck?”

“I hope that will help illustrate my might,” the man says. His eyes brighten. His very being glows. “All in the province shall be protected. The rain ceases; the floods disappear. Therefore all who enter the province will kneel to me. That includes you, godling.”

Calla charges again. This time, the sound he’s emitting blasts to full volume, shrieking through her skull when she throws an elbow forward. She misses; the man hurtles aside. He yells out, and then the sound is unbearable, then Calla is on her knees. She can’t fathom what’s happening. First, Otta knocking her out. Nowthis, this inconsequential stranger who emerged from the trees, reducing her to such a state.

“Stay down,” he says over the screeching in her ears. “I’d quite like to see that crown on your head.”

The divine crown can raze cities, the stories said. The divine crown can recruit armies with the snap of a finger, push sea tides in the other direction, flatten mountains standing in one’s way.

Calla can’t even get up.

She scrabbles for the gravel underneath her palms. Her hand closes on a rock, on its sharp edges, and she hefts all the crown’s qi into her arm, into her makeshift weapon. And she throws it hard, gathering just enough resolve to look up and aim directly at the man’s head.

In a snap, the screech ends, accompanied by the man falling into a dead faint.

Calla takes a few seconds to recover. Staggers onto one knee, then rises. She could vomit. She might just vomit.

“Calla?” Anton’s voice drifts from the yamen. “Calla!”

“I’m fine,” she calls out.

Anton returns to the scene cautiously, eyeing the fallen man. Her throw dented the left side of his skull. Calla heaves for breath, shaken. She knows how hard she threw that rock. Had this been a normal man, it should have taken his head clean off.

“Princess,” Anton says. “You’ve got blood on your face.”

“Do I?” Calla replies. She touches her cheek. Traces it to its source, where there’s a wet sensation leaking from her ear.

“I was coming to offer a warning, but I see you’ve met him already.” Anton stops beside the man. He puts a finger under his nose. Gauging by his expression, he must find him to still be breathing. Unfortunate.

“He’s the one who took over Daol,” she guesses.

“Yamen workers announced that he’s the god of precious metals,” Anton says. “Shortly after the coup in San-Er, he declared that the old gods had returned to Talin and he ought to be worshipped. Killed all the palace soldiers in the barracks with a qi attack like it was nothing. The villages in Daol have been answering to him since. He stops the rain and he helps the crops. He rules as a king.”