Page 77 of Eyes of Kings

Anton clears his throat. Lowers his gaze from the ceiling, focusing on what is before him. This house, their presence. This province, their war.

“Let’s start searching,” he says. “The office is upstairs.”

He’s played hide-and-seek in here too many times to count.

Under his father’s desk, among his mother’s clothes. It didn’t make sense why a collection of her coats had been brought out when Kelitu’s winters are light and salt-flecked, calling for nylon rather than wool, but they were stored in the closet nonetheless, hanging one after the other in neat order that Anton used to sidle behind.

Anton pushes the coats aside. He shudders. Without looking any further, he closes the closet door. Why would there be a record of a sigil in there, anyway? It was a silly place to search.

He wouldn’t say he developed a fear of tight spaces since his parents were killed—the entirety of San-Er consists of tight spaces—but something about this manor worsens the effect. The cupboard in the sitting room downstairs curved to create a perfect nook for him behind it. The attackers could not see him, but he saw them.

Their throats slit, their chests carved open. The light leaving their eyes, the blood soaking the floor.

How do you kill a god?Anton wants to demand. If Fen Makusa was so powerful, why did he let this happen to him?

Why did he leave Anton to fend for himself?

Calla said she would take a look around the ground floor, just in case, even though Anton was certain there would be nothing there. Maybe she knows thathe’s trying to avoid the scene of the attack. He swears he can smell the phantom stench of blood in the carpet. He feels the remnants of death in the manor, and his parents will linger in these corridors until the entire province has sunk with the water.

“I haven’t gotten up to much in this time, I’m sorry,” he says out loud, as though they might hear him.

Anton turns his attention to the filing cabinet next, dumping out the papers in the bottom drawer and sifting through them. Footsteps sound on the other side of the second floor, which means Calla has made her way up. The manor has always been resonant. A simple whistle at the front door will echo up to the third floor. He forgot about that too.

Anton pauses on a bundle of letters, scanning his father’s handwriting. He is used to making quick work of searching a place—taking inventory to grab what is valuable and leave what is not. When he was in exile, clearing out a place before he left a body; when he landed in August, hurrying to search the king’s belongings before he lost the authority. But for the first time in recent memory, Anton has returned to his birth body, in a place familiar to him, left to his own devices. And there’s nothing useful to be found.

“Princess?” he calls.

No response. Anton can hear her presence nonetheless, so he gets up and follows her footfall down the hall. He could walk this route blindfolded. Hide-and-seek would finish in the office and then he’d be flying down these stairs, already counting another round for Bibi.

Anton enters the room at the end of the hall, the only place that Calla viably could have entered. The balcony door is wide open, blowing the sound of the eastern seas into the room, but he can’t see her.

“That’s not quite accurate anymore, is it?”

Anton whirls around. “Heavens.”

He didn’t expect her to be behind him. He had forgotten about that piece offurniture, a wobbly, practically three-legged dresser that Calla climbed onto for height. She’s on the tips of her toes, her hands clasped to the edge of the storage alcove above the door. Calla is tall, but even still she lacks a few more inches before she can get her eyes on the clutter in the alcove.

“Sorry,” Calla says, turning over her shoulder. “I thought you’d noticed me already.”

“I had not,” Anton replies plainly. “You’re not going to find anything up there.”

“No?” Calla pulls her hands back. She maintains an impressive amount of balance before she leaps onto the carpet with a hearty thump. “I’d already lifted myself up by the time you stepped in. Nothing interesting.”

“I could have told you that. This was my bedroom. I doubt my father would store a record of his sigil here.”

The room seems smaller than he remembered. He could have sworn there was enough space to tumble and roll, fake-fight with Bibi until she was actually upset that he shoved her too hard. In his memories, the pastel-blue wallpaper caught the light from the balcony, shimmered from corner to corner as though he occupied his own private bubble drifting across the land.

“You got the nicest room,” Calla remarks. She slinks toward the balcony. “Your parents didn’t want this view?”

Anton shrugs. “I guess they loved me a lot.”

“Must be nice.”

Calla’s tone is indecipherable. She steps onto the balcony, pushing the door, and Anton is close on her tail. It’s raining over the waters, a gossamer sheet dangling from the clouds. A clear line marks the point where the rain stops before it reaches the shores of Kelitu. Someoneisprotecting the province with unnatural force.

For a moment, the both of them can only stare. The cliffs, the fronds, the serrated trees that protrude from the rocks.

“I didn’t expect what’s happening here,” Calla says quietly.