Page 84 of Eyes of Kings

When her cool fingers land on Venus’s cheek, the sensation is unbearable. Venus teeters to her knees instantly, choking on her own spit, frothing on the qithat bubbles up her throat. Her eyes roll back into her head. Pressure claws at her temples, cracking into her skull. She screams, and she hears the cry of war, she hears the heavens and its clouds, breaking, rotting—

It stops.

Venus has lost time. She comes to with her head half-buried in the snow. The figurine has fallen from her hands, landing beside her. For a moment, the godling of greed’s blindfolded face is all she can see. The mirth in the quirk of its mouth; the ever-present surprise in its brow.

“Interesting,” Erwen says, looming above her.

Venus tries to wet her lips. Her mouth is bone-dry. The assailants do not stand at a distance anymore. Hal, in fact, offers her a handkerchief, and Venus takes it without knowing what she is supposed to be wiping. She tries one swipe down her face, mopping the wet snow, and instead finds blood trickling from her nose.

“You’ve had a passenger all these years, did you know that?” Erwen asks.

A passenger?

“No,” Venus answers.

“Someone is sharing your vessel. Someone very, very old.”

Something happened in the few seconds she cannot recall. When the agonizing pain had taken her consciousness from her, shoved her deep into some abyss that she could not crawl out of.

“Rise,” Erwen says.

Venus does as she is asked. It is kind of Erwen to offer a hand when Venus staggers. She takes it.

Everything goes dark.

CHAPTER 38

Lightning flashes through the dark clouds. Rain pummels the beaches, forming treacherous terrain at the western seaboard of Janton.

Anton clutches his arm, where the cut he made has not yet healed over. He doesn’t realize he’s doing it until he catches Calla looking at him, and only then does the sting register.

“I forgot to mention,” Calla says suddenly. “You gave me a bloody nose.”

Anton frowns. He’s trying to keep his gaze ahead, pinned on the basin that curves into the shore of Janton, where half of August’s army has made camp, but each time he stares through the dark he has to seek it out again. The shapes of the tents dart and move before his eyes can settle, and he has to wonder if it is a facet of qi, if the guards have made use of some sigil to push his attention away.

“What are you talking about?” Anton replies. “When we were riding west?”

Calla’s brow stays scrunched to keep the rain out of her eyes. She doesn’t answer. After a few beats, Anton figures it can’t be that important if she doesn’t feel the need to elaborate, and he gazes onto the camp again.

This will be a conundrum. They do not want to make a big ruckus, because the longer it takes news of an attack to reach August, the farther away he will be, and the less likely he sends additional soldiers, or pivots the whole army to focus on blocking travel routes at the river. They also do not want to make asmallruckus, because if the entire task force in Janton is not eradicated, then anyattack was for nought. August will continue occupying the province in collaboration with the yamen and the palace soldiers. This army did not travel light—they would have come bearing coins and jewels. Gifts and deeds and titles for the barracks that continue to be staffed in Janton Province, and if there is pouring rain, there is no heretic who has made their claim for territory yet.

“We are two people against two hundred, give or take,” Calla says. “The only advantage is the hour and the likelihood that most of the camp is sleeping. But the moment one guard on night duty spots something, they’re all going to be up and running.”

A flash of light arcs up from the basin. Someone is jumping. Before the light has settled, a second flash comes, sending them right back to their originating body.

Anton knows what technique that is. He’s seen the Weisannas employ it around the palace. Post fewer guards on the perimeter to create a false sense of negligence, then check in by jumping into satellite bodies. Brings about faster response times than calling for help.

Calla eyes the scene. When there’s another flash of light, she asks, “Satellite guards?”

“It would appear so,” Anton replies. “They made camp this far from the yamen to prevent being ambushed.”

It wasn’t easy finding the camp. The yamen seemed abandoned when Anton and Calla rode by. Their assumption was that the army would stay in the vicinity of the yamen—how else would they enforce their roadblocks for travelers going southward? But the plains were empty, as was the mouth of the wide province roads. Calla, with her hood pulled high, took it upon herself to interrogate two farmers and one man bracing a fishing rod over his shoulder. The farmers had no interest in answering her questions, whether palace guards had set up in the area and where their base of operations could be found. While they argued back and forth with Calla to an infuriating degree of evasion, their hands wouldgravitate to their pockets, and Anton braced for an attack, for drawn blades or provisional explosives. But each farmer went their way before long, pulling no weapon, and Anton realized they were in fact feeling around to check on the coins they received.

In any case, the fisherman turned out to be a better source. He complained that he had been finding discarded nutshells washing up on the rocks of his special spot. Those cursed guards from the capital, thinking they can pay their way through the provinces.

So here they are. On the fisherman’s rocks.

“They kept most of the Weisannas with August,” Anton states. “When I looked across the front line, it was an unbalanced count. Almost no regular guards. They would have sent most of them here to perform blockade duty, alongside a handful of Weisannas they could spare.”