Page 81 of Immortal Longings
A beat passes. August shakes his head.
“I’m not ordering you around,” he counters. “I am telling you quite vehemently that it’s a mistake to try to find an alternative when this is a very simple task.”
There is no winning this argument. August will not allow her plan; Calla does not wish to carry through anything else. All they can do is stare one another down, neither willing to relinquish. August may issue threats, but they will be empty. Before they collaborated on treason, perhaps he could have hauled herin. Now, too much blood has spilled between them. All this messy, traceable evidence—the reek of the kills he made on her behalf staining his hands. August has everything to lose, and Calla has her righteousness.
“We can resume this discussion another day,” Calla finally says. “There is still some time before the Juedou.”
August is silent for a long moment, surrounded by the sour aura of his displeasure. Instead of agreeing or disagreeing, he squints at a digital clock inside the stall and says, “Meet me at the wall tomorrow near sunset. I require your help with something.”
The change in topic makes Calla blink. She scrambles to make sense of the instructions. Funny… the stall has been empty for some time now. She doesn’t know when its keeper wandered off, leaving his newspapers for anyone to take.
“What sort of help?”
“Something strange is going on. I don’t want to use the royal guard.”
“Something strange?”
“Yes,” August says coolly. “Regarding San-Er’s alleged intruders, who may not be intruders at all.”
Calla makes a thoughtful noise, then glances at her wristband. “Very well, I suppose.” She flicks her finger at the newspaper rack and takes a step away. “I won’t keep you for long. Tomorrow, it is—”
“One more thing,” August cuts in. He remains facing the stall, speaking quietly. Calla watches the back of his head and the clasp of his hands behind him. No one else in the coliseum can hear him save Calla, and still he lowers his volume. “Mark my words, Calla Tuoleimi. When it involves Anton Makusa, what you have is not love. It is obsession.”
A hot flush spreads down her neck and across her chest. She keeps her expression neutral against such brazen words, though her skin dances again with the urge to lash out, to use violence where she knows her words would fail. August might win every argument he picks with her. But she can still tear himapart in retribution: she can tear apart anyone who tells her what she doesn’t want to hear.
“What,” she spits, “would you know of love?”
Calla turns and leaves, her throat scalding. She has spoken with such vehemence, leaving no doubt that she thought August was full of shit. All the same, as she pushes through the coliseum, emerging from its walls and into the darkness of San’s streets, his words echo after her, trailing her all the way back to Anton.
CHAPTER26
Galipei brings his collar to his nose, breathing in deep. He can’t tell if he’s imagining it, or if the sterile hospital smell has really followed him back to the palace. He followed August’s instructions: enough poison has been dropped into Otta Avia’s intravenous lines day by day that her heart should stop soon, for no apparent cause save that San-Er stops hearts on the regular.
“It’s done,” he says when August finally comes to stand beside him. The palace is a flurry of activity, the final details of the banquet being put into place. All they need to fill are the vases and the seats. The palace doesn’t send a mission out for flowers until the very minute the final two players are called: an effort to make sure the petals don’t wilt and the leaves remain plump and green. It’s always a variety of bright-red blooms from Gaiyu Province, where the trees grow them in abundance, trailing down the branches like wind chimes. If Galipei were an angry rural dweller, he would cut down every tree just to put a thorn in the palace’s side.
August’s gaze is piercing when it snaps over to him, like he heard more than those two simple words, like he can hear Galipei’s treacherous thoughts. What’s the matter? He was the one who put them in there to begin with.
“Dead?”
A pair of guards pass by. The foyer sees a stream of movement coming in from the left, exiting from the right. Only August and Galipei stand by the wooden table in the middle, where a statue of a creature sits atop a beige cloth.
“Not yet. But soon. It’ll be a full-body shutdown by tomorrow night at the earliest.”
August thins his lips, a flicker of impatience crossing his face. Still, there’s nothing more that Galipei could have done. Death is easy to summon in San-Er, though one cannot go offending it either.
Galipei touches August’s wrist. It is a small brush, nothing more than the pad of his finger making contact with his prince’s exposed skin just below the cuff of his sleeve.
“Relax,” he urges. “The crown will soon be yours.”
There are six players left.
Calla twirls the dagger in her hands, watching the metal glint and flash under the artificial light. On the television screen in the corner of the diner, one network’s reels begin their rerun for the morning crowd, and Calla’s jaw tightens, her dagger stilling. Before she can slam the blade into the table, Anton’s hand snakes out, catching her wrist. His other hand is braced around her ankle, where she’s got her legs thrown over his lap.
“Princess, perhaps refrain from doing that.”
“Yes, don’t make us get a new table,” Yilas remarks. She approaches from behind, carrying a pot of steaming tea in one hand and a plate of egg tarts in theother. When she sets the glistening tarts down, the yellow custard filling wobbles in movement, pushing against the firm pastry sides. “Here’s your food, Anton Makusa.”
Anton lifts a brow. “Thank you. You don’t have to call me by my full name.”
