Page 94 of Immortal Longings
“August?”
She searches the room once over. She misses him at first. He stands at the far side, almost in the corner, staring at an oil painting hanging from the shimmering wallpaper. It’s not until Calla does a second scan that she catches sight of his golden-robed back, blending in with the rest of the room.
There’s no doubt that he is royalty. There’s no doubt that he belongs here, no matter where his birth put him.
“Princess,” someone whispers over her shoulder, and Calla turns around. The servant nods at her and indicates his hands, where a headdress awaits on a pillow—the king’s crown. The divine right of kings: nothing but two twined prongs of metal. If there’s supposed to be an exorbitant amount of qi inside this crown to choose its ruler, Calla cannot feel it at all.
“August,” Calla prompts again. She wants this done. She wants him crowned and declared, so he can pardon her and she can be freed from these games, freed from San-Er, freed from Talin. They call her King-Killer and ask her to live up to it, but she already has. August is the most fit to rule. Calla has done her part. She will give him the power he needs to fix this kingdom.
August steps away from the painting. He clasps his hands behind his back, then turns in a quick pivot, eyes snapping to meet hers across the throne room. She expected glee. She expected pride. Instead, when their gazes collide, shefinds barely concealed fury, and it is potent enough that Calla jolts from the fog in her head to wonder if she has done something wrong.
Before she can ask, August has already walked up to her, his expression smoothed over. His forehead is dusted in gold, his black eyes appearing as two colorless voids. Maybe Calla is imagining it. She’s hardly in the right state of mind.
“Are you ready?” she asks.
“Ready.”
Calla bites down hard on her teeth. Releases her breath. “Very well.”
She steps onto the balcony first, and the crowd stirs with vigor. Calla tries not to flinch at the attention. It is sundown, the skies colored with an orange glow—rare these days, with the clouds so thick. Each civilian below is cast in a strange tinge, like their skin is on fire, the entire crowd one match strike away from combustion.
August steps onto the balcony too, and then the crowd properly erupts.August, August, August,they chant, but amid it all, there is another name to be heard too.Calla.
Forget your name and adopt a title instead,Anton had said. Calla. Calla. Calla.Soon people will be saying it as they whisperGod.
Calla shakes the thought away before it can haunt her.
I will beg your forgiveness in whatever afterlife awaits us,she thinks into the fading twilight.Wait for me. I’ll show myself the same violence if it puts us on even ground once more.
Calla turns to the servant behind her and takes the crown off the pillow. It feels painfully cold to her fingers. Still, her grip is steady when she holds the crown high, when she sets it atop August’s head.
The both of them pause in anticipation. They wait. For divine intervention, for lightning to strike down.
Nothing comes.
He’s been accepted.
The crown has accepted Talin’s newest ruler. Calla’s breath comes out in one long exhale.
“The king is dead,” she bellows to the crowd. Her voice doesn’t waver. When she holds her hand out for August to take, he is prompt, putting his palm atop hers for her to raise high, high, high. “Long live the king!”
Long live the king,the crowd echoes back, and Calla thinks she hears it from behind too, from the servants awaiting in the throne room, from the guards stationed in the hallway outside. Again and again, they continue to repeat themselves:Long live the king, long live the king, long live the king ten thousand years.
“They will write this day into our history for a long time to come,” Calla says quietly, speaking only to August as the crowd keeps chanting. “The day the palace finished flooding with blood and the adopted son rose from its guts.”
The wind blows hard into her face. It curls against her neck, disturbing the hair that had been so painstakingly arranged.
“Yes,” August says. Calla shoots a sharp look at him. This time, she knows she’s not imagining things. She’s not imagining the anger that accompanies the grip she feels closing on her palm.
“August.” She winces, trying to move her hand.
“It will be remembered,” he goes on, like he doesn’t hear her. “And what fine daylight we have today to ensure its longevity in their memory.”
Calla freezes. Her breath leaves her in a rush. Every muscle in her body locks, her mind stuttering to a complete and utter halt as the crowds shout their chorus below them. San-Er fades away, the calls and summons shrinking smaller and smaller until they are naught but a tinny whine. All she can feel is an immense pressure on her hand, tightening to a vise under her new king’s grip.
Night is falling. Across the palace, the electric lights activate, each bulb blinking on one after the other. The crown glimmers. Its metal entwines with blond hair, making for a familiar sight. But then its wearer turns his head toward her, letting her catch his eyes at last—fully, properly.
It is not August Shenzhi, the rightful crown prince of San, that Calla has put on the throne.
It is Anton Makusa.
