Page 39 of Immortal Longings
“Where are you going?” Galipei asks, looking up from his seat when August enters the anteroom. He puts his book down.
August waits a beat. His hand hovers over the gilded knob. Though he turns over his shoulder, he does not entirely meet his bodyguard’s eyes.
“Otta needs to die.”
A beat of silence. Galipei blinks once. He is well trained enough not to let a reaction enter his expression.
“She won’t wake up,” Galipei replies. “Is that not enough?”
“It’s not certain. We cannot take that chance.”
The palace seems to quiver under his tread. Every floor and wing, every corridor and lavishly bright room. They perk ears to the conversation, rising to attention. The walls remember the boy who would become their crown prince, who punched a fist into them seven years ago. The heavy, golden-threaded curtains, though they do not shimmer as brightly as they did back then, prickle at the memory of being thrown by Otta Avia, her voice tearing through August’s private wing, echoing and echoing, “I’ll tell! I’ll tell! I swear I will!”
“What do you want, Otta?” August had spat. He lunged forward, but Otta shrank farther behind the curtains, as if they would shield her from him. She was only feigning helplessness. Had he gotten closer, she would have drawn her claws.
“Look at you, pretending to be good,” Otta sneered in return. “You’re worse for San than Kasa ever could be. You’ll put us in cages and call us your loyal subjects.”
“Peoplealreadylive in cages. You have been brainwashed so thoroughly by the council—”
August made a grab, but Otta simply slipped out of range and strode away, throwing her chin high. In her hands: the smallest slip of paper. The only evidence she needed to prove that, for Leida and August, running from the twin cities was not a matter of safety, but a plan to find a forgotten palace out at the edges of Talin. A plan to mobilize and wage war on San-Er. If they could recruit Anton, who was San-Er’s best jumper, they would be unstoppable.
Then Otta threatened to tell Kasa before the roots were secure. Then Anton walked away too. Without him, August and Leida were thrown all the way backto the planning stage. Mobilizing war wasn’t realistic anymore. They needed to be smarter to get what they wanted.
“August,” Galipei prompts.
August steels himself to deliver his next words. “You weren’t assigned to me until after Otta was gone, so I don’t expect you to understand. Kill her.”
Galipei is the only one in the palace that knows of August’s treasonous plans to depose King Kasa, about the regicide that has been put in motion. There is no one whom August trusts more than Galipei, but sometimes he wishes Galipei weren’t so smart, that he wouldn’t fight so hard to knoweverything, because the mere act of knowing drags him down to the dirtiest corners of palace grappling. August is closer than ever to achieving his plans. He must eliminate any threat, and if there is the infinitesimal chance that Otta wakes…
August opens the door. Galipei, however, isn’t finished with the conversation and clearly isn’t deterred by the threat of someone overhearing.
“I’m your bodyguard, August,” he says, “not your servant.”
In the hallway, a maid glances over, right in the middle of making a food delivery. She’s so taken aback by August’s sudden appearance that the tray in her hand teeters to the side.
“Your Highness,” she greets, scrambling to right the plates atop the tray before they tip off. “I didn’t mean to disturb you—”
August opens his eyes, agilely balancing the tray in his hand, losing only a crumb that falls into the carpet. He bends to pick it up, small fingers closing around a thread, and two paces away, Galipei hurries to catch August’s body before he falls, his teeth gritted when he loops his arms around his prince’s middle.
Galipei glances over and waits. Under the bright lights, his silver eyes look almost molten, seeking… well, August doesn’t really know.
“Please,” August says simply. His voice sounds different, but that tone—that level tone without a hint of doubt—is always the same.
Those eyes turn dull. Molten silver to plain flatware.
“As you wish, Your Highness.”
Something has shifted between them. A hairline fracture, settling upon their fitted pieces. But August sets the tray down and walks off anyway, intent on finding out exactly how long these games must last, how long until San-Er—until Talin—is his.
CHAPTER12
It takes another week for the games to reach thirty players remaining, and that achievement is only because Calla and Anton start to hunt their fellow contestants down. Though the two are good at making eliminations, San-Er lives and breathes by the million, and a game of eighty-eight is merely a blip in the hustle and bustle.
“They’re on the floor above,” Calla reports. August has started to feed her locations through her pager. They are unlike the official game pings, which use approximate distances while she runs like a headless chicken. Instead, he has implemented a code in the surveillance room that, when Calla is in the vicinity, sends her a script of text, reporting exactly where the other player stands.
Anton briefly rests his hand on the wall, leaving a red mark upon the white paint. They’re in Er’s financial district, and so the floors of this building are more proper than the ones they usually tear through. Both their daily pings have gone off already, but to no success. The players slipped away.
“I didn’t think Prince August would make it so easy for us, Fifty-Seven.”
