Page 68 of Immortal Longings
August glances over his shoulder. “Hello,” he says. “I’ve heard a lot about you these past few days.”
“Oh?” This gets her attention. She gravitates forward slowly, practically floating on her shined shoes. “Tell me more.”
“I’ve heard mention of heart tearing and rapid jumping. Qi being used in ways the gods never intended for us.” The shrine remains steady when August crouches in front of it. The candles, however, all flicker, like they have sensed a disturbance. “Tell me, did the gods themselves come down and show you how?” He pinches a candle, snuffing out the flame. “Or was it someone mortal, offering you a false identity number while they were at it?”
A light, discordant laugh rings from Pampi. It sounds cold to the ear—practiced, rehearsed.
“You won’t find what you want here,” she answers. A thud echoes through the temple.
August is running out of patience. “Someone put you in that surveillance room. Someone gave you a false identity.Who?”
“The gods let us jump so that we could be free,” Pampi goes on. “And instead, this kingdom decides to root us down, trap us in its hold. We will stand for it no longer. The wall will fall, the throne will crumble—”
“I will not ask again.” His hand flexes. This is foolishness. There is no peace in anarchy. There is peace only in good rule, which August can provide. “Who put you in the palace?”
A soft sigh. Although August doesn’t crane his neck to look, he knows that Pampi is standing right behind him now. The candles flicker with her exhale.
“You must know, Prince August, that your reign will soon be over.”
She will not offer a name. But that alone is enough for August. The refusal means that a name exists: there is a traitor in the palace. His job here is done.
“You are mistaken,” August says. “My reign hasn’t even arrived yet.”
He pushes on one of his rings. When the blade flicks out, the quietschicksound is the only warning before August shoots to his feet and runs his knuckles across Pampi’s throat, cutting a clean red line.
Her mouth gapes open. There’s no time to jump, no time to summon whatever unnatural abilities she has been cultivating within the walls of this temple. She pitches sideways, blood flowing from her throat like a faucet has been let loose. In seconds, she is still, pallor gray and expression frozen, her red eyes unblinking.
At the end of this desperate scramble for power, Pampi remained human, and humans can always die.
The gods let us jump so that we could be free.
August shakes his head. “There are no gods in this world.” He reaches out to close her eyes. “Only kings and tyrants.”
On that tenth morning, Calla rises early. She can barely see what’s in front of her when she tiptoes to the door of the apartment. Day has not broken yet, and the world is shrouded with a hazy pall. Grimacing, she pulls Yilas’s borrowed coat over her shoulders, then pats around her pockets to check whether her dagger is secured. Her sword is lost now. There’s little chance she can get it back from the Hollow Temple without coming into conflict with the Crescents again. She won’t be allowed to go back to the weapon stores and acquire another, so she has to make do with the rusty dagger that Chami has kept around since her palace days, smuggled out from whatever strange ladies’ network traded in blunt daggers.
It’s better than nothing.
The air outside is colder than Calla expected. The doors of the Magnolia Diner close behind her, the cool pane of glass thudding against the side of her arm and giving her that last nudge she needs to step forward. She has been indoors for so long that the season has tangibly shifted, a wintry chill seeping into the usual mugginess. It will fade in a few hours—as soon as San-Er starts rumbling again and the last of the night turns into the early morning—but it’s the first hint of coming change.
“All right,” Calla says quietly. “I guess we’re back.”
She adjusts her wristband, starting to walk. Her wound is healed enough that she can move without too much caution. Her shirt is skintight, thick and stiff just as her pants are. A pipe drips water onto her neck, the wetness collecting against her collar. A shop raises its security gate, the rapidclunk-clunk-clunkof its panels rolling into itself as Calla passes by. She barely lifts her head to peerinto the shop.Dangerous,she realizes with delay—anyone could have dived at her from inside. Still, she continues walking.
Maybe it’s only that she is too rusty after more than a week of sitting idle. Try as she might to summon some energy, Calla cannot feel anything: not the curiosity she had as a princess in Er’s palace allowed out for a few hours, not the smallness she had as a wanted fugitive sniffing around the markets for food. She slinks through the streets and floats to the edge of San where the sea smashes against the rocks, and there, she pinches the inside of her elbow, telling herself,Wake up.
A rustle.
A beat later, Calla’s wristband starts to tremble.
She ducks, only she’s already taken the chain across her shoulder, hissing as it burns a line down her arm. Calla knows then that she has let her guard down too much. At this stage of the games, she may not need to top the rankings, but that doesn’t mean she can let herself getkilled.
“Where the hell have you been hiding?” the other player spits. His body is lanky and tall, hair dyed a stringy yellow. As if he had attempted to go blond like August, but the bleach didn’t mix quite right because he used cheaper chemicals. He lunges forward, and Calla catches sight of his wristband in the rising light. The screen reads19.
She avoids the next whip of his chains, an inch away from her cheek. If it had landed, it might have blinded her. He’s quick. This isn’t looking like a fight she can skirt easily.
“I was on a comfortable couch, thank you for asking.”
The chain strikes down again. This time, Calla catches it, wraps it around her wrist twice over and yanks as hard as she can. Nineteen anticipates the move, and releases fast before the momentum can reach him. Instead, Calla is the one who is rendered unsteady, stumbling back two steps. There’s a new weapon in her hands, but she is off-balance, which is just enough of an opening for Nineteento lunge at her, throwing them to the very edge of the rocks, half of Calla’s body dangling off.
