Page 70 of Immortal Longings
For Talin, she’ll win the games, and King Kasa’s head will roll.
Eno yelps suddenly, tripping on a protruding underground pipe. Calla’s arm shoots out fast. She grabs his elbow and hauls him upright before he can fall.
“Thanks,” he breathes. He makes a show out of brushing his clothes when Calla lets go, saving face by pretending nothing had happened. Perhaps it is only a trick of the light, but his lip seems to quiver—a quick flash of fear, and then gone.
“Eno.” Calla gives him a rough thump on the shoulder, if only to lessen the rebuke in her tone. “You should pull the chip from your wristband. Leave the games. Your life is worth more than this.”
She expects him to argue or stomp his feet. Instead, Eno’s expression screws up, and then Calla is certain she hadn’t mistaken the fear she thought she saw. He’s not wearing the stubbornness of someone refusing the raft tossed his way. He’s entirely awash in relief, spotting the red flag of rescue waving in the distance.
All this time, was he only awaiting a command from someone else? Had he never been told that his life was something he was allowed to hold on to?
“Yeah,” Eno says quietly. “Maybe I will.”
Calla purses her lips. There’s a deep rumble overhead, like thunder approaching. Nothing of the skies is visible from here, so it’s impossible to tell if a storms is rolling in until the downpour begins. Still, something about the air is starting to smell violent.
A beep sounds from her belt. Calla unclips her pager and watches a string of text from August scroll across the screen.
Welcome back. Number 6 by the wall near Gold Stone Street.
“All right.” She tilts her head at Eno, toward the direction of the city wall. “Until then, wanna help me out?”
CHAPTER22
Maybe it’s because the air builds with an electric charge the closer they get to the wall, but Calla’s energy starts to return, gathering in her chest and flowing out to her limbs.
She raises a finger, pressing it to her lips to hush Eno. There’s a very clear distinction where the city ends and the wall begins. The buildings at the edge of San halt in a line. Beyond that, there is a wide swath of yellowed grass, the clearing used to hold piles of discarded computers and every loose unwanted item that gets pushed out of San-Er if there’s no way to repurpose it.
The wall only climbs to the sixth floor of its nearest buildings. From outside, any onlooker with good eyes could peer up at the higher windows and observe San-Er’s civilians going about their daily routine.
Eno hovers over Calla’s shoulder, the both of them waiting at the end of Gold Stone Street.
“You’d think we would get some better sunlight here,” he says, blinking at the clouds. “Maybe blue skies are just a myth.”
“Blue skies are real,” Calla mutters in reply. They are what she remembers most about rural Talin: the endless blue, stretching into the horizon until it joins with the green ground. “There are just too many factories causing pollution in San-Er.”
But Eno only frowns. “Why are we here?”
“There’s supposed to be another player nearby. I don’t see anyone, though.”
They did walk relatively slowly, so it’s possible that the player has since wandered away. Nevertheless, they can’t have gone far, especially if they aren’t aware they’re being hunted.
“Stay put and be my eyes,” Calla says. Her eyes trace up the wall. “I’m going to have a look around.”
“Stay put?” Eno calls after her, though Calla is already striding across the ugly grass. “Didn’t you want myheeelp?” That last part turns into a whine, loud enough for Eno’s voice to echo across the whole clearing.
Calla whirls around, pointing a warning finger. “Keep watch. Be good.”
She approaches the rusty ladder and shakes it vigorously to make sure it is securely fixed. When she’s satisfied that the ladder won’t detach from the wall anytime soon and throw her to her death, she props a leg up and starts to climb, taking the rungs two at a time.
Her ascent is fast. Halfway, three-quarters, then the top. She pauses there, hands clutched around the end of the ladder. Though she climbed up to get a better look at her surroundings inside the wall, she’s suddenly mesmerized by the view outside instead—the grass that stretches on as far as the eye can see, the peaks and valleys that glisten off in the horizon.
Her wristband sits heavy on her skin, dull in the gray light. The clouds are getting darker and darker, and when another roll of thunder comes in thedistance, Calla almost lets go of the ladder, taken by surprise. Her skin prickles. The first drop of rain falls, landing a fat drop on her cheek.
When she became Calla, she gained insurmountable power, the unbelievable capacity to mold the world as she saw fit. She’s never really thought about everything she lost.
“Hey!”
With a start, Calla whirls around, facing San again. Eno. She can’t see him anymore, though his panicked shout echoes up the wall.
